2023.05.27: Building Beehives
2023-05-27 23:37 by Ian
The first year of beekeeping went well. My mentor gave an encouraging analysis of the hive's performance, and told me I should have some extra hive boxen on hand. If I ever build a greenhouse onto the house, I will have built-in observation hives. But for now, a small array of prefab hives will do nicely.
My youngest son is very much like I was at his age. He always wants to put his hands into building things. So I set him to work building the hives.
Recently-acquired knowledge
- If the bees run out of space for storing honey, they will re-configure the entire hive for reproduction of the super-organism. They will start eating lots of honey to fuel the production of more bees, including new queens. Once the existing queen has done the prep-work, she will take a contingent of workers, and "swarm" to a new location. It is undesirable to allow this behavior to proceed uncontrolled.
- Wax is about eight times the metabolic cost of honey. So destruction of the sealed honey combs is undesirable if you don't specifically want the wax. If the honey can be extracted without ruining the comb structure, the bees will be able to generate honey much more quickly.
- Bees can be fed/watered with hive inserts.
- Royal Jelly tastes sour. Not a fan, although I can imagine other people liking the taste.
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