Dude, We Bought a Hive!

Here is a photo of the Roommate, who had just finished putting together a hive.  It's a Warré hive, and we got it from BeeThinking, but they sell all 3 types of hives.  Warré beekeepers will tell you that it's a better hive because it lets bees build comb & stores the way they want to, but really we chose this one because it's made of 1" thick cedar & it's pretty!  Oh, and those are little windows you can see on each of 2 of the hive boxes.  (So, pretty-ness & snoopy-ness won out!)  

We have been trying to prepare our backyard to have plenty of blooming flowers for our new tenants.  I've been using Wildflower.org (The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center) because you can search their database of native plants by state, height, bloom time, bloom color, plant type, etc.  So I wanted stuff that blooms later (after July/August), because that's when bees start running out of food & unfortunately it's when bees need it most, because they are trying to make enough stores for the winter.  

I also did some searching for bulbs that bees like on the open web (because I planted lots of bulbs this past year).

We have also begun construction on our insect hotel. It will be especially hospitable to Mason bees (more about them here); my big worry is having enough flowers around to keep them all fed.  

If you'd like to know more about natural beekeeping, see The Practical Beekeeper. 

If you want to know about modifying Warré hives, so they have standard size combs, check out BioBees.  They also provide a link to the full-text PDF of Warré's tome on his style of beekeeping.  

We have ordered our 3 lb. package of bees (about 20,000!) from Virginia Beekeeping Supply, but they won't arrive until late March.  We also recommend the class we took from Jerry at VBS.  However, it won't be his fault if it all comes to naught. Follow this blog to see what happens next!