My Beekeeping History

A new Chapter in Beekeeping 

 

As I mentioned in a previous post, I kept bees with my father as a teenager, after my father passed away in 2011, my brother was selected as the Trustee of the estate. I have never had many conversations with my brother either before or after my father’s passing so, when I get a call out of the blue asking if I would come down to the farm to help him with something.

Evidently, to my surprise, I discovered that my father had continued to keep bees right up till his death, also a weird twist of irony my brother is highly allergic to bees (had that not been the case he never would have called me)

When I got there he reveled all this to me and asked if I would take the hives. Since he has been such a jerk about the whole estate situation, I had a few conditions. They were that I would be taking all the bee keeping equipment including the honey extractor also the cider press and the apple grinder.

Of course he agreed and I got to work.  I got up on the roof of one of the barns where my father had built some unique hive stands ( he was always very innovative) I checked them out and saw bees going in and out but since I didn’t have any protective suit I told my brother that I would have to  come back in a few days and come back with my truck and trailer and new hive bodies as they were in very bad ( see above Photos) conditions and I knew that I would have to transplant any surviving bees into new hive bodies The next week I came back but before I showed up at the farm I made a trip to Medford, OR ( a 4 hr. round trip) to get some new equipment I spent $500.00 on new hive bodies, supers, a new suit, gloves,  smoker, and other miscellaneous tools.

Once I got into the hives a major disappointment hit me. Both hives were dead and the bees I previously saw were bees robbing the left over honey stores. I rescued the remaining frames with honey and burned the rest. So sad. However, I got a good apple cider press out of the deal.  The other good news was now I was ready to start my own bee keeping operation. And as luck would have it, I was called in the following May to rescue a wayward swarm of bees. And I am still using the honey from that hive.

old hives on roof of barn from the ground.

Old Hives Vew from the doorway opening