Honeybees in Our First DIY Top Bar Hive

We have talked about getting involved with beekeeping ever since we got our place. It helps pollinate our garden as well as some new fruit trees. We found an apiary about an hour away so we ordered a box of bees. The pickup date on the bees was March 25th, but we had a cold snap that kept us from installing the bees for a few days. It is pretty interesting to go to sleep in a small cabin with 10,000 bees! The bees are now installed and doing fine. The video at the bottom of the post was taken just a few days after they were introduced into the hive.

This is our first experience in beekeeping. We decided to build a Top Bar Hive instead of the more common Langstroth hive. The ground was leveled and the hive is very close to a water source. The entrance is facing south.

Bees were ordered months ago and our pickup date was looming, but we had no bee hive. The internet to the rescue. There are free plans to build your own Top Bar Hive available from www.biobees.com.

Sarah is holding the box of bees while I'm spraying down the inside of the hive with sugar water..."bee juice" as we call it.

The queen is in her own little cage with a few attendants. The cork is removed from one end and the cage is hung from one of the top bars.

The bees are being dumped into the hive. Then all the top bars are put on as well as the roof.

There were still some bees in the box afterwards, so I propped the box up right next to the entrance and the remaining bees walked right into their home.