Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Somethig Old , Something New

Late 1960's I started beekeeping, with the help of my Dads friend from work Mr. Bill Thompson. He was ready to retire from beekeeping as well as sheet metal work. And was looking to pass His bees to someone new. I ended up with all 6 of His hives and all of His bee equipment soon after.

He taught me all He new about bees at that time when beekeeping was much simpler. I kept bees until I went into the Coast Guard at eighteen. Now 32 years later I am returning to something that I truly love to do. While doing so I am teaching my friend Frank how to work with bees and my youngest Sons as well. Frank and I were talking one day about different things and I told him how I would like to keep bees again. About how much I enjoyed them and what it was like to work the hive all through out the year. And to prepare Him for the for sure bee stings that happen when working bees. We agreed to go to gather in this venture and commited to our first new hive equipment and Beekeeping gear. Then we purchased two 2lb packages of Italian bees and installed them Sunday the 19th of April 08. We are in conventional hive boxs now, Langstroth type with 8 frames per box. I have returned to my roots so to speak and started to make my own bee equipment as in the past. Two more brood box's and extra bottoms and soon honey box's. These box's are also refered to as supers, so from now on that is how I will call them. Here is the begining pictorial of our beekeeping adventure. I would like to note that we, Frank and I are also looking to start beekeeping in a most natural way. This way is refered to as TBH beekeeping or Top Bar Hive, frameless and foundationaless. Which really means You let the bees run the hive and You work with them not against them. So this will be a testamonial to this type beekeeping too. I have attached a link to the finest TBH bee forum, here on my blog in two places. So if Your interested come on and check it out, I am sure You will bee surprized at what you'll learn. ChainDriveCharlie


I will edit and add more at a later date. cdc