Building Unity Farm - 'B' School Begins

As I mentioned last week, my wife and I have enrolled in an evening Bee school to formalize the beekeeping knowledge that to date we've picked up from books and our early experiences with 8 hives at Unity Farm.It's been a hard winter in Massachusetts.   Over the past 24 hours, Unity Farm has had over a foot of wet, heavy snow.   We're waiting for a warm day to open the hives and check on the bees.   Although we've provided supplemental food and kept the hives dry, there is a high overwinter bee mortality in New England, with about 80% of colonies dying. The bee school will provide us with the best practices and a schedule to maximize the health of our bees.In many ways, beekeeping is like IT - it requires infrastructure and ongoing maintenance.    Just as with tractors, asking 12 beekeepers for advice results in 13 different recommendations.  Based on all our reading, discussion, and training thus far, we're planning to standardize our hives and tools this Spring as follows:Each hive 2 Deep Hive Bodies 2 Medium Hive Bodies as "Supers" 20 Deep Frames/Foundation, Divided 20 Medium Frames/Foundation, Divided Telescoping cover Inner cover Screened bottom board Entrance reducer Hive stand Hive top feeder Queen excluder Escape Board ScreenTools Smoker/Fuel Hive Tool Bee Brush Frame Grip Capping scratcher 9 frame spacer tool FumagillinClothing Bee Suit&nb...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - Category: Technology Consultants Source Type: blogs