The "official" garden thread (Page 4)

I found some plans online and made the first half dozen deep boxes, but kind of burnt out on it...  hah

Ended up just buying the medium boxes. 

Ouch, if my wife found out our daughter was a co-conspirator in something like that I don't think I'd have a daughter anymore. 

LOL - I have to check my daughter's rooms to make sure they don't bring any home with them.

We actually did do foundation.  Frames are wired and we put wired wax foundation on.  You can see some of the wires on the bottom if you zoom in. 
We found it interesting that the bees chewed through the foundation all along the bottom.  Our guess was they did it for an easier path between the sides.  So far everything's staying together really well, but I can totally see it being a challenge in the heat if they weren't wired. 
We did buy plastic frames coated in wax for the honey supers on top though so they'd be more durable during the harvesting process.
The two hives that are rocking really filled out the first super and had capped brood on all 10 frames.  We just added the second super last weekend on two of the three.

We're getting rolling now.  The regular tomatoes will be crazy this week, and I have 70 or more cucumbers getting ready.  Peppers and cherry tomatoes are on the menu right now.  Pickled some banana peppers (and added some habanero in there to keep my kids slowed down LOL ) and grilled jalapeno poppers with our big meals through the entire holiday weekend. 

(harvest.jpg)

(peppers.jpg)

(peppers1.jpg)

How do you get them to grow with Bacon on them?  hah 

Our troubled hive made a new queen so they're back in business.  We were kind of shocked to see it, but the new one is rocking and rolling now. 

We miss bees.   My wife and I were talking last night and I told her about you guys and your hobby.  So, what's the time, effort and money to get a hive going?  I think I might give it a shot.......where do I start?

Probably the best place to start is buying the beekeeping for dummies book.

From there you can either buy or build your hives.  I started out building them, but when I compared the costs it was almost the same price as just buying them so we've been buying them since.  We get all our stuff from glorybee.com, but there's several other places to shop.

Timing wise, it's too late for this year, because you have to start the hive earlier enough to get them in shape to survive the winter.  That will give you plenty of time to plan for next season.
We bought the full bee suits, but since the first day I only wear the veil hat thing and am usually in t-shirt and shorts.  They're really dosile and I haven't been stung yet.  My wife still wears her full suit because she's a wimp.   
other than that you'll need to buy the boxes and frames.  We bought the wired frames and bought wax foundation to put in them. (all from glorybee).  For each hive you'll need two "deeps" and two "mediums" plus a base, inner cover, and outer cover.  I think total cost is maybe $200 per hive.  For the bees we bought them from a local place that orders them in every spring.  We did the Carniolin bees and I think they were $140 per package (1 queen and 2 lbs. of bees).
For harvesting in the fall you'll need to get some extra equipment as well, so you can spend a few hundred (or even thousands) there depending on how fancy you want to get.  We haven't bought that stuff yet. 

Good news though, once you get it all going they should just keep going year after year.  The only ongoing expense is buying some sugar to mix with water to feed them in the early spring and late fall. 

Recipe?

Roughly how many beers/bottled of wine does it take to get through that process?? 

Pulled this yesterday evening.....

(July1419.jpg)

Getting to the last of the tomatoes now..... but the good news is the fishing is picking up, put up 2 gallons of crappie fillets yesterday....and very soon the fall harvest of doves, ducks, geese, and deer will start.  It's a good life!!

(augtom.jpg)

(augfish.jpg)