Complaints of a Beekeeper with a Full Time Job

I wish I had a job with more flexibility. Truth be told, I do have a lot of flexibility....I am self-employed but the kind of work I do involves regular commitments and I need to make a living to support all of this bee equipment purchasing I keep doing!

So I end up with a set schedule (which I set) in which I leave early and return home after dark. It's, of course, different in the spring when we are on daylight savings time (coming soon - March 11). Now, however, I don't have daylight to work the bees unless it is the weekend and then I am often busy or out of town. And even if I come home and it is still light at the end of my day, it is not the time to open the bee hives.

My new nucs (two of them) should be here in the next week or two (the beekeeper from whom I'm getting them said it could be as soon as next week.) I need to paint hive boxes and get ready, but I haven't yet. I'm hoping I can find some time for these getting ready tasks before the bees actually arrive. I do own the hive boxes already and am not waiting for an order to arrive.

I did find some paint for the new hives. I have several quarts of paint left from when I was choosing paint for my sunporch - so one hive will be painted "grape beginnings" and the other "peach blush." I don't want to leave Destin yellow since all the bees in it died - bad sign. So I want the new bees to have a fresh color and new start to their lives on my deck. I'll have to come up with two new names as well.

Assuming, as I did, that my hives would make it through the winter, I ordered a comb honey super from Walt Kelly. You have to have a really strong hive, at least in their second season, to make comb honey and my only living hive is quite weak, so I'm putting that box aside until next year. Maybe with small cell regression and more powdered sugar shakes, I can beat the Varroa mite to the punch and keep my hives alive next winter.