Honeybee_ Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper - C. Marina Marchese [20]
The entire setup rested on top of a hive stand, which was a bit more complicated to assemble because of the angles of the wood I needed to hammer together. The whole process of assembling my first hive and frames took almost five hours. Experienced beekeepers can do it in two.
Once the hive was completely assembled, I was ready to prime and paint it. I chose to paint my hive a carnelian-inspired red to harmonize with my red cottages. Only the wood on the outside of the hive needed painting. I used two coats of water-based acrylic and a clear, protective shellac for added protection. I left the hive entrance unpainted, as bees like it au natural.
STAGING THE APIARY
The next step was to choose a place in my yard for my new beehive. Location, location, location is important to the success of a hive. Mr. B advised me to situate the back of the hive facing north, so the colder winter winds would not blow directly into the entrance. A fence, hill, or row of trees could aid as a blockade. He also told me to find a place where the hive would get early morning sunlight, because then the hive would warm up more quickly, which would prompt the bees to get an early start foraging, and to avoid damp places where water accumulates, but to create a source of water for the bees to drink.
The entrance of a beehive is like a runway at an airport, and honeybees would be constantly flying in and out. I didn’t want visitors, children, or pets passing directly in front of their flight path, but it was also important to me to place my hive somewhere visible from a house window or two. It would be nice, I thought, to glance over and observe my bees while I was working or cooking. I settled on a spot just outside my kitchen window and toward the back of my yard. From where my honey shrine was situated, I could eat my honey and watch the bees that made it.
CHAPTER 5
My Queen and Her Subjects Arrive
Numerous bee farms around the country sell packages of honeybees, and each package contains a colony of 18,000 to 20,000 bees, including one queen. Some bee clubs will bundle orders together, so all their members can pick up their colonies at one location. Mr. B suggested I order my bees from an old friend of his in Georgia.
My first colony of Italian honeybees was delivered through the U.S. mail service on a Saturday in mid-May. The post office phoned that morning to let me know the bees had arrived and to beg me to please pick them up as soon as possible. When I arrived at the post office and hour or so later, I was asked to go around to the back door to retrieve my package so as not to alarm the other customers. When I told the clerk at the back of the building that I was there to pick up my bees, she jumped up and darted into the back room, yelling, “Loouie! They’re here to pick up their beeees!” Louie, her fellow employee, emerged from a back room wearing a pair of barbecue mitts and carrying my box of bees at arm’s length. He looked incredibly relieved to be handing them over to me. I accepted the wooden box, which looked like large shoe box with mesh screens on two sides. The bees could definitely be seen and heard through the screened sides. Day-Glo stickers were plastered all over the box, declaring “LIVE BEES, CAREFUL!” (I later peeled off one of these stickers and saved it as a memento.)
BOX FOR SHIPPING BEES
I carefully placed the box of bees in the hatch of my Jeep and sprayed them through the screen with a sugar-water