Lovely Greens Article

Tanya, a beekeeper, gardener, soap maker and nice person, from Lovely Greens asked me to write a guest post on how to get started keeping honeybees.  If you'd like to read the post, here's the link.

I was out of town at a conference when it appeared a week ago, but wanted you all to know about it.  I certainly appreciated Tanya featuring my beekeeping and my blog.

Growing a Greener World on Public Television - just not in Atlanta

Joe Lamp'l, host of Growing a Greener World on Public Television, lives in the northern parts of Atlanta.  However, his wonderful show about organic gardening is not available to the Atlanta market.  He films here and all over the country on issues of gardening and visited me to talk about the bees a couple of months ago.

I fed him and his camera guy biscuits and honey when we were all done.  Nothing better than Southern biscuits with honey soaking into them!

Here's the episode he filmed in part in my backyard with my equipment and my bees. (Even if we can't watch it in Atlanta, we CAN watch it on the Internet.)  Check out some of Joe's other wonderful episodes while you are visiting his page.

Joe is signed up to take the MABA short course that Julia and I are putting together for the bee club.  I am hoping I will get to help him get started in beekeeping in that way as well.

Happy New Bee Year to Everyone!

Thanks to all of you who visit and read this blog.  I can't get over how often people come here and from so many parts of the country and the world.

During 2010, there were almost 500,000 visits to this blog.  People from 175 different countries have visited this blog.  Truly I am honored that you all stop by.

The ten most popular posts in the last year (many of these posts were posted in earlier blog years, but are still the most highly visited in 2010) were:

1.  Obviously the first page of the blog is the most visited.  Here is where you find my most recent post, so subscribers are most interested in this page.  In addition most people who aren't directed to a specific page, begin with the first page.

2.  The second most visited page is my video on how to use a simple solar wax melter .  This page was visited almost 6000 times.  It's a demonstration of how to melt wax easily and simply - a low tech approach to using the sun as a resource for melting wax.

3.  Next in popularity is the video on how to harvest honey by crush and strain.  That was seen almost 4000 times.  I had such fun making that video.  I do things slightly differently now - I use all three filters stacked.  And since that video was made, my friend Gina and I were professionally filmed harvesting honey for use in our bee club's short course.

4.  About 3000 people read my short post on what you need to get started in beekeeping.  I actually wrote that post specifically to help my brother get started but it has turned out to be useful to others as well.  It was fun trying to imagine the process of starting all over again.  I had another opportunity to use the list when my son-in-law decided to take up beekeeping as well.

5.  Next in popularity is my post on making my own small hive beetle trap.  I found the plan in a beekeeping magazine and took off from there.  Actually of all the SHB traps I use, I like this one the best.  It's not so small that it's hard to fill (like AJ's or the beetle jail); it doesn't close off the SBB as the slide in trays do, and it kills the beetle better than smashing it with a hive tool!

6,  Number six on the list is how to build a hive box.  There's a trend here - many people appear to be looking at my "how to" type pages.

7.  Next in line is how to (another how to!) do a basic hive inspection.  I worked hard on this post because it was used as a slide show in our short course and will be again this year in a couple of weeks.

8.  How to build a frame came in line in eighth position.  I do this much differently now since I bought a frame jig from Walter T. Kelley - talk about a bee life-changing event, acquiring this simple gadget is a time saver.

9.  Ninth on the list is a post I did about splitting a hive and about the Freeman beetle trap.  I don't know if people come more to read about doing a split or about the SHB trap.  The comments are more about the beetle trap, so that is probably what brings people to this post.  As far down on the list as this post is, it was still visited by almost 2000 people.

10.  Tenth, but not least, is the post I did on newbie questions at the beginning of beekeeping.  It is essentially a link post to other topics I've written about, so I imagine people sometimes start there and then visit all over the blog!  About 1600 people came to this page.

Well, in thinking about another calendar year of posting, I thought you might be interested in what draws other people to this blog.

Happy New Year and Good Beekeeping to everyone.

What You Need to Get Started in Beekeeping

My brother Barry wants to be a beekeeper and I promised him a list of the basics he would need. I decided to post it here for any of you who are curious to get started.

Here's the list - then you'll find descriptions of my thoughts behind it. This is my list and how I would do it if I were starting this year. There are all kinds of points of view and mine is not the only one. I am particularly biased about some beekeeping issues, as you who follow this blog already know!
Basics:
Good beekeeping book
Protective clothing: A bee suit (or long sleeved shirt, pants) and gloves
Hive equipment:
10 medium 8 frame hive boxes
80 frames to fit the medium boxes
Sheets of wax foundation for the frames
2 Telescoping covers for 8 frame equipment
2 inner covers or 2 ventilated inner covers for 8 frame equipment
2 screened bottom boards for 8 frame equipment
2 slatted racks for 8 frame equpiment
A smoker and something to use to light it (lighter, matches, whatever)

A hive tool (preferably 2 - they're cheap)
That will get you started. The descriptive list below includes some description and explanation as well as some extras to add to the basic list above.
************************************************************

The basics for the beekeeper (the elaborated list):

A good beekeeping book for beginners:
Here are some suggestions:

Beekeeping for Dummies by Howland Blackiston
Natural Beekeeping by Ross Conrad

Protective Clothing:

A Bee suit – if not a bee suit plan to wear long pants, long sleeved shirt and a bee veil

Bee suit thoughts: It's hot inside a bee suit. You need one that you can stand to wear in the heat. The head gear is often a problem for me. My original suit is from Dadant and comes with a hard hat and veil. The hard hat is regulated by a head band that I hate because it never fits right and slips down over my eyes all the time.

The ventilated suit from Golden Bee (504-456-8805) is great in hot southern weather. I don't like the veil particularly – it relies on a headband to keep it centered and that doesn't work well for me, but the suit is cool (all ventilated material) and I can manage the head part. Also the mesh of the veil is painted white which is great for bees not bothering you but hard for someone else to see your face inside the suit. (Matters to me because I wear it for teaching inspections).

A similar suit is made by UltraBreeze although their website says that at the moment they are not taking orders.

I love a hooded jacket that I have from Mann Lake that is great to throw on for a quick visit to the hives or to use when I'm not doing a full on inspection.

Gloves - Many beekeepers work without gloves, but I don't like being stung on my hands – it's inconvenient.

Gloves present their own problems. Most beekeeping gloves are big, making it awkward to grasp things in the hive well. When you order gloves, talk to the company from whom you are ordering to understand how their gloves are sized. If I am using leather gloves, I like the ones I FINALLY got from Dadant that are XXS and do fit.

However, I take pictures all the time I am in the hives and now prefer nitrile gloves because they allow me more dexterity. I have been stung through them (they are used by surgeons and are not supposed to be penetrable by a knife, but leave it to the bees!)

Glove possibilities: Dadant has these
My favorite nitrile gloves are 8 mil blue ones from Gemplers I'm not doing surgery so I reuse them (!) and the box of 50 lasts about 1 ½ bee seasons

Miscellaneous clothing items that I take with me to the beeyard:

A bandana (there are about 100 uses for the bandana in the world – several in the beeyard – if only to wipe your brow – but I use it to keep my Dadant helmet from slipping),
A lanyard that I hook my camera on around my neck,
I always wear tennis shoes and socks – the only time I have been stung on my foot by a bee was when I stepped on a dying bee in my house

Basic equipment needs:

Hive Woodenware

Enough for two hives – you should start with two hives – this way you have something to compare to when one hive seems off in some way. You also can kill one hive with over zealousness and let the other survive more on its own!

Most beginning beekeepers start with a deep and a medium box for brood and shallows for honey. This is the old way and if you are starting with nuc hives, unless you've made special arrangements, the nuc will be in a deep nuc box.

However, for switching frames back and forth between boxes and for many other advantages (weight when lifting, etc), I would encourage everyone to do all of their boxes as medium boxes. For two hives you need a minimum of 3 medium boxes per hive and probably a couple of extras for each hive in the event that your bees get going well enough to produce honey the first year. I would also encourage 8 frame boxes – much easier to lift and manage

This means you need 10 medium eight-frame boxes. I would order based on shipping prices for your area. Shipping costs can be as much as the cost of the equipment you are ordering. I like to order from Brushy Mountain Beekeeping because the shipping to Atlanta is less than most of the other companies, but I order from Betterbee which is in New York and Dadant which has a warehouse in Florida. There are many good bee companies and you may be able to find a local supplier from whom to get your equipment.

Here are 10 medium eight-frame boxes from Brushy Mountain.

Like I said, you can order them from any bee company. These come unassembled – you nail or screw them together – keep the sides right side up and the inside on the inside! They should be painted which is a good thing to do while you wait for your bees – the Oops cart at Home Depot is a good source of paint. I paint all of mine the same color and keep a large gallon of paint available to do so. There's a post on my blog showing how to assemble them.

Frames for the 10 boxes:
Each box takes eight frames. These also come unassembled. You'll need 80 frames. I don't use foundation at all any more, but starting out, you'll want to use foundation – wax, not plastic. There's a video/slide show on my blog about how to assemble frames. These frames have a groove in the bottom for the wax foundation and a wedge at the top to nail it into the frame.

Foundation for the frames – I would stick to pure wax. Brushy Mountain offers this. It's less expensive than Dadant for the same thing and if you are ordering your equipment from them, it all ships with one shipping charge. But you can get foundation from any bee company. People will tell you to use plastic, but I've now thrown out all of my plastic. The bees don't like it and wax is natural in the hive. In the end, you'll probably switch to foundationless, anyway, and let the bees build their own. Each hive needs a telescoping cover and an inner cover. You're going to be using 8 frame equipment, so be sure the inner cover and telescoping cover are for 8 frame equipment. Here is a telescoping cover and an inner cover.

Brushy Mountain (and others) make an English garden hive top – which is pretty to look at but not practical for an inspection – feel free to get it instead of the telescoping cover, if you would like. My friend Julia likes (and I want to order) the ventilated inner cover – great for the hot summers in the South. If you ordered it, you would not need the inner cover.

You'll also need a screened bottom board.

Ventilation is the issue in the heat of the summer. The screened bottom board helps with this as well as Varroa mite control. The ventilated inner cover would help as well.

I keep slatted racks (a place for the bees to hang out rather than waste their energy fanning the hive) on all of my hives. Brushy Mountain doesn't make them for 8 frame equipment. Betterbee does.

Smoker:This is an essential piece of beekeeping equipment and you'll use it a lot. Here's a basic one from Brushy Mountain. I rarely use mine except to let the bees know I'm coming by puffing one puff at the door. I don't think it's worth buying one of the fancier ones unless you plan to have so many hives that you'll need to relight it a lot.

Propane lighter: Available at any hardware store (I can't find a picture, but I put one in everyone's stocking for Christmas – cheap and useful)

Hive Tool Another essential piece of beekeeping equipment – buy two so you can always lay your hands on one of them.

Helpful Things to Have that aren't Essential:

Frame Rack: Very helpful – especially if you are looking for the queen, trying to see the differences in the bees, taking photos – I obviously love mine, but everyone doesn’t use them.

Frame Grip I've always relied on my hands – I don't want to inadvertently squash bees – but I'm putting it on this list because almost every other beekeeper I know uses this. I just never got comfortable with it.

Bee Brush I use this a lot – especially when harvesting honey since I remove one frame at a time from the hive. If you are going for crush and strain honey, then this is essential.

Harvest Equipment (Hopefully you'll have a harvest!):

Bucket and Filtering system

This is all I need for harvesting and filtering honey. I also use a sharp knife and some basic kitchen equipment. You'll also need jars, but that is your preference. What kind of honey your produce dictates what type of jar you use. You are going to be able to cut comb (the foundation you are ordering will allow crush and strain as well as cut comb honey) or produce chunk honey (comb in a jar of honey)

*********************************************

OK, I think that is what is needed (at least what I would need) to start beekeeping. This is my list and others out there will want to add or suggest other things. There are other items that you will find useful – a sifter from the kitchen for powdered sugar and a few other things that I carry in my bee basket, but you'll come up with what works for you.

You'll notice that I didn't put any medication or feeding systems on this list. I don't use any medications or poison of any kind in my hives. I also tend to feed with Ziploc baggies inside the hives. A Boardman feeder may be useful for water for the bees, but there are other ways to provide water. I also didn't put an entrance reducer – not going to be necessary in the hot South but would be in other parts of the country.

Note: I did this post in Word's blog post section and uploaded it from Word....never again. The margins are awful - many apologies!

Newbie Questions at the Beginning of Bee Season

Here at the beginning of bee season, there are many questions that the first year beekeeper asks. I have posted a lot about my challenges and what I have learned. Here are some of the links to posts that may be helpful if you are just getting started:

The basics: What you need to get started in beekeeping
How to build a hive box
How to build a frame
How to install a nuc (a four or five frame mini hive of bees)
How to light a smoker (as if I really can!)
How to do a hive inspection (and why?)

If you get through all of that, there are numerous posts on harvesting honey to produce clear honey, chunk honey and cut comb honey as well as posts on how to melt wax with a simple, cheap solar wax melter - just look on the right side of the blog under videos and slideshows.

Also be sure to search using the Google search bar on this blog for any questions you have and after 500 something posts, I imagine you'll find that I've probably been challenged by the same question at some point!

What's Involved in a Hive Inspection

This weekend if the weather cooperates I'll make a video of an inspection - I'm no master of inspections, but I'll show you what I do when I do one. Meanwhile, there is a slideshow that I made last year when I went on a hive inspection of the beehives at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. Here's the link.

I spend a lot of time observing my hives from the outside. I watch them when I am at home for meal times and sometimes I just sit on my sunporch and watch their comings and goings.

However, this post is about inspecting the inside of the hive.

It's important to know why you are inspecting the hive. There could be many reasons.

• As a beginning beekeeper, inspecting the hive is the only way to know what goes on in there in the dark since the bees don't have windows!
  
• You can learn to tell the difference between the drones and the workers
• You may see the queen
• You can observe the difference in capped brood, capped drone brood, and capped honey
• You can observe what a queen cell looks like (even a hive that has a good queen and/or isn't going to swarm usually makes a queen cell or two for insurance)
• You may see where the queen is laying by looking for larvae and eggs (hard to see)
• You may see an emerging bee in the capped worker brood
  

• It's also important to look for signs of problems in the hive

• Is the queen's laying pattern a good one? That means that the capped brood is in more or less a football shape in the center of the frame. The brood is pretty solidly capped - not many skipped cells or empty cells
• Do the workers show signs of illness? Deformed wing virus is easy to see - the wings of the workers are shriveled or malformed. You might even see a varroa mite on the back of a bee - it looks like a red tick (as in on a dog)
• Do you have small hive beetles? If so, you might want to invest in a trap - vinegar or oil. And I smash as many as I can with my hive tool.
  
• Do you have a wax moth problem? This usually only occurs if the hive is very weak. The wax moth is always present, but a strong hive keeps the wax moth from growing there. A weak hive doesn't have the resources and the hive can be overrun with wax moths.
• Does the hive smell funny? Wax moths and SHB make a sicky sweet rotting kind of smell - otherwise the hive will simply smell of delicious honey
  

• Do you need to do something to help the hive prosper?
  
  
• Does the hive need a new hive box added? The general rule of thumb is if the hive has built out and used 80% of the top box, it's time to add a new box (that means 8 out of 10 frames in a 10 frame box).
• If there's lots of burr comb on the tops of the frames, you may want to scrape that off. You'll see Gerard do that in the Botanical Garden hive inspection. It's not necessary, but you may want to make the hive easier for you to manipulate
  
• Is the hive honey-bound? This means that above the brood box in the next brood box, instead of brood, you have a solid box of honey. Usually, at least here in the south, the bees have brood in two boxes. If the brood is stopped by a wall of stored honey, the queen usually won't pass by the honey to lay in the box above that, so you'll want to move the honey filled super and put a new brood box below it.
  
  
• What does the hive sound like?
  
  
• When I first open the hive and pop the top cover, I listen for the bees. If I am quiet and gentle in my movements and the hive is doing well, usually there is a humming buzz, but nothing more.
• If there is a problem before I do anything, the hive buzzes with a roar. Sometimes the roar means there is no queen, so I want to pay attention to that
• When I do something intrusive like a powdered sugar shake, the bees roar and grumble - I would too - who wants to have a powdered sugar shower on a perfectly lovely day for foraging?

Those are the purposes and thoughts I have for inspecting. Here are some other aspects of the hive inspection that I try to follow:

1. I use as little smoke as possible. I always light the smoker in case I feel a need to discourage the bees from bothering me, but mostly I light the smoker and set it aside while I work. I do puff one puff of smoke at the front door of the hive when I begin the inspection - it's like knocking on the door to announce my presence. Then mostly I forget about it.
2. Always approach the hive from the side or the back. It is disturbing to the bees to walk straight up to the front of the hive - the guard bees will greet you and you will get started on the wrong foot with the bees.
   
3. Move slowly and gently. You will kill a few bees, but remember that there are up to 60,000 bees in an active hive and it's impossible to do an inspection without killing a few.
4. Be careful in lifting the frames out of the box. I usually take out frame #2 or #3 and hang it on a frame rack while I move the other frames in the box. I don't want to risk losing the queen so for the most part I hold the frame over the box to look at it (then if she's on the frame and falls, she falls into the hive.)
5. Don't assume that you can just grab the frame and lift it up. Most of the time the frames are propolized to the side of the box and need you to break the grip with your hive tool before lifting the frame.
6. You only need to go through enough boxes on the hive to satisfy your reason for inspecting. For example, if you are looking to see if the queen has a good laying pattern, as soon as you find a frame that represents the good laying pattern, you can stop your inspection. You don't need to look at every frame or in every box on the hive.
   
7. Always put the frames back in the box in the same orientation in which they were when you lifted them out. Unless you have a reason to manipulate the frames, put the frame back exactly where you found it. It's the bees' home and they have it arranged just the way they want it.
8. When you replace the boxes back on top of one another, slide them onto the box below so that the bees can be gently pushed out of the way rather than squashed

Everyone has their own tragic stories - I've dropped frames, dropped the inner cover on top of the bees below, squashed bees, killed bees with my hive tool, killed a bee when I was trying to smash a small hive beetle, brushed bees badly, etc.

You'll have yours too - it's just part of bee-ing a beekeeper.

OK, those are all of my thoughts for the moment. I'm sure I'll think of more about inspecting, but I'll save it for the video if I do it this weekend.

Useful link: Mother Earth

Do You Know Where Your Bees Are? or How to Get along with your neighbors

This post is really part two of the beginner question: "How do you deal with your neighbors when you keep bees?" Part one is here.

There are a number of issues to consider in dealing with your neighbors such as protecting your neighbors from the bees' flight paths. This can mean putting your hives beside a tall fence so that in order to leave your yard, they have to fly up above your neighbors' heads. In my yard this is solved by putting my bees on a deck with a high hedge around it.

A second issue is to protect view of the hives to keep the neighbors from constant awareness of your bees. If the bees are too prominent, you are likely to be blamed for every yellow jacket sting in the neighborhood.

A third issue is where the bees will get water. If your neighbors have a swimming pool, the bees will be drawn (who knows why) to the chlorine in the water. But more than chlorine, bees like really nasty water. My first year I provided them with a lovely water source.
I've since learned that they like it best when old leaves, moss, etc collects in the water source.

Below you can see several pictures of my bees this morning, drinking out of the water source, now filled with leaves and other yuck.




Click on this picture for a lovely view of the bee's tongue in the upper bee on the moss.

Some more Random Smoker Thoughts

Here is a picture (above) of the smoker being lit with the wax impregnated paper towel from the solar wax melter. I keep those paper towels in a ziploc bag and tear off pieces to help light the smoker.

Here's how the smoker looks when it is operating properly. Note there's plenty of smoke coming out.

Fire is a consideration when you are finished using the smoker. I hang mine in an aluminum bucket. The smoker has a bent metal hook on the front side. I then stop up the smoke opening with a wine cork. This deprives the fire of oxygen and it soon goes out. There remain unburnt pieces of pine straw or whatever fuel I was using to help start the fire the next time. In Scouts we always learned that it was easier to start a fire with wood from the night before that had already burned some rather than starting from scratch. The smoker works that way as well.

This is the most unique job my smoker has ever had to do - be the centerpiece for a flower arrangement for the Short Course in January!

How to Light a Smoker

The smoker is a metal, spouted container with a hinged lid and a bellows attached. We build a small fire in the smoker with the plan to create a cool smoke that will cause the bees to react by gorging themselves with honey. Beekeepers say that the bees think there's a forest fire and go to ingest the honey to remove it from the hive.

I don't like to smoke the bees. They are upset by smoking and they take a while to recover from the smoke. In addition the smoke affects the honey in the hive. I do always light the smoker when I am going to inspect the hives. You never know when a hive will be cantankerous -- upset by the weather, the loss of the queen, your bad timing, whatever. I want to be prepared to distract them if I am liable to be stung unreasonably.

There are so many hard parts in lighting a smoker. This is the beginning of my third year in beekeeping and I still find it difficult. When I went to the Young Harris Beekeeping Institute last spring, I found the first part of lighting the smoker (lighting the lighter to light the smoker) to be the hardest part!

I can't light a cigarette lighter - my thumb just rolls on the mechanism and nothing happens. I'm not fast enough. The solution for me has been the hand held propane lighter. It's simple to use and easy to light.


There are lots of fuels used to light the smoker. The fuel needs to be one that will release a cool smoke. Most people in Georgia use wads of pine needles. Others use burlap cut into strips and rolled up. Leaves provide smoker fuel. Some of the bee catalog companies sell fuel for the smokers. Sometimes it is pressed cotton , sometimes it is wood pellets, sometimes baling twine.

The goal is not only to light the smoker but to keep it lit. A friend of mine uses cedar chips for hamsters. I find cedar hard to keep lit, but she swears by it. Virginia Webb (a well-known Georgia beekeeper) uses wood chips and puts some in the bottom, lights them and keeps feeding the chips. Bob Binnie (president of the GA beekeepers Association) uses Dadant pellets. Bob starts his smoker with a wadded up paper towel and then feeds in the pellets.

A by-product of using the solar wax melter is the wax impregnated paper towel filter through which the melted wax drips into the collection container. I keep the paper towel filter infused with melted wax residue on hand to be a smoker fire starter, more powerful than the plain paper towel that Bob uses.



Once you've lit the smoker, the main challenge is to keep it lit. To do so, one must remember to pump the bellows every once in a while to keep the fire burning or at least smoldering and providing smoke going up the chimney to use on the bees as needed. I said "one must" because I always forget about the smoker - I rarely use it and it often goes out before I am finished with my inspection.

There are some pictures from some earlier posts on learning to light the smoker here and here.

How to build a Frame

At the end of January I posted some questions that most new beekeepers wish to have answered (or at least I did). Here are the questions:

1. How hard is it to put together a hive box?
2. What do you use to light a smoker?
3. How do you put the bees in the hive and what are the scary parts?
4. How do you deal with your neighbors?
5. What is it like to be stung the first time?
6. How much is the initial investment and do you have to have an extractor?
7. Will you have enough wax the first year to make candles?
8. What's the purpose of a hive inspection and how hard is it to do one?
9. What are the most confusing parts of the first year of beekeeping?

I answered the first one: "How hard is it to put together a hive box?" here.
A missing question from the above list is how to build frames for your hives. The easiest way to build frames is to use a "jig" to build a lot of frames at once, but in order to use the jig, you have to understand how just one frame is built - so here goes:


Basically you glue the frames together and then nail them together.


If you are using foundation, on some frames you nail in the foundation with the wedge. On others you wax in the foundation into the groove of the frame using the wax tube fastener. I don't usually use foundation, but rather give the bees starter strips which are waxed into the frames just like full sheets of foundation. I wax the starter strips into both groove and wedge frames.


I find building frames to be a bit boring so instead of working on my downstairs workbench, I usually build my frames in front of the TV while I watch a movie.

The frames I built in this post came from Walter T. Kelley Company. His frames have two notches on the bottom of the end bar, but the principle of frame building is the same whether there are two notches on the bottom of the end bar or just one.

I made one of my own movies about building frames posted below:

Questions that were on my Mind as a First Year Beekeeper

As the beginning of my third year in beekeeping approaches (I started on Easter Sunday, 2006), I have been thinking about the questions I wish someone had answered for me as I got started.

One of my recent assignments was to give a presentation at the Short Course on "Bee-ing a Beekeeper" which was about my experiences and the stories of a panel of several others. I focused on the fun(ny) parts of Bee-ing a Beekeeper. I've thought about posting the PowerPoint presentation I did and then thought it wouldn't be the same without the stories to go with the pictures, but I may post it anyway.

In thinking about what I might address if I were asked again to talk about first year experiences, I generated (in no particular order) the questions that were on the top of my mind when I got started. They are:

• How hard is it to put together a hive box?

• What do you use to light a smoker?

• How do you put the bees in the hive and what are the scary parts?

• How do you deal with your neighbors?

• What is it like to be stung the first time?

• How much is the initial investment and do you have to have an extractor?

• Will you have enough wax the first year to make candles?

• What's the purpose of a hive inspection and how hard is it to do one?

• What are the most confusing parts of the first year of beekeeping?

I think I'll post on these questions over the next few weeks as many people begin their beekeeping experience for the first time. I've recently addressed how to build a hive box and how to deal with your neighbors. Stay tuned for posts on the rest of these questions.

How to Deal With your Neighbors When you Start Keeping Bees

One of the questions most new beekeepers ask is, "How do I deal with my neighbors?"

There's not an easy answer. Many beekeepers try to keep their beekeeping endeavors as unobtrusive as possible. I wasn't eager to invite anyone's opinion about my beekeeping. I did research it and found that since the bee is the state insect of Georgia, bees are allowed to "bee" anywhere in Atlanta.

Atlanta is a hilly city. I live in a particularly hilly neighborhood. When you enter my neighborhood (which is a U-shaped set of three streets) you become aware of the hills. One of the legs of the U goes downhill all the way to the street that makes the bottom of the U. Then you turn left to drive toward my house which begins the ascent of a hill. My house is at the peak of the hill and you go uphill on my driveway to get to my carport.

My bees are on the deck behind my house at the level of the main floor. Like many houses in Atlanta, my house is built into the hill, so it is a ranch but has a daylight basement on the back side. So the deck is about 14 feet high above the backyard, although it is at the level of my ranch house on the street side.

My neighbor on one side is steeply downhill from me. My neighbor on the other side is also on a slight downhill, and her deck is probably about 10 feet lower than mine.

Consequently I had my bees for two bee seasons without my neighbors having any idea.

I do wonder what they thought when they smelled smoke on the weekends. But I don't know them very well since I'm at work all day and nobody asked me about the smoky smell. And I was always having large bee labeled boxes of materials from Dadant and Betterbee or other bee companies delivered to my carport where they sat, available for viewing by anyone, until I came home from work.

This year after the honey harvest was over, I decided to give the neighbors on either side of my house a jar of my bees' delicious honey. Susan, my neighbor on the not-so-low side, was thrilled and talked to me all about what she knew about the healthful benefits of honey. She volunteered the other day that my honey was the best honey she had ever tasted. Below you can see the view from Susan's property line. Even in winter you can barely see the white of the hives on the deck and wouldn't know what they were to identify them. If you click on the picture you can see the whole thing.



My neighbor, Eric, on the other side, steeply downhill, has a baby - who was at the time about 8 months old. I gave the two of them a jar of honey when I saw them walking the baby. He seemed pleased, but not too excited to find out there were bees in the neighborhood. His wife said, "Honey's poisonous for babies, you know." I saw Eric, the father, a few weeks later and asked him how they liked the honey. "Oh, we haven't tried it yet," he said and looked uncomfortable.

So I would say that the news that I have bees was met with mixed reviews by my immediate neighbors. I did get a note from Libba, the president of the neighborhood garden club inviting me to come to a meeting (since I'm at work and they meet in the daytime, I haven't been in years). At the end of the note she wrote, "I'd like to taste your honey, Honey!" That let me know that my beekeeping has become a subject of neighborhood conversation.

I have recently seen Libba and given her a jar of the honey.

My deck serves to keep my bees' flight paths above my neighbors' yards. The other way that bees intrude into people's lives is by finding a water source on the neighbor's property. It's important to provide your bees a water source so they won't seek water at your neighbor's swimming pool or bird bath. I have provided my bees a water source, but they prefer nasty water out of the gutters on my house. The nearest house with a swimming pool is about 1/4 mile away.



Many beekeepers encourage telling your neighbors and sharing honey with them.

I don't think it's something you can make a blanket decision about doing. I was glad when I told my neighbors that I could say, "Oh, I've had these bees for two years." If the bees were new, people could have complained that the bees had bothered them ever since I got them, but nobody could claim that since the bees have been quiet as mice and my closest neighbors did not even know they were living on my deck.

The nice part of telling the neighbors is that I felt comfortable to store my boxes and supers in the carport during the winter without worrying about it. In the spring I may even fly the bee flag that I bought in the mountains.

How to Build a Hive Box

In 2006 when I got my first hives, I had no idea what to do. I hadn't ever seen anyone build a hive box. So for those of you who are starting this year and may be as intimidated as I was, here's a primer on how to build a hive box. Now, I'm a novice beekeeper so the experienced beekeepers are going to be much more expert than I am but I am posting this so that you won't be as alone in your efforts as I was the first year.

Note: Be sure to read the comments as more experienced beekeepers have already written some about what I have posted....and they are (probably not older) but certainly wiser than I am.

At this time of year, most new beekeepers are crossing their fingers and ordering their initial equipment. To have bees, if you are going to use Langstroth hives as most of us do, then most new beekeepers order hive boxes. These are wooden and come in pieces for you to put together. (Note: some boxes are Styrofoam and others can be ordered already assembled...for a price.)

Some of the catalog companies send nails with the hive boxes. I have a ton of left over nails, enough to fill a 9 inch cake pan. Since I am moving to all medium boxes, I am screwing my boxes together in order to be able to take them apart if something gets broken.

If it looks like I am doing this assembly in my living room, it's because I am. I like to put these things together in front of the TV. What's really boring is building frames - that I definitely do in front of the TV!


Step One in hive box construction:
Make sure the cut-in handle is facing the same direction on each box part. In this medium box from Brushy Mountain (I think - I've had it since last year) you can't put the box together wrong, but in some box sizes and from some companies, the notches are exactly the same either direction and it's possible to turn one side so that the handle is upside down. A comment (see below) also notes that it doesn't work if you have the handles on the inside of the box, so also make sure that you have the handles facing to the outside of the box!


Step Two: I use a rubber mallet to hammer the notches in place before I permanently attach them. These boxes fit quite tightly and need the mallet to fit together. The boxes I ordered from Dadant fit together with more ease.

At this point most people (see comments on this post) put glue in the joints. I haven't been doing that and will probably regret it, although since I screw my boxes together, I expect them to stay more securely than if I nailed them.


Step Three: Make sure you have the box notched together properly and the handles are all facing the same direction.


Step Four: Nail or screw the box together. My daddy taught me to lubricate the screw with soap. You can also use beeswax for this purpose. Whether you nail or screw, I go around and do one fastener (nail or screw) in each corner, rather than screwing all of them in at once on one side. I don't know if that is good construction or just what I do. It seems to make sense to put it together in a balanced way.

Then you are done and you paint the box. I used interior paint on all of my boxes and they've held up just fine, but ideally you will use exterior paint to help your box last longer. You only paint the outside of the box - not the inside and not the rail inside for hanging the frames - simply paint the outside four sides of the box.

I'll post another beginner help post in the next day or two...maybe how to build a frame with a word or two about foundation.