In early December, I suddenly decided to start over with bees, to benefit my apple trees. The start-up costs are like my hills: steep. Fortunately, I happened to pick a week when the shipping was free on the heavy wooden hive parts. Throwing caution to the winds, I jumped back into beekeeping.
Inspiring me was my sixteen-year-old granddaughter, Carolyn. She got a beekeeper scholarship a couple of years ago, which included tutoring and all the supplies.
Thinking I was really ahead of the season, I contacted some beekeepers to the north last Friday. Gasp! The deadline for ordering bees was the following day. I left here at 11:45 and was still a little late for the 2 o'clock meeting.
At the meeting, I learned that ordering a nuc was really worth the extra money. There are two ways to go for bees. Three, if you count just putting a hive out and hoping some wild bees move in. That rarely happens. The package of bees is about 3 pounds of bees, which I don't believe the supplier weighs individually. They are in a screened cage with some sugar syrup to sustain them on their journey from a warmer spot. Included in the package is a queen in a tiny cage. I believe she has been carefully chaperoned by her duenna and prohibited from buzzing around with members of the Drones Club.
The nuc, short for nucleus, I think, consists of several frames of bees that are already busy making the colony. The queen has already made her mating flight and is laying eggs at quite a clip.
Earlier, I thought the nucs were sort of the sissy way to go, but it turns out the success rate for getting any honey this year is much better with the nuc, so that's what I ordered. It will arrive in April.
The Basswood
There is this wonderful, enormous basswood tree here on the way down to the river. In springtime, the blossoms are exquisitely fragrant. Bees come from miles around. Unfortunately, they make their basswood honey in some distant bee trees, the locations of which they refused to divulge to me.
Last year, I left word at a beekeeping organization to the south, inviting any of them to put a hive nearby. Receiving no response from those folks, I decided to get the honey for myself.
The first step is to assemble the hives and frames. My workshop is unheated, so I made a spot in the house for this fun project.
These are the hive body frame pieces.
So far, I've picked out several places to put the beehive, and no doubt will keep changing my mind daily until I finally do park it somewhere.
The location should have morning sun and afternoon shade, be close to the house for working with the bees, but not in the way of foot traffic.
My goal isn't to have more and more and more hives, nor is it to live off my honey sales. Foremost for me is to get to be a really good beekeeper. I love honey and I love the bees.
One hot summer day, I was in the parking lot of a grocery store, getting ready to get in my car. A bee landed on my thumb. I held it up by my face and said, "Hello, you must need to rest a bit." A person in the car next to mine rolled up their window, whether to protect themselves from the bee or me, I couldn't tell.
