Painting the Hives

A Home for the Bees

My husband will be bringing the bees home from Des Moines, IA

 sometime around mid April so we are getting into high gear,

prepping the hives and clearing the new area by the garden.

These hives used to belong to our friends who are now

concentrating on meat goats and after a very cold

winter where the bees didn't make it through,

they gave the hives to us.  We've had them stored for

the past couple of years and now refurbishing them.

My husband added some depth to their entrance.

I scraped and cleaned the inside and outsides.

He tightened up the seams.

and torched the insides to remove anything that might

still be lingering.

I was the designated painter, which is fun but I'm not

the neatest painter in the world.  I got fired from 

painting my granddaughter's room at our house,

kicked out because my cutting in was not straight.

I don't think the bees will mind!  LOL

It was a very well thought out color scheme,

we based it on the theory of FREE.

Our recycling center accepts old paint for a slight charge

and if less than a gallon will give it away free.

This was apparently Kendall's room so I thought I might

hang a sign saying Kendall's Motel up in the garden.

My husband proceeded to burst my bubble by telling me

that the recycling company likely mixed paint into this.

Well, we will see.  I'll see if the label give me any more info.

If that is not the case, Kendall's room is very bright!

but it goes well with the deep periwinkle color that 

we got FREE for the bottom boxes.

Our garage was the workshop over the rainy, misty

weekend.  I'm so glad to get my parking space

back now too.  We will concentrate on the frames

now and replace what is too damaged to clean.

We have the gear selected- suits, veils, gloves and 

all the other equipment we need to get started.

We will also have a supply of EpiPens just in case.

I don't believe we are allergic but you never know

who might come over that doesn't realize they are.

The hives will be far from the house, behind the garden so no one 

should be inadvertently walking past them but we will make

sure the kids know to keep their distance and not to 

aggravate them by jumping and swatting at them.

Hopefully next year we will have honey!