The BEE-ginning

(I hear when you are a bee keeper it is required you make lots of jokes like that! - perhaps this is a warning to the reader)

Someone at bee-club told me that since we are just new-bees (ouch!) we should be sure to keep a journal. That in years to come we would appreciate looking back and seeing our naivety (perhaps he didn't say EXACTLY that). I wanted to tell him that in 2009 journals are called blogs, but much to Mike's surprise I kept my mouth shut.

None the less I thought it was a good idea. So I'm starting a blog and hope to write in it more regularly than in my other blog, but this blog will be dedicated to bee information. I also will not be announcing new posts, but feel free to come back often.

SO WHY BEES?

This is a question I am regularly asked. I went to a conference a couple years ago now where the lecturer talked about how the bees are in trouble and therefore pollination in the country is in trouble and if one private individual every 30 miles would keep one colony in their backyard that the pollination problems in the country would be fixed. (By now I can't imagine how this came up at a software conference.. but this is what stuck). So this is WHY we are doing it, for the environment. The honey and the wax just is a side-benefit.

WHAT WAS NEXT?

The university that was talking had a program where you could go to an intensive weekend long bee-school, and come home with bees. I recall this was Florida, so this year when I was ready (Having learned all I could about Alpacas... Ha!) I called the University of Florida, and they had no idea what I was talking about, except someone suggested it might be University of Georgia. Called them, they thought maybe a couple years ago they had that.. but not now. I didn't want to go to Georgia for a weekend anyway. We started searching around and found a local organization, Pike Peak Beekeepers Association (Whom I affectionately refer to as bee-club now), that has bee school once a year in Colorado Springs and then meets once a quarter for information sharing. Cool! We signed up, although were the last two let in before the class of 50 was full. The school was all day Saturday and half day Sunday and chalk full of information.

TOP BAR HIVES

In the meantime we had been doing lots of reading and research online. We didn't want to do anything that would be expensive and have lots of equipment to buy. We became impressed with the concept of Top Bar Hives, which are hive that do not have frames. The entire hive can be made at home, with scraps of wood. This method of beekeeping is more natural and some say healthier for the bees. It does not produce maximum amounts of honey, but back up two paragraphs if you think we are concerned about that. (Read more about top bar hives, and get plans for the hive we built at http://www.backyardhive.com/). They encourage you to try beekeeping without using smokers, as that is unhealthy for the bees. I go into that in a later blog. And you don't need an extractor to harvest your honey. Minimal expense and healthiest.

Since this first blog is going to be fairly long, I'll post again in a couple days with photos of our hive. Hopefully finished at that time.

CAPTURING A SWARM

A popular means of obtaining bees is to capture a swarm. Swarming is natural for bees in the late spring/early summer. A healthy colony outgrows it's space. When the hive become crowded the workers make a new queen, and just before she hatches the old queen and half of the workers leave the hive to find a new home. They will lite on a branch or something and send some of the bees out scouting for a new home. The rest of the bees cluster around the queen to protect her from harm. (A queen lays 1500 eggs a day, and does nothing else. The workers feed her, clean her, carry her feces out etc. She only leaves the hive to mate (once in her lifetime) or to swarm).

When bees swarm, local human types get nervous and call the exterminator/fire dept./ etc to come take care of the problem. They in turn call the local bee guy who has volunteered to collect swarms and relocate them or give them to a beekeeper looking for a new colony ;-)

The trick is capturing the queen. basically shake the branch over a bucket. If the queen falls in the others follow, if not try again. Ones the others follow you put the top on the bucket and you have captured a swarm.

We liked the idea of capturing a swarm because 1) it was free. and 2) they are survivors of the local area, and therefore potentially healthier. Down side is that you don't know what KIND of bee you are getting (different kinds have different personality traits), and you don't know WHEN you are getting. After bee school we were pretty excited to get bees, and don't like the lack of control in that "when" option. So we decided to buy our first colony and still put our name in for a swarm.. so guess we need to build another hive. We ordered one colony of Russian Bees that will come the second week of May. They are coming from New Mexico, so hopefully the climate will suit them fine. One colony when you get them is 1,500 bees, in 6 weeks when they are up to hive capacity they are 60,000.

BEE-CLUB

The Pikes Peak Beekeepers Association had their quarterly meeting last Thursday evening. This meeting included an auction, that was supposed to be in the parking lot, but it poured down 1/4 inch hail, so it got moved inside.. Not many things being auctioned anyway. We did buy a feeder for $3. Not bad. The auction was followed by a meeting full of information surprisingly appropriate to us new beekeepers. It's going to be a good group to belong to, although no one has any help for top bar hives.. I guess next year we will be the club authorities!

AND NOW?

Finish the beehives and wait for our bees and wait for some honey.... fun stuff.