Brand new to beekeeping here.
We got our first hive about 4 weeks ago. It was a single 10 frame deep with screened bottom. We let them settle for 2 weeks without disturbing them, and when we inspected, they had 8 frames full and were drawing comb on the outer 2 !!. We are fortunate in that Dadant has a warehouse about 5 miles from us so we obtained a 2nd 10 frame deep and a medium super. We will be inspecting the 2nd deep this coming weekend (2 weeks since putting it on) and based on the hive activity we are expecting it to be well drawn and populated. We are very excited that the hive is doing so well. When I was a kid there were bees everywhere but for the last decade or so I hardly ever saw them, then we started hearing about CCD once it made the news. We are out in a rural area with the Santa Fe river about 2 miles from us and several springs within 4-5 miles or so from our location.
I guess my only real concern here is whether or not to use the queen excluder between the upper deep and the super, still reading what others have to say about that and it seems to be quite a controversial issue.
I have been reading and watching as many videos as time allows and am very happy to have found beesource and it's wealth of information and wonderful members. We have ordered a 2nd hive and hopefully it will be ready to pick in 2 weeks. It's a great feeling to know we are helping the bee situation and that we get to learn more about how fascinating they truly are. I don't know why I didn't do this sooner.
Joe
We got our first hive about 4 weeks ago. It was a single 10 frame deep with screened bottom. We let them settle for 2 weeks without disturbing them, and when we inspected, they had 8 frames full and were drawing comb on the outer 2 !!. We are fortunate in that Dadant has a warehouse about 5 miles from us so we obtained a 2nd 10 frame deep and a medium super. We will be inspecting the 2nd deep this coming weekend (2 weeks since putting it on) and based on the hive activity we are expecting it to be well drawn and populated. We are very excited that the hive is doing so well. When I was a kid there were bees everywhere but for the last decade or so I hardly ever saw them, then we started hearing about CCD once it made the news. We are out in a rural area with the Santa Fe river about 2 miles from us and several springs within 4-5 miles or so from our location.
I guess my only real concern here is whether or not to use the queen excluder between the upper deep and the super, still reading what others have to say about that and it seems to be quite a controversial issue.
I have been reading and watching as many videos as time allows and am very happy to have found beesource and it's wealth of information and wonderful members. We have ordered a 2nd hive and hopefully it will be ready to pick in 2 weeks. It's a great feeling to know we are helping the bee situation and that we get to learn more about how fascinating they truly are. I don't know why I didn't do this sooner.
Joe
Thanks for saying hi !
