you will need a sugar feeder right away. when you hive the package, the bees will be without any food supplies nor any honeycomb. they have a lot of work to do rigth away, and you need to provide them with food until they get the hive set up.

as soon as you hive the package and put on the supers, put the sugar feeder on top of the super. drizzle a little of the sugar syrup down into the supers so the bees can follow it up to the feeder.

there are many styles of sugar feeders, and i’ve found you will get some drowned bees in your feeder. ( bees can’t swim )
When you are pouring the syrup into the feeder, you will get some bees flying around you and some may land in the syrup. lift them out with your hive tool.

the top mount sugar feeders with wood floaters in them work best, i’ve found. i don’t have these kind, and i get drowned bees when i use the feeder.

for honey extraction, we borrow an extractor from a beekeeper in a nearby town. you’ll only use this a few times a year, and if a neighbor already has one, ask. its proper to return the extractor cleaned, and with a jar of your honey.

love that one.

we just finished our first year of beekeeping, and here’s what i’ve learned:

• the hand crafted hive parts are not necessary. all my woodenware is from a supplier and it is all good and works well. the bees will use propolis to seal up any gaps they dont like, and they will use it to coat all sorts of stuff inside the hive. i think the most important thing is to paint them well. don’t paint the insides of the hive bodies.

• the assembly of all this is easy, it just takes time. a nail gun or brad nailer is handy.

• you don’t need the heavy duty gloves. I use those blue nitrile gloves, they allow you to have much better feel, and i have not been stung thru the gloves. car mechanics use these gloves. a friend of mine has those big gloves, and after he worked with me once and saw the blue gloves, he now uses them.

• instead of a separate veil and coveralls, i’d suggest a veil jacket combo, and the round veils have better visibility, no blind spots.

• for people who want to come watch, i have a few simple mosquito veils you can buy at camping stores. this allows people to stand right at the hive and watch. the visitors need to wear long sleeve shirts and tuck their pants into their socks, just like i do when i work the hive. Your visitors, or family are not going to get stung unless they do something to aggravate the bees, like step on them. ( i have done this )

• i use all medium supers, or hive bodies, which are the 6 5/8 height ones. The regular supers, or hive bodies, are real heavy when they are full of bees, pollen, brood, and honey. I have a back injury, and even the mediums, when full of honey are quite heavy.
for the brood, i use 3 medium supers in place of the 2 large supers.

• plastic frame foundation is one of those things that people have many opinions about. I use wax foundation for the brood supers, and plastic foundation for the honey supers. This system has worked well.

• i suggest a screened bottom board with a wood slide that can be put under the screen, this allows mite counts and allows you to close up the hive in winter. You want some air flow, but the wood slide will allow that.

just my 2 cents here, others will have completely different thoughts.. thx, eric.