We are buzzing with excitement today and it's making it hard to do our real life job. We'll be picking our first hive up tomorrow and taking it to its forever home. All of the new equipment has arrived, just in the nick of time and now it's time to load it up for the long trip to the merchant's apiary and down to the ranch.
We'll be picking up a 10-frame full strength deep hive that will have 8-frames of brood, bees, and honey. We have a second deep hive to add to this that will be the staple brood for the bees. We also have two supers to add to the hive throughout the summer. We hope we'll be able to use both, since we've had a decent amount of rain and lots of foliage for the bees.
I think we're all geared up with suits, smoker, tools, etc. and Quin built a heavy duty stand that is leveled and wired to the ground so that wind, rain, hogs, nor deer should not be able to knock the hive over. The hive will be well strapped to the stand, so I think the bees will be happy in their new home. Once we've got everything in place, we just need to check on the brood every couple of weeks and make sure that the queen is reproducing and the workers are building their home and hopefully building some honey supplies.
This has been an eye-opening endeavor and I am glad we only started with one hive. Many have told us that we should start with two so that we can compare hives. I think with us concentrating on one hive, though, that our success rate might be better and then we'll add one or two next year and be able to compare a year one vs year two hive. It is all really a personal choice and every beekeeper will tell you something different.
We've been fortunate to have gotten involve in the Alamo Area Beekeepers Association. The VP of the organization has been very helpful and offered us wonderful guidance. He's caused us to rethink some things as well as confirm that we are generally moving in the right direction.
Pictures of our installation are forthcoming!
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