Dannielle Harden

Once upon a time, in the far away land of Oz...

I was up late feeding my young daughter. To help stay awake, I started watching YouTube, and beekeeping came into the feed. This caught my interest and I ended up staying up all night watching videos and looking up information. Hubby noticed the new interest and suggested to buy a hive. So before he could rethink that suggestion, I bought a hive and started my beekeeping journey.

With lots of late night feeding sessions, I studied bees for hours. To gain practical experience, I joined the local club and went to the first Spring field day [September] at the club's apiary. I met Alan Wade there, and completed 29 brood checks and disease inspections. Alan was instrumental in gaining confidence with handling bees on my own. I received my first nuc on 11 November 2018 so named the colony Poppy. As the property was a rental, the proviso was that only one colony was allowed. After successfully keeping a colony alive through the winter, I was faced with a new challenge. How do I manage swarming, but only keep one hive? I used a double screen board and the Snelgrove method to manage swarming while only keeping one bottom board and one roof. With a new queen successfully raised, I took a leap into two queen hives and successfully harvested honey.

Since then, we have moved and expanded the apiary, where I experiment with different configurations. I also primarily use Flow supers which allow me to keep smaller stacks of boxes as I harvest honey as it becomes capped to prevent brood boxes from becoming honey bound. The fewer boxes also keep colonies from exploding in population and eating all the gained honey during dearth. Two queen systems have many configurations so is very adaptable to different needs and preferences. There is much to learn with counter intuitive management like splitting in Autumn and combining in Spring. By running two queen hives, from my backyard, I have been able to harvest enough honey from my few hives to supply my family, friends, neighbours, and co-workers with an abundant supply of honey, even on years where the flow is poor.