Preparing for Bees

In addition to our aquaponic grow system our other big spring project is starting to take shape. We're putting the "Honey" into Honey Locust Home this year with a new hive of honey bees. Bees play a key role in our permaculture based homestead including pollination of our plants. In addition to the production of our own healthy raw honey, we hope to produce some of our own bees-wax which is an important ingredient in many Honey Locust Home products.

Beekeeping Class

I have been fearful to jump into beekeeping over concerns of not having enough knowledge and support. Working with our local beekeeping organization (Montgomery County Beekeepers Association #montcobees) my fears have been put to rest by the great folks I have met through their 1st Year Beekeepers Course. Backyard beekeepers play an important role in keeping a number of colonies healthy in many areas while we see higher and higher numbers of colonies in collapse.

Preparing for bees

Our nuc of bees will be arriving in May, and we are busy putting our Honey Locust Home touches on our new hive boxes. Our beekeeping club has a great service they offer to new beekeepers in hot wax dipping untreated wooden hive boxes. This practice, while not common in the United States, is said to protect hive boxes from the brutal elements for as many as 20 - 30 years (much longer than painted boxes). Branding was mentioned as a natural method of decorating or making boxes identifiable. I thought about items I had around the homestead but came up short with anything that would work.I stopped at a local salvage shop hoping to find a decorative piece of metal to use as a brand when I spotted this old steel grate. It looked to be close in size to the side of a hive box and seemed to be thick enough to work as a branding iron. I think it may have been an old radiator grate. I bought it and gave it a shot. Thanks to the helpful folks at the salvage shop. 

I cleaned up the grate a little with a wire brush. The video below shows how I managed to heat the grate. Next time I plan to build the fire outside to avoid running through the house with a red-hot chunk of metal.

I wiped all the boxes with water to remove the charred wood and leave a smoother finish. 

Once dry it was off to the club's wax dipping event. I have noticed, not surprisingly, that some of the nicest people are beekeepers. A great afternoon was spent dipping hive boxes in two hundred and forty degree wax. The freshly dipped hive boxes looked pretty cool.We hope this is a good start to our beekeeping project and we will keep you updated along the way.-

Josh