In Fall 2012, I pulled some old beehive boxes out of the barn. The boxes once belonged to the family who lived there through the entire last half of the 20th Century and sat unused and unmoved for years.
I wanted to fix them up and put them back into use again so I took them apart and hosed them off. I didn't know the first thing about beekeeping, was totally unfamiliar with the equipment; clueless as to what went together, or if anything was missing, or too damaged to restore. But I kept envisioning them filled with bees and honey so I decided to give them a polish.
They were filled with mouse nests, dirt daubers, old grimy honeycomb, wax moth divots, cobwebs
and everything else that crawled through them over the last decade or
two as they sat dormant, weathering the sweltering and
freezing temperatures through the seasons while the hill country dust found its way through their cracks for God knows how long!
The bee boxes looked pretty grimy. I chiseled off the ancient comb and gunk, raked it into a pile and torched it. The gunk burned for hours.
After a cursory scrub, I sent pictures to a beekeeper asking if they were shot. He said he thought they looked OK and invited me to sit in on the Williamson County Area Beekeepers Association's next meeting. It turned out he was the vice president and I ended up joining the group.
So I went to work refurbishing the hives in our garage back in Austin. That involved a lot of sandpaper, scraping, scrubbing, nailing, gluing, painting, blow-torching, and beer. Care had to be taken to try to kill any lingering traces of spores, pests, or disease without compromising the natural wooden interior of the boxes with chemicals or pesticides that could be just as lethal to the bees.
These two taller boxes are of a long lost style, as harvesting honey from them requires that you basically destroy the hive and force the bees to either abscond or rebuild. I don't know what I'm going to do with them yet but plan on restoring them later on this year. I think I'll save them for catching wild swarms and "domesticating" them as pollinators.
The other pieces are Langstroth hives. They're the most common style that utilize removable frames and precise space allotments that are universal in size and have remained, structurally, mostly unchanged since the late 1800s. The person who built these was familiar with those common dimensions so the contemporary equipment that I needed to add or replace would still fit.
I was glad Jessica didn't mind the constant mess on our garage floor.
I worked on them through the winter and into Spring 2013. As I handled them I would try to imagine bees flying around my face while in close proximity. In the meantime, I studied up. My sister-in-law gave me the most helpful book in my library for Christmas: Beekeeping for Dummies (Hey, whaaa- she thinks I'm dumb?!) She gave us a couple of face veils too--thanks Allison!
This pic was taken right after the hive was completed. The side handles are pieces of the original frames that were too worn out to put back in. Other pieces of the frames were treated and customized for entrance reducers (small and large front doors for the bees). I used exterior latex paint that previous homeowners left in our attic and old kitchen cabinet knobs as top handholds. Up until now, I hadn't even spent any money yet, except on some special-order wood glue. I bought new frames and a feeder, but salvaged everything else.
The finishing touch artwork was provided courtesy of Jessica and my cousin, Rachel.
Clearing a spot for the apiary. This little grove separates a hayfield from Rocky Creek and keeps the southwest wind off the hive. It's a perfect spot; the only concern being skunks... My buddy JD built the stand in his backyard workshop in Fort Worth. He made it just high enough for a skunk to have to reach up to try to rob the hive, which exposes its underbelly to stings. That's the only part where their fur is thin enough for the bees to sting them and chase them off.
I bought a bee colony through my club membership. The proprietor of Desert Creek Honey raised my bees in McKinney, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. In late April, Jess and I picked them up from a farm in Georgetown. Here's a shot of their flowers!
We were spending the weekend at Cloud Hollow so our dogs, Gracie and Bear, went along for the ride, with all of us squeezed into my hatchback. There were a few bees from the colony that traveled on the outside of the box inside the car. "Hobos", as we call them, always remain loyal to their queen tucked inside the box. They buzzed around the back windshield for the entire drive, but never got too far from her.
Back in business!
Within a day they were bringing in pollen and coming up the ridge to the vegetable garden.
With duty, hearsay, luck, and beer, may this hive thrive. Cheers!
My child, eat honey, for it is good, and the honeycomb is sweet to the taste. In the same way, wisdom is sweet to your soul. If you find it, you will have a bright future, and your hopes will not be cut off.
