Hives Deployed

After hours of meticulous painting and another few hours of artistic detail painting from my wife, the hives are complete!  I put a coat of primer and then two coats of paint on the outside of all the boxes, the bottom board and the telescoping cover.

My wife bought some stencils and put the flower and bee outlines on, filled them in with some color and finished it off with some dotted line bee trails.  I think she did a great job and the bees will have the best looking house in the neighborhood!!  Donchathink?

Before "empurtyment"

After

With the advice we received from our fellow beeks, we wanted to get the hives out early and empty.  The idea being that if any neighbor would react negatively they would probably do so as soon as they saw the hives.  It wouldn't prevent any issues but at least we might get an early warning of who might have concerns.  Well, we were hoping to have them out about a month early but I guess a week early is going to have to work.  I cut a strip of pine to exactly fit the entrance of each hive so no mice or other critters will get in before the bees arrive.

Speaking of bees arriving.......t minus 6 days and counting!!  April 19th is the day!  I still have a lot of work to do before they get here. 

Some of my tasks include:
  * Rototill the bee garden
  * build a bunch more frames
  * put starter strips in the remaining deep frames
  * melt the beeswax and paint it on the starter strips as well as the plastic Honey Super Cell frames
  * find a glass jar to use for a hive feeder (I have a top feeder for one hive but not the other)
  * buy some sugar so I can make some 1:1 syrup to feed the bees when they arrive