Thursday, March 17, 2016

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!



2 comments:

Gorges Smythe said...

I believe I've read that the only colors that bees can see are blue, yellow, black and white.

HIBISCUS HOUSE said...

I love it! Beautiful colors and such talent in one family!