Beekeeping Adventures: All New Bees

A bees life lasts about six to eight weeks. All the honeybees from the Memorial Day weekend install, with the exception of the queen, are gone. The last set of bees born for the season will overwinter. They will not leave the hive and only serve to keep the queen warm and feed her. They will die soon after the winter is over. A queen's life is roughly three to five years in length.

Beekeeping Adventures: Nucs and Packages

Honeybees come in two different styles of boxes when picked up. The first is a nucleus or nuc. The second is a package.

What are nucs? Nucs come in a Styrofoam container that looks like a cooler. They have five to eight frames inside them. There is a fertilized queen and roughly three pounds of bees. The bees have been busy building combs on the frames. This is known as “drawing out” comb. There is honey on the frames as the frames have been taken from active hives. The queen is already busy laying eggs. The honeybees are ready to go as soon as you place them in the hive. Honey production is faster as a result.

What are packages? Packages come in cages. There is wood on four sides of the cage. The other two sides have screens. There is a fertilized queen and approximately three pounds of bees. The queen is in a queen cage with a few attendants. There is a can of sugar syrup to sustain the bees while in transport.

The queen cage is placed in the empty hive once at the bee yard. The bees are then dumped into the hive. The bees will eventually chew through the candy cork of the queen cage. This takes two to three days. The bees will be busy drawing out comb in the meantime. The queen will then begin to lay eggs. The bees begin foraging for plant nectar as soon as there is wax comb to put it in.

Sugar water will be placed in feeders at the entrance of all of the hives. This will provide food so the bees can focus on building up the combs. Honey can be harvested from a hive started with a nuc in July or August. A hive started from a package can be harvested in September or October. Both harvests are weather dependant just like gardening.

My bee yard will be started with one nuc and seven packages. One hive will be a Langstroth, or Lang, hive. This is the box on a box style of hive. The other seven will be Top Bar Hives also known as TBH’s. This is a horizontal hive using bars instead of frames. Please see the archive for more information on these two styles of hives.

The Lang hive installation will be on May 21^st while the TBH’s installation will be on May 23^rd. Pictures and video will follow in a few days after that. I would love to hear your comments!

Beekeeping Adventures: Hive Set-Up Day

Saturday was hive set-up day. Two hives were set-up in Dewitt and eight in Cazenovia. It was a beautiful day with just a bit of wind. Adelle, her dad James, my dad Marty, and Dad's girlfriend Chris all helped out. Andy, the land owner helped out too. Much fun was had as we chose the placement and leveled the hives. I will be back out there tonight to sink and lash down the hives with Andy and Carol, the other land owner. This area in Cazenovia can get very windy. We want to make sure the hives don't get blown over!

Burr comb at Four Weeks

Burr comb on the inner cover. 

Burr comb is when the bees build comb outside of the frames such as on the inner cover.                 

Honey bees working on a frame at four weeks after installation