Saturday, June 13, 2009

Two Bee Hives This Year

I have a confession to make: I've been slacking off on the blog. But not because I've been lazy. I've been too busy doing stuff to post.

I'm going to try and catch up today.

I have another confession to make: I murdered a bunch of bees last year. Not quite in the Dexter with a saw kind of murder, but my hive did die. It was a really cold winter, and the girls didn't make it. But I'm going to try again this year, and I'm adding another hive. It's really the wooden ware that's the most expensive part of beekeeping for me. So I got a bunch of new gear for this season and changed the bee yard a bit.

Getting Ready For New Bees from Upshaw Ron on Vimeo.

I've expanded the Apiary this year... in fact, I've doubled it... to two hives. Here's how things look now.



Two Hives This Year from R. Upshaw on Vimeo.


Here's some footage from Memorial Day Weekend.

Bee Hives - checking in... from ron upshaw on Vimeo.



It's really fascinating to have the second hive this year. It's helpful to be able to A/B the hives. Initially, the gray hive was much more active... in fact they were kind of testy. I theorized that the gray hive would be more active, and pull out more frames quicker and eventually give me more honey.

But that hasn't really been true. The pink hive seems to have a bigger population, and seems to be pulling out frames quicker. Exactly opposite of what I thought.

I actually reversed the hive boxes two weeks ago to see if it would encourage the girls to pull out the rest of the frames and put honey in there. I'm anxious to put my honey supers on the hives, but I don't think it's quite ready yet.

See you next time.
From City Boy Starts Farmin'