Beeman's Beehut

Well, when it comes to the winter time you must think about making your purchase of bees before January.  Most Package bee suppliers want your orders in by Dec 30 to ensure who gets a package and who doesn’t.  For me personally I’ve decided to order Russian Breed of honey bee from Waldo Ohio Apiaries.  The price of a 3lb package of bees goes for about $85.  I’ve decided to order three packages from this bee breeder.

Why did I order Russian bees. Well, from what I hear is that they are mite resistant.  They come from an area of the world in Russia where mites have almost always been and so these bees have some traits which help them cope with the mites.  What does this mean for me, I hopefully don’t need to ever treat for mites with these bees, end result is I save money.  Another thing I’d like to add about the Russians is I found a beekeeper out on the web who already has some Russians and he said “the Russian bees have a different personality compared to the Italians”.  He meant that what the bees do is start rearing brood earlier in the spring/late winter.  They seem more active, which could be dangerous to the colony as far as how much honey the bees have stored up in a season where there isn’t any flowers.

In preparation for spring there are a few minor beekeeping things that must be done.  One of which is building of the beehives and the frames.  You can find these items from beekeeping suppliers like Dadant and Sons or Betterbee .  They are pretty simple to put together, just need nails, hammer and some wood glue for extra strength.

I’m going to be making a video on how to assemble a bee hive in the near future here for everyone to see.