My beekeeping adventure

I decided to keep bees in June of 2013 and started reading everything I could. I poured over the books and magazines and spent countless hours watching YouTube videos. I joined both the Tennessee Beekeepers Association and my local Rutherford County Beekeepers Association. Once I determined what type of bee and hives I wanted, I ordered everything online. Everything but the bees arrived in November.  I wasted no time and started building.

Now to paint

All Finished

These are call Langstroth Hives. I'm using all 8 frame medium hive bodies, Ultimate Hive Stands, solid bottom boards, slatted racks, foundationless frames, wooden hive top feeder and the English Style Garden Copper Tops. These two hives will go in my backyard.

Because I have a dog and I don't want to mow right up to the hives, I decided to partition a section of my yard with wood pallets to give the bees their own area. Notice it's proximity to my garden to the right.

The apiary is 24 feet by 24 feet. I then laid down weed fabric to suppress grass and covered that with 4 inches of crushed limestone. The plastic tubs will be filled with water for them to drink, complete with rocks large enough so that the bees have something to land on and walk down to the water. Otherwise they can drown.

Now everything is all setup.

Even the dog approves :)

I also decided to build my own Top Bar Hive

It has a glass viewing area so I can watch them build comb without disturbing them.

This is a top bar that the bees will attach comb to. There are 37 of these.

I'm putting this hive on my front porch so I painted it white to blend in with my railing. I don't get many front door visitors so hopefully this won't be a problem.

I decided to install handles on all of the top bars for easier handling.

Here's me and my dad at a Beginner's Beekeeping course.

Finally on April 1, 2014, I get the call to come pick up my bees. I've ordered three 3 pound packages of bees that are raised on smell cell (4.9mm), treatment free (no chemicals used for pest) and they have combination of Italian, Carniolan and Russian genetics. Above all, I just hope they're gentle bees. Each box or "package" has about 10,000 bees in it. They should increase this summer to about 50,000 per hive.

Here we go with the installation

I think my bees will do well because being a good steward of nature already, practicing good bee husbandry should come easily to me (plus I have a lot of free time to devote to this). In addition to providing lots of fresh water, I'll also be providing many things for them to forage on (all neonicotinoid free). Bees can fly up to 3 miles to find food. In my yard alone they'll have dandelion and clover (80% of my yard is white clover).

Plus these perennials:

Globe Thistle

Sedum

Lavander

Bee Balm

Asters

Hollyhocks

Hyacinth

Crocus

These annuals:

Borage

Cosmos

Calendula

Sweet Asylum

Poppy

Zinnia

Cleome

Heliotrope

Sunflower

And these edibles:

Almonds 

Apples 

Basil

Blackberry 

Blueberry 

Cantaloupe

Corn 

Cucumber 

Mint 

Plums 

Pumpkin 

Raspberry 

Strawberry  

Watermelon

Check out my boring bee videos on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqVfD297pyRWgjSNKPkgAUg/videos

and

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQaLOM1PDqEqoavdaU7tOpA/videos