Accidental Homesteader
…a funny thing happened on the way to the bar
Beekeeping at Night
So this was a big weekend at the farm. On Friday, I called WW Bees to see about the status of our hives, and he said we needed to pick up today. Um… okay.
So now we have bees.
We started by getting our supplies – way back at Christmas. We got The Beekeeper’s Bible first, to know what to do. First of all, you need to have two hives.
To be amateur beekeepers, you need:
- Four brooder boxes
- 40 deep frames
- Four supers
- 40 shallow frames
- Bee suit
- Bee jacket
- Gloves for everyone
- Hive tool
- Smoker and fuel
- Bee brush
- Log book
We bought the supers and the Husband built the brooders. We also bought frames for the brooders.
The Husband built them at MakeICT in their wood shop.
Then we painted the boxes.
We went with pastels because the Husband wanted soft colors. We used The Brookfield Farm blog to determine what colors to use.
Then we waited. We bought bees from WW Bee Farm in Wichita.
Friday, I got antsy and called them, and found out we needed to come now! So we drove in once we were done with work, and picked up our bees.
Um, yeah, that’s a whole lot of bees in the back of the Subaru. YIKES.
We decided to get the concrete blocks to raise the hives before we put them in. So we are now racing against (a) night and (b) a storm. As per usual.
We suit up – incorrectly as it turns out. 
Then we head out to install the bees by the light of the truck headlights and some headlamps. Yeah – bad idea.
We ended up not taking all of the precautions we should have and I got stung 5 times, and the Husband got stung once.
But they’re in, and they’re pretty.
We’ve successfully inspected them twice without incident, so we’re rigging better.
Accidental Homesteader 