Bees

When I got into beekeeping, I learned a lot through trial and error. Although I came across many great tips via courses, books, and online groups, there were some things that I really needed to either see firsthand or, ideally, have someone beat me over the head repeatedly until I understood the implications inside and out.

So in this one, I thought it would be fun to focus on that latter point, particularly, what should new beekeepers should be aware of.

This one is not so much a list of casual observations that new beekeepers should know, but rather must know details that I wish I would've known inside and out when getting started. Overlooking some of these details can really make your beekeeping journey far more difficult!

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When your beehives are filling their supers with honey, it is time to get ready for a possible harvest. 

While you have to wait for the honey to be cured and capped to ensure it is below safe moisture levels (you can check this with a refractometer, if you are so inclined), you would do well to plan your method of honey extraction ahead of time to be prepared for when the day comes.

As it turns out, there are two popular methods for harvesting honey- the crush and strain method and using an extractor.

After trying both, we thought we'd share a bit about each method, and why buying a honey extractor would be the way to go if you can justify it. This one comes with some seriously caveats for home apiaries!

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In my third year of beekeeping, I thought I was set for a good harvest in early summer. 

Two of my bee hives were entering year three. The other two were entering year two. Most of the brood chambers were fully loaded with larva and honey, and my empty supers were on and ready to be drawn and filled out. My mistakes from the previous year seemed to correct themselves and we were in a good position to start the year strong.

I let the bees alone for a bit of time during the nectar flow, came back to check on them later, and I had a problem- the bees were not touching my supers!

As it turns out, this is a common problem, and there are many reasons (and potential solutions) for why your bees are not drawing out supers. So let's talk about what we tried to get them into the chamber we harvest honey from!

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When we first got into beekeeping, we knew it would be a multi-year effort before we got an appreciable harvest.

There are many reasons for this, including it taking a while for beehives to grow their populations, draw out comb, and save enough honey stores for winter- not to mention all of the issues that we, as beekeepers, may bring to the table (killing a queen, anyone?). Getting to the point of having a healthy colony with enough honey reserves to take the excess from could take two or three seasons at the best of times.

All of these are highly variable elements. Your bees may draw out combs quickly in year one, but they may be slow in year two. You may not kill a queen in year one, but you may kill two in year three. The issues that plague beehives do not follow a set schedule and could rear their ugly head at any time in your beekeeping journey.

To showcase this, we thought we would start a running log of our beekeeping journey year-by-year- what happened, what issues we ran into, what we did to fix them (if applicable), and what happened after. Many of the the issues we've seen in our hives have been minor, such that we wont be writing long articles on them in the slightest, but felt like this running log would give a good glimpse into the yearly variations and issues we've had all the same.

As we update this article with each passing season, be sure to check back as we update our progress!

Current Status: Beginning year three. We have two hives in winter hibernation that will be split to our max zoned rating of four hives in the spring.

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We have loved getting into beekeeping as a hobby for the reward of getting a honey harvest in the season and maintaining a colony of pollinators in our local ecosystem. 

One tip you'll see come up time and time again is that those looking into keeping bee hives should start with at least two hives. As this is a crucial tip that can determine whether your hive(s) succeed or fail, we wanted to go more into why it is necessary in this one.

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Beekeeping is one of my favorite hobbies at home. It is a relaxing activity, great for maintaining pollinators (although some argue this), and nothing beats locally cultivated honey!

Unlike other gardening and farming activities (bees are livestock, after all), you typically do not need a massive plot of land to reap the reward of starting a beehive or three.

Yes, local zoning laws in cities may change this, but since bees fly several miles a day in search of nectar and return it to their compact space of a hive, getting into beekeeping can be incredibly easy.

So if you are looking into setting up an apiary, we thought we would share a breakdown of all of the beekeeping equipment you need to purchase, as well as others you may want to purchase.

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If your beehive is growing and showing signs of swarming, or perhaps you want to grow your apiary and turn one hive into two, it is time to make a beehive split. 

While there are many ways to deal with swarm management and split hives, we love the easy walkway split method as it is simple, has a fair bit of success, and requires minimal intervention on our part.

So in this one, we thought we'd tackle what a split is, why you may want to do it, and why you may have to do it.

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Before getting bees, I read just about everything I could on the hobby to make sure it was something I wanted to get into due to its high starting costs.

One question I saw come up again and again was what to do if you are allergic to bees. The advice often runs the spectrum from “that is a really bad idea” to “I'm allergic and have never been stung” and everything in between. But as people with their own allergies, some on the riskier side, we have a simple answer to this question- no, you should not keep bees.

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As we wind down our first year of having beehives at our house, I have to admit that I learned a lot- way more than I originally thought I would, if I am to be honest.

I made mistakes (plenty of them). I made some strides. I even got a little bit of a honey harvest out of one overly productive hive.

So while we are busy prepping for winter hibernation, I thought I'd take some time to look back on some of the biggest lessons learned in my first year beekeeping for others who are thinking of getting into it.

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When we decided to launch this homesteading project of ours, our main goal was to be as self-sufficient as possible with our little plot of land in the city. 

A secondary goal of ours was to try and offset spending that we had for items, particularly around food, that we could grow/make/ferment ourselves as opposed to buying at local markets and stores.

As such, we always love to take a look at how much value our purchases bring to the table, and if we find something that could pay itself off in short order (read: months, not years), we know we have to buy it for our property as soon as possible.

But when it comes to my drive to get into beekeeping, the analysis became tricky. So in this one, we thought we'd share the numbers on how long it takes a beehive to pay itself off, but then jump into an even deeper analysis about why a hive may never actually do that at all!

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