Beekeeping Overview

Beekeeping is a fairly detailed hobby. I just wanted to do an overview of what all a beekeeper does, and what is involved.

First of all beekeeping is such a passion of mine. Not a day goes by that I don't think about the bees. They are absolutely remarkable creatures. As you learn more about them and what goes on in the hive you will be amazed at how much they do in their little lives. During the summer a worker bee only lives about 40 days. They accomplish so much in their short lives it is amazing!! It really makes you think about "How much can I accomplish in 40 days! Much less 40 years!" The little bees really make me want to love, enjoy, and savor life!

Before the 1850's people use to keep bees in "skeps." These are what you see in a lot of pictures and cartoons of a beehive. They are woven baskets open end down, with a small hole for an exit/entrance. They were pretty inconvenient for both the bees and the keeper. In most cases destruction of the colony was the only way to extract the honey. In 1852 Reverend L.L. Langstroth patented the top bar bee hive, which is what most beekeepers use today. There have of course been a few small updates and modifications over the years, but it is the same concept as Langstroth. The basic idea that Langstroth discovered and implemented is the removable frames, which enables the beekeeper to remove parts of the hive without destroying the colony.

As a beekeeper the basic components of a hive are:

1. Hive stand: I usually use two concrete blocks, just something to keep it off the ground. They sell hive stands, but I don't want to spend the money.

2. Bottom Board

3. Two hive bodies: these are deep boxes. They can hold 8 or 10 frames, I use 10 frame hive bodies. You will need two of these boxes on each hive. These deep boxes can also be called the brood chambers. This is where your queen will lay her eggs, and workers will begin producing honey. These boxes always stay on your hive. This is the nucleus of the hive, the honey they store in the brood chambers is what keeps them alive through the winter. This is their home. So don't take it away from them!

4. Supers: This is the fun part! This is your part of the hive! These are just like the hive bodies but shorter. This is the part of the hive you use for yourself to extract honey and beeswax from. These also hold 8 or 10 frames, I do 10. These always go on top of your hive bodies. Once your hive bodies get filled with larvae and honey, you add a super, once that super gets close to completely filled with honey, you add another super. The more supers the better, this means more harvest for you!

5. Inner Cover

6. Outer Cover

That is what makes up a hive. For a list of basic equipment you need to get started click here. 

The frames are not included when you purchase your boxes.

Also, there is a crazy amount of different types of foundation, which is a guide you place in your frames to help the bees know where to draw honeycomb. The thing about this is, it's pretty expensive, and almost completely unnecessary. Honey bees out in the wild draw comb perfectly fine and they don't have a chemically infested man made comb telling them what to do. It may speed up the comb-drawing process a few days, but this year my supers are going to be foundationless. We will see how this goes!! I will do a post about that soon!

Once you choose your equipment it is time to order your bees and your queen. I would try to find someone local to purchase your bees from. Your bees and equipment do not have to come from the same place. Local bees arrive a little better I think, because they don't have to go through the post office, you will go pick them up at the supplier. A lot of companies have parties on bee pickup day. At my supplier we have a huge pancake breakfast and get our bees. I always buy Italian bees, they are very docile bees and good honey producers. They have begun offering Russian bees. I am thinking I will try them on a few hives in 2014.

Hive components need to be purchased now, so do your bees. Do not wait till April when it is time install your bee package. Order right now! They sell out very quickly!

Right now is the time to get your equipment ordered, assembled, and ready to go. Where I live we install bees in April, this is different depending on where you live. People further south get to put theirs in earlier because it is warmer. People up north have to wait longer.

I will do a step by step how-to's on how to do everything you will need to do throughout the year. But this is basically what your are going to do. You will install your bees into their hive, let them build up their colony in the brood chambers, until you have two full hive bodies. Begin adding supers and hopefully do a spring harvest. Summertime is the big honey flow, and at the end of the summer you will hopefully do another harvest. I say hopefully because hives are very unpredictable. There are a number of things that can go wrong; pests, diseases, absconding, swarms, or just a bad summer with not very good honey flow. In the fall we will prep our hives for the winter, the bees will form a cluster and eat off the honey in the hive bodies all winter. In the spring we start all over again, except without the new packages.

I am really excited to share my beekeeping knowledge with my viewers, and I can't wait to hear from you all and find out where you are with your bees! As always if you have any questions, comments, worries, or ideas comment below or you can email me at whatcanimakeoutofthis@gmail.com

Mail Center

Mail seems to be a struggle that most households face. The root of many peoples organization problems lies in their mail, whether they realize that or not. It comes in everyday and piles up. It might pile up in the car, on the kitchen counter, or on a desk in your home office. Where ever your piles form, they don't belong, and cause clutter and stress.

Unfortunately a lot of the mail that comes in daily is junk and needs to be thrown away, and important documents get lost in the confusion. Many times these important documents get shoved in a drawer when cleaning the house, or get lost from being spread all over the house and car in different piles.

This is where a mail center comes in handy, and I will explain my mail "process" to you. Let me start by saying do not check your mail when you are leaving home! When you check it on the way out your daily pile ends up in your car. This causes clutter in your car and can be forgotten which results in forgotten bills, unseen invitations, and missing out on great coupons!! Always check your mail when you are going inside, and sort it on your way in. Don't leave it on the kitchen counter to deal with later, sort it now. My mail center is right beside my garage door that leads inside, so I can sort my mail on my way in. It never even makes it into the house!

Your mail center can consist of whatever you see necessary, and what ever supplies you already have. I happened to have an extra dry erase board and file holders, so that is what I used. Get creative and try to use things you already have!

I used command strips to attach my three file bins to my marker board. This is very convenient because I can write notes on the board and also use magnets to attach papers.

Every batch of mail that comes to my house falls into 1 of 4 categories:

Garbage - I keep a trash can below the mail center to go ahead and throw away junk
Read Later - Magazines, catalogs, etc.
Actionable Items - Bills, invitations, things that need to be filed, etc
Discounts - Coupons, deals, flyers, etc.

I printed labels to mark each bin...

About once a week I go through the mail center and take care of all the "Actionable Items" and weed out all the "discounts" and "read later" items. The discounts bin is the bottom one, closest to me, so that on my way to the car to go shopping I can check for coupons and deals.

A mail center should be made to help you, so personalize it depending on your life and your needs!

Organizing the Utility Closet

I am very proud to say that I spent an entire day re-organizing my utility closet and den. I become giddy at even the thought of organizing! I honestly have so much fun taking a mess and turning it into something clean and functional. I believe that in a home there should be a place for everything, and if there isn't room for it, it needs to go. (Easier said than done,)

I think the new year is a great time to start going through your home and life, and cleaning things up. Getting rid of the things you don't need and organizing the things you do.

Our utility closet was pretty awful, and pretty useless. We kept our kitty litter box in there and that is about it. My vacuum didn't really have a home, it would just get shoved in whatever room people wouldn't see when they came over. My mop, broom, and duster was kept in the garage and the refills were kept in the laundry room. So we had cleaning supplies scattered all throughout the house.

After ditching the litter box, I hung a shower rack we already had on one door, to hold various bottles, the duster, a small dustpan and broom, etc.

Moving out the litter box made room for the vacuum, swiffer, and broom. 

On the opposite door, I wanted more storage. The hubs was about to order me a $30 rack from Amazon to do the job, but then I found (while cleaning out another room) this fabric rack my sister gave me in high school, that I hadn't been using. I am so happy I found this and saved my $30! 

In this I can store my rubber gloves, mop refills, duster refills, sweeper refills, and light bulbs! I cut out the names of each refill from the boxes and slid them into the label slots.

My entire project cost me nothing! I just used things I already had lying around. When you get to cleaning your house, it's amazing the things you find that you forgot you had. What kind of spaces can you make more functional using things already in your home?