Thursday, April 22, 2010

My house smells like sweet beeswax, pine and cedar. Latex paint too.

Arriving tomorrow:
2 packages of sweet tempered Italians!
Hives are assembled and ready, safety gear is good to go, site with good morning sun selected.


My beekeeping 101 class was last weekend. A 2 day class at Meadowbrook Farm in North Bend, through the Puget Sound Beekeepers Association. There is an apiary there and part of the class included a demonstration of installing a new package of bees. Just what I needed. I never really had any fear of the whole concept of being surrounded by the little darlings but I was a little intimidated by the whole concept of being responsible for them. I'm ready now. The class was just what I needed. Still a lot to learn.



One of my honey supers is not square. It is skewed by about 1/8 inch. I think this is the one I assembled with only half the nails (I ran out) and put them in later after the painting was done. Doesn't seem like a big deal and probably will be fine. 'Bee space' is very important in a hive, any less than 1/4 -3/8 inch they will fill with propolis and any more, they will fill with burr comb. But I've heard the spacing on the outside edges of the hive is not so important as in the center so I'm not going to rip my box apart and reassemble. I am, however, now the proud owner of a carpenter's square.

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