Getting ready for new critters

A few months ago Inge and I came across something about bees and decided to research starting a beehive for Die Weide. We bought a book, "Keeping Bees and Making Honey" and found that we really enjoyed the idea of keeping bees to improve the productivity of our orchard and garden and to harvest enough honey for our use and to share with family and neighbors.

Upon further research we decided our first hive would be a Top Bar hive (TBH). Although it requires closer observation and maintenance than Langstrom hives, it allows one to observe the bees more closely and the construction of the hive is simpler and less expensive. So this weekend I bought a bunch of pine planks and built our Top Bar Hive.

As you can see I built the TBH with an observation port which will be covered except when we want to watch the bees in action. Speaking of observation, I have to say observing youtube videos is a wonderful way to learn about virtually any topic. Inge and I watched a lot of beekeeping videos during our research and have to say that one person in particular has some outstanding beekeeping videos. His user name is OutOfaBlueSky and his videos educate on topics as varied as trapping wild bees, to comb management, to hive construction, and of course beekeeping in general. And to top it off, he's from Austin, Texas which is where we live. I sent him email with an offer to buy him a cup of coffee - I hope he takes it up. If you have any interest or curiosity about beekeeping, here's his youtube main page:

learning beekeeping youtube link

It happened that I visited his page before final assembly and learned that in Central Texas the heat can cause comb failure in the standard TBH tall-narrow wedge design and he recommended making a shallower, wider TBH design. Fortunately I was at the assembly stage where I could incorporate those changes in my design.

Next week I need to finish the lid and the view-port cover and paint the exterior. Then we need to order the beekeeping equipment and see about getting some bees to install in the hive. Then we want to see a honeycomb covered in bees like this:

(Picture obtained from learningbeekeeping.com which is the web site for OutOfaBlueSky mentioned above.)