Beehives are ready.

Here is a brief video showing some of the landscape surrounding the beehives.  The trees mark the start of a forest that has several deep ravines.  Many of the ravines start on our prairie.

Later in the day, I was able to drag a photographer out to the site to get a picture of me with my handiwork.  The photographer was too modest to allow her own picture to be taken amongst the glorious, burgeoning apiary.

Beekeeper flanked by "Hive A" and "Hive B."

The beehives are in the prairie.

This afternoon, I cleared and roughly leveled some land in our prairie.  The two beehives will have trees to the North and the West.  This will break the winter wind nicely.  They will have good sun for most of the day, including early morning sun.  The early sun will warm the hive so that the bees will be more likely to start foraging earlier in the day.

Starting to clear the old prairie grasses.

Over the cleared land, I placed overlapping layers of landscaping fabric.  On that, I placed the patio/paver stones.  They are 24" x 24" stones.

Partway through the back-breaking project.

After the 14 stones were in place, I trimmed back the excess landscaping fabric.  The end result is below.  They are fairly level.  You couldn't roller skate across the things, but it is good enough for government work.  And, it should be good enough for the bees.

Final layout of the fourteen 24" x 24" patio/paver stones.

My thoughts on using the pattern above:  (1) I could have both hives on the same platform.  This saved on stones as I didn't need to make two completely separate areas; (2) The extra stones in the front would keep more of the bees's flight path clear of the grasses.  The grasses on our prairie routinely grow to 6+ feet.

Beehives are in place and ready for the bees that are coming ~5/1/2013.

April 21, 2013: 30-some degrees and people were hiving bees!

The place from which I ordered my bees (see previous post) had a shipment arrive yesterday.  It was very snowy here in MN.  School was closed Thursday and Friday.  A lot of snow remained on the ground by Sunday even.  But, when the bees come, it's time to throw them into the hive.  I wonder how it went with them...

My bee supplier...

The place from which I ordered my bees has a very helpful blog.  It's been going on for many years now, and it has regular updates.  Click here to go to the home page of Nature's Nectar blog.

The hives arrive.

On April 1, 2013, my pallet of beekeeping materials arrived.  Commandeering our van, I picked them up that week.  It was like Christmas in April for me.

At the beekeeping course (see previous post), it became clear that I wanted to label all the woodenware that I would be using.  Some diseases that bees get can be transferred by intermixing the hive parts.  Also, some of the hive inspections that I would be doing in the coming months and years involve rotating the order of the hive boxes.  So, I wanted to number them.  Over time, the numbers would be out of order in any given hive, but I would still be able to track my "hive reversals."

Box A-1 and its 10 labelled frames.

The frames should be--depending on the source one reads--rotated out every 3 - 5 or 5 - 10 years.  That is, the old frame with the comb attached to it should be removed and not used again.  The wax could be collected and used in candle-making or other activities, I suppose.  The old frames and comb and foundation should be replaced with new.  So, my labeling system has the hive letter, then the frame number, and finally the last two numbers of the year that I started using them.  All the frames that end in "-13" will be rotated out in the years 2018 through 2023.

The inner covers of boxes A and B, and a box of frames beneath them.

The inner covers shouldn't need to be rotated out as I don't think that they will get old or concentrate any pesticides or toxins like the wax of the comb might.  But, I still wanted to keep track of which hive they are covering.

Hive with just one box on it.

Above, you can see one hive.  It only has one box on it.  If you haven't seen a Langstroth Hive before, it can be a bit complicated.  Mine, above, has a black plastic stand.  Starting at the top is a telescoping outer cover (it is the "lid" with painted white wood on the bottom 2/3rds and the metal covering on the upper 1/3rd).  The large, painted box is one of the medium hive bodies.  It has handles on all four sides.  You can see the front handle.  It is the recessed part of the large panel that is facing the camera.  The parts below the hive body include an entrance reducer, a screened bottom board, and a regular bottom board.

Assembled hives, each is four boxes high.

The hive on the left in the photo above is facing away from the camera.  I need to block up that opening in the back, as the bees won't be able to use it.  And, I don't want any mice or other animals setting up residence.  The hive on the right in the photo is facing toward the camera.  You can see the small hole in the from near the bottom.  This is the "entrance reducer" set on the smallest opening.  When I first install the bees, the hive will only be one box high.  The number of bees will be relatively small (5 - 7 thousand bees), and they (1) don't need a large opening and (2) won't be able to defend a large opening.  As the season progresses, I can steadily open up the entrance reducer to allow for larger openings.

The two hives, both facing camera now, and labelled.  Still four boxes high.

Above, the hives are labelled and assembled again.  The holes in the front are drilled to 1" diameter.  There will be corks in them at various times.  They serve as additional ways into the hive when the hive is growing and strong.  They will also allow for a winter opening (as the bottom entry will be all but closed, and it will also have a mouse guard on it).

As of today (4/20/13), the ETA for my two packages of bees is May 1, 2013.  There is still snow on the ground today and it is quite cold (low 30's, Fahrenheit).  Some people are getting their bees today in the Midwest.  I'm interested to see how their installations go...

University of MN Northern Climate Beekeeping Short Course.

I continue to blast posts into this blog today in an effort to catch up...

Over the first weekend in March (March 2 and 3, 2013), I took the University of Minnesota's Beekeeping Short Course.  This was very interesting, but I had learned a lot of it from books, YouTube, and other sources.  But, they also had vendors, honey-tasting, product demos, etc.  I joined the Minnesota Hobby Beekeepers Association (MHBA), and they gave me a free hive tool!  We also won some pollen patties.

On the second day of the course, I ordered two packages of bees.  For many reasons, I had decided to start with two hives.  The main reason was that I wanted two hives is to be able to compare them.  If I have one hive, I might not know if the bee activity (or lack thereof) is normal behavior.  With two hives, ideally, I ought to be able to notice if there is a difference of behavior between the two.

Of course, 4 - 6 hives would be an even better number.  However, upon suggesting to the powers-that-be that I start with a handful of hives, the gnashing of teeth that I heard and the profanity that was hurled at me...  Well, let's just say that I was lucky to get two hives past the household approval board.

Once I was done with the U of MN course, I was confident in what I was going to order.  I decided that I would use all mediums for my hives.  No deeps for the bodies and shallows for the supers.  This would make for some more work in maintaining the brood nest (the bottom three deeps or the bottom five mediums), especially during box rotations.  But, each box would be lighter.  Also, if ever needed, I could use frames from the supers interchangeably with frames from the brood nest.

When I ordered the bees, there were two options--Carniolans and Italians.  I ordered one of each.  As a novice beekeeper, I'm not sure that I'll be able to tell the difference.  But, I certainly wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between them if they were the exact same subspecies, so one of each it is.

Racking the mead.

On November 24, 2012, I racked my first batch of mead.  Racking--as noted elsewhere in this blog--is the process of removing the liquid and leaving behind most or all of the sediment (or yeast cake).  Below is the aquarium tubing that I used.  Next time, I would try to get larger-bore tubing as the aquarium tubing took a long time to siphon the liquid.

The mead will be put into a new and clean container for more fermenting.  See below for my siphoning set-up.

As noted elsewhere, the mead should be ready in about June, 2013 or so...

Getting started making mead.

After extracting the honey with Mark, I felt like I wanted to do something honey-related.  But, I knew that my bees and hives were at least 6 months away.  So, I decided to try my hand at mead-making.  I didn't have the ability to convince my wife to allow me to get "true" mead-making supplies.  However, this website has a very simple mead recipe that uses ingredients that most people have around the home already.  I made one batch on November 13, 2012.  Below are some of the ingredients.

Basically, I followed the directions on the site linked above.  In the end, I had about one gallon of mead brewing with probably about $10 - $15 of supplies.  My wife was guilty about not letting me get actual mead-making supplies, so I was able to cajole her into letting me brew the mead in a spare cupboard in the laundry room.  The first batch of mead was just "regular" mead, with no added spices or fruit or other flavors.

The cupboard that I chose was so wide that Batch #1 looked lonely.  With a bit of effort, I convinced the powers-that-be to allow two more batches.  Batch #2 is a cinnamon mead and Batch #3 is a cardamom mead.

Batches #2 and #3 were started 4 days after Batch #1.  You can see that #1's balloon is already inflated with carbon dioxide.  If I had a closer picture, you can see the bubbles forming throughout the mead, rising to the top.  Batches #2 and #3 have flaccid balloons that will soon inflate.

The batches have now gone through at least two rackings.  This is where I remove the liquid via siphoning and leave the sediment, or yeast cake, behind.  The three batches are now in their final stage of fermentation.  I should be able to bottle them in about June.

Honey extraction day!

Last fall (September 29, 2012), Mark (mentioned in the April, 2012 post) was harvesting some honey from his hives.  He was willing to suffer the presence of me and the four kids, so up to his place we travelled.  He had the extracting set-up all ready to go.

Above shows Mark's garage, modified to do the honey extraction.

Before we started the process, we took a look at the hives.  They were busy with active bees.  Below, first, is a picture.  Below that, a short video.

He had already removed the frames from the hive.  They were in a sealed container in his garage.  They were sealed so that the bees would be less likely to find the frames and reclaim their honey!  Below is a picture of a frame of capped honey.

In the stainless steel bowl to the left (in the photo above), there is a spatula-like tool with a cord coming out of the handle.  It is a heated tool that removes the capping of the honey, by melting/scraping them off.  That opens up the hexagonal compartments that the bees created and put honey into.  The frames (the woodenware rectangle in the pan on the right in the photo above) go into an extractor.  An even number of frames goes into the center of the metal cylinder (below).  Then, they are spun.  This uses the spinning action to fling the honey out of the hexagonal compartments in the frame and against the side of the extractor.  You can see the extractor in the top photo of this post.  A close-up of the extractor and its honey port is below.

You can see above that the honey is flowing out into a filter.  The filter is removing bits of wax and bees.  The honey then continues through and collects in the bucket below.  The bucket also has a honey port that you can use to bottle the honey.  Below is a video of the honey flow in action.

In the end, we left with a nicely-packaged bottle of honey.  It would be considered "local wildflower," raw, Grade A honey (at least that's my current understanding).  Below is a picture of it.

It is now April, 2013 as I write this post.  Most of the honey has been eaten!