Well my first year of beekeeping is drawing to a close and I've learned a great deal. I managed to compress a lot of beekeeping into this first one. Here is what I did this year.
1. Transported living Hives three times from one location to another. (Langstroth 10 frame)
2. Built a Warré Hive
3. Caught a swarm from one of my own hives and housed in backup Langs
4. Did a cutout and populated the Warré Hive with cutout.
5. Managed a pretty decent honey harvest this year 10 pounds from the two Langs.
6. Helped a friend install a nuc and we brought a fresh new beekeeper into the world.
Heading into year two I've learned that I really want to standardize all my equipment. I'll keep my Warré hive just for hobby purposes and stick with the Lang style for honey harvesting.
I decided to switch all my Langs to 8 frame medium. I purchased four new 8 frame medium boxes which I'll assemble along with the frames when they arrive.
Till now I've had the textbook beehives which is a combination of deep and shallow supers in the Lang style.
I find Warré Style keeping to be fascinating but I am still learning my way around it. Conversely framed keeping is more familiar to me and I enjoy it.
While the list above is honest it is rather clinical and doesn't really describe the simple joy of a year of beekeeping. It has brought much happiness to my days. Some really exciting moments like the swarm!
In all I find that beekeeping is perhaps one of the best pastimes I've ever tried. There is something about working with the gentle little bee's and collecting sweet liquid sunshine that I find joy in.
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