Our Bee Yard
A look inside the hive...
In the wild, bees will usually build their hive inside trees, or other hollow, protected spaces. They build their combs in vertical sheets which hang down in parallel rows. In order to make accessing the hive easy for the beekeeper and relatively undisturbing to the bees, modern beehives use removable frames for the bees to build their combs in. As you can see in the photo above, the frames can be lifted out of the hive for inspection or honey harvest.
Most beekeepers use "foundation," wax sheets with ahoneycomb pattern imprinted that make it easy for the bees to start building neat, sturdy combs. The bees will also fill frames with comb without any foundation, as shown with the frame in the photo above. This is a "Langstroth hive," the standard modern beehive, which consists of stackable wooden boxes that each hold ten frames of comb.
As the bees produce honey during the spring and summer, the beekeeper will add more hive boxes, or "supers," on top of the hive; the bees will travel upward and fill the frames with honey. This is a hive in July, ready for harvest!
Beehives are traditionally painted white to reflect heat, but you can paint them any color you like, especially in cooler climates like ours. In fact, color may be one of the factors that help bees find their own hive when flying home. So, if you have multiple hives, you might consider painting them in different color combinations, like these hives we saw in Crete, Greece. The bees don't seem to mind the bright colors; with that many hives all in a row, they probably appreciate the help in distinguishing between them!
When the hive gets a little too crowded, it's time to swarm. The bees will raise a new queen, and the old queen will leave the hive with a portion of the bees to set out in search for a new home. We were lucky enough to see a swarm in action last summer — it's a bizarre sight to watch a giant cloud of buzzing bees slowly move through the treetops, drifting along by some strange group sense of direction! The bees only have one thing on their mind — moving — so they are virtually oblivious to anyone nearby. You can stand in the middle of the cloud, watching them buzz about your head, without fear of being stung (but, of course, use caution and pay attention to what the bees are telling you. If they seem antsy or start bumping into you, move away!) The swarm settled on an oak branch for a while:
...but then, with the same strange slow decision, they moved to an empty hive box we had placed nearby. How convenient! After coalescing over the hive, the troupe of bees walked right into the entrance as if they owned the place. Well, now they do!
OK, on to the honey:
If you have only a few hives, you can extract all your honey by hand. (For larger amounts, you'll want to use a mechanical extractor.) Scrape the wax and honey from the frame, then pour it into a clean stocking or mesh bag and hang it over a jar to drain. You can then use the wax for making candles.
