When purchasing package honeybees it is a smart idea to feed them. Why? Think about it, the honeybees are moved into a brand new home after traveling in many cases a long distance. With package bees, they don’t have any suitable honeycomb stored.

From what I’ve been reading, it’s a good idea to assist them until they start actively going out and collecting nectar on their own.  As a beekeeper, I  will feed the new honeybees until they have plenty of honey stores for the winter months. What’s sad, is that some beekeepers get a bit greedy and take  too much honey which means their bees starve during the winter.

The past few years, our Maryland winters have been unpredictable. Some days it’s been cold and other days unseasonably warm. From what I’ve been reading, Honeybees do not travel outside their hive when it gets too cold.

Yesterday, I purchased the Hive top bar feeder. This will be my only feeder purchase next time I’ll make my own. I’ll also be making my own Honeybee feast for my honeybees.  The recipe is simple a 1:1 mix of water and raw sugar.

A few days ago, I received an email from my honeybee supplier. Towards the end of May, I’ll have my honeybees!

I was thinking that I most likely wouldn’t see them until around that time and I was correct. To be honest, I’m a bit relieved since this means that I have more time to do more things before they arrive. The good news is, that my Warre honeybee hive will be here much before that time.  Who knows by the time my honeybee arrives, I might have some chickens too.

In other news…

It’s been a busy week for my daughter (and myself) around 6:00 p.m. this evening, we finally had a chance to relax. My daughters musical was earlier today and they all did an amazing job. The children knew their lines and song beautifully. They received a standing ovation for their performance.

Instead of purchasing the popular Langstroth hive, I’ve decided on the Warre hive. The past few weeks I’ve been doing my research and I really think that I’ll like the Warre and so I purchased my first Warre hive this morning.

My Warre Bee Hive will be similar to this, but my hive will have an observation window. Abbé Émile Warré (1867-1951) created the Warre hive, he was an apiarist and resources say he studied over 350 different hive systems before he created his own, the Warre hive aka  The People’s Hive. There was a great podcast over on Pargamatic Beekeeping that talked about top bar hives yet another great resource that helped me decide to purchase a Warre hive.

I’ve known about Warre hives for several years, but I was a bit unsure about using them since there wasn’t as much information about them as the Langstroth hives. I like that the Warre hives are smaller and they’re designed so the beekeeper doesn’t have to be in them as much. Which is perfect for me, since I want to stay out of the honeybees way… letting them do their own thing with little interaction from myself. I simply don’t want to constantly be barging in on their bee space. Checking the place where I ordered my package bees, I might not receive my honeybees until later in May… and that’s fine with me. I’ve waited years to finally get around to purchasing my own hives, a few more weeks won’t hurt.

Honey is at the bottom of my list on why I want honeybees

As I’ve mentioned many times my main reason for getting honeybees isn’t for honey, I want to include them in our yard because they’re great pollinators and I’d love to see more honeybees in our area. Over the past several years,  because of the dwindling honeybee population (also called Colony Collapse Disorder) I haven’t seen as many of one of my favorite insects until last year… Last year, I started seeing more honeybees not at the same level before I noticed a decline, but it sure was nice to see more around the house.

While some people view honeybees as pests, I know without them the some of the food that we depend upon to survive wouldn’t be available.