Apiary Establishment

A few weeks ago, I recruited my parents and Scott to help me build my bee hives and we got everything built in under two hours (which is amazing). The hives are now all built and ready to be primed and painted.

This year, spring weather seems to have come a bit early. Nectar and pollen flows are much higher than expected, which is a good thing. Hives are growing well in the state regions I am familiar with currently, so I will be recieving bees for my hives even sooner than I anticipated!

In the hives, for now, I have used plastic framing instead of wax. Wax is helpful when your apiary expands to a larger operation or you have a little more experience so you can extract sections of the comb. Bees are so precise mathematically, they can re-build the comb and continue without a hitch.

The pictures below are examples of plastic interior framing and wax. The bottom picture is yellow in color has wires running through it for rigidity. This is an example of a wax frame. Some brands have the zig-zagged wire like you see in the picture while others have a simple grid pattern of wiring (e.g. two horozontal wires and two or three vertical wires).

http://www.easipet.co.uk/acatalog/Brood-Wax-and-Frames-for-National-Beehive-164.html#.VvDVL30WZPY

http://www.bee-outside.com/integratedplasticframeandfoundation.aspx

I mentioned earlier that I would be priming and painting my bee hives soon. If you're wondering if hives need to be a certain color, don't worry, it honestly doesn't matter. The bees are so amazing in their instinctual mathematics that they can find their own hive again even if it's camoflaged with the surroundings. The most typical colors you'll see will be pure white, off-white or even light brown color depending on where the hives are located.

Bees typically calculate their position based on the sun and they have an amazing understanding of the concept of time. They could be gone for quite a while yet still return safely back to their hive by nightfall. All thanks to math. Bees are amazing creatures.

I will hopefully be keeping you up to date once I get my bees. I'd like to tell you more the things I observe (i.e. hive strength, seasonal changes, pest control etc.) and the interesting or even basic things I learn along the way!

I'm very excited to get started.