Top Bar Beekeeping Forum

[jomw10]

I just want to post my limited experience as a first time beekeeper.
I build a 3ft hive as per the barefoot beekeper instructions. I also got the book. It was a good first time exposure to handling the bees.

I bought package bees from rweaver (all-american Italian breed). It was an "interesting" experience to transfer the bees to the hive. I had no previous experience with bees nor a local source of knowledge. I got stung twice (had no suit or gloves or smoke). I think I did pretty good, for such a difficult task with no tools.
Basically, I remove the can of candy from the box and shake the bees into the hive and ran!!!!..
Anyhow, that only did a partial job, I ended up putting the candy inside the hive, the box in front of the hive and a big plate full of sugar with water... That empty the package and eventually all went into the hive. Got the queen and almost killed trying to remove the cork, dumped on the hive and ran!!.. A lot of running that day.
After that day I checked the hive every other day or so, for several days. Until they were so many bees that I could not open the hive
anymore.
I try to "inspect" the hive to check on the queen, mites, etc. But I really don't know what to look for, so I gave up and let the bees do their thing.
So far they come with pollen every morning, no so much in the afternoon. And there are a lot of them and a lot of honey. So they must be doing fine even with me "inspecting".
I decided to buy the smoker and later a bee suit to be able to open the hive. In the mean time the bees invaded the "roof" and build comb on it. It was a mess to clean out, but I got a lot of honey out of it.
I have collected about 2 1/2 gallons of honey from this hive. Drowned a lot of bees in the process. And got stung (with suit and everything) a couple more times... But the rewards have been sweet
Bees also survived hurricane Ike and I'm getting closer to harvest fall honey... Hopefully I can split the hive next year, not that the bees wont be ready for it, but more that I have the capacity to do it.

Leasons learned:
Get a suit, a smoker and make sure your bees cannot get to the roof!. Build a 4ft hive if you leave in a warm weather area with almost no winter.

[Gary]

Well, you got it done!!!
_________________
Gary
www.hirschbachapiary.com
gary@hirschbachapiary.com

With being at the top of the food chain comes the responsibility of protecting it! Not the right to destroy it.

Procrastination is the assassination of inspiration!

[biobee]

That's one way to learn - and you got a lot more honey than I did this year!
_________________
The Barefoot Beekeeper www.biobees.com