Vintage Home and Farm

As you may recall, last Saturday we installed our honey bees into their new hives ( click to see the previous blog article ). We are new beekeepers and so this was the first time we had ever attempted to do such a thing.  We had quite an experience with bees buzzing around our heads.  The video of the bee install has been uploaded to our YouTube channel, and so it's time to share it with you all.   The video is unedited. That means you get to see exactly how it went for a complete hive install with nothing cut out. Despite a bit of fumbling and a few swear words (sorry about that), we managed to keep our cool. There were numerous moments when we had to improvise.  All three of us wore hooded bee jackets and the two of us working with the bees also wore gloves.  It was misty out which is why the umbrella shows up in the footage a couple times.  We're grateful to our daughter for being brave and filming for us!  The video ends before we get to the s...

Yay, our bees arrived today! Despite our cool weather and misty rain, we went ahead and installed the 20,000 Italian honey bees into their two hives.  As first-time beekeepers, let me tell you it was a daunting task that took considerable gumption. Especially when hundreds of honeybees were flying all around and crawling all over us. I was glad we were wearing hooded bee jackets and gloves.  Our daughter joined us and took a couple photos from a safe distance away. Until taking a class, I had no idea what was involved in installing a package of bees.  Once we had everything in both hives put together and ready to go, we installed the bees one package at a time.  We followed the step-by-step instructions that were provided to us by the SnoKing Beekeepers Association.   We were relieved to see that both our queens were alive and well.  Despite being a bit nervous about the bees that were crawling all over our jackets, we worked carefully and deliberately...

We're making progress toward becoming first-time beekeepers. Our amazing dad Richard (my father-in-law) gave us the start we needed by building two well-constructed Langstroth beehives, which we picked up a couple weeks ago.  Since then, we finished painting both hives and are ready to get them set up.  Below is the second hive exterior drying in the sun with it's final coat of paint applied. The sturdy hives will soon have thousands of bees buzzing in them.  We are so grateful to our dad for building the two hives for us. We learned that only the exterior of the hives should be painted in order to protect the wood from the elements.  A low VOC exterior paint (VOC of 50 or lower) is recommended for painting a hive, which I was finally able to find at the Sherwin-Williams in Sequim.  We painted the hives white and we're thinking about painting a few flowers as decoration on the exterior as well. Our beekeeping supplies recently arrived from Mann Lake .  We t...