Weekends in Dundee

Join us as we explore Willamette Valley Wine Country one weekend at a time!

The Honeybees ~ Beeswax Candle Making

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Have I mentioned before that our honeybees are amazing!? So amazing that I’m about to show you how to make candles out of beeswax! If you missed the first post in this series, go check out how we melted down our beeswax. As I stated in that post, we didn’t get enough beeswax of our own to make twelve candles, so I purchased some additional beeswax at our local beekeeping store, Ruhl Bee Supply.

The first thing you need to do is figure out what type of candle you want to make. I decided to go with these mini Ball Jars that make nice size “votive” candles.

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Painting the Hives and the Honeybees Arrive

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I know I’ve been a bit quite on the honeybee front, especially after our visit to Ruhl Bee Supply back in March, but we’ve really been doing all sorts of work to get ready for the spring beekeeping season! I’m always hesitant to do a blog post before the finished project is ready to present, so you’ll have to forgive me with the amount of pictures and text in this post…this project has been a long time coming!

It started with a conversation between myself and The Renaissance Man about beekeeping and what we really wanted in the year ahead. We unfortunately lost one of our hives this past winter (we’re pretty sure it was a sugar ant invasion), and were trying to figure out our strategy for the coming season. I wanted to get involved this year with a few hives of my own, and so the decision was made to add two more hives and replace the hive we lost. And what does a crafty girl do when you give her bee hives? She paints them!!!

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Checking the Health of the Honeybees

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I’ve mentioned this before, but for those of you who don’t know, The Renaissance Man is currently an apprentice in the Oregon Master Beekeeper Program. The program has been a great way to get started with beekeeping, and the best part is that they pair you with a bee mentor! Tom is our mentor, and he’s been an invaluable resource in our beekeeping journey. He’s come out to our house a couple of times to check on the honeybees, and he’s never farther away than a quick email when we’ve had questions. A few weekends back he came out to the house to do an “end of season” check-in on the honeybees.

We’ll be collecting honey from the bees over Labor Day weekend, so it’s important to make sure that the hives are strong so they make it through the winter.

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Adding a Brood Box to Noir

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I’ve been pressing my husband a.k.a. The Renaissance Man to name the hives. We’ve had them for about a month now, and not having names was starting to bother me. I was tired of saying, “You know that hive on the left was really active today” or “The hive on the right had lots of bees sitting on the porch.” In an effort to move the process along, I proposed that we name the hives Pinot Noir (the left hive) and Pinot Gris (the right hive). To my surprise, The Renaissance Man agreed, but wanted to shorten things up, and so we settle on “Noir” and “Gris.”

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Removing the Honeybee Kits, and Taking a Look Inside

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Since this is our first time having honeybees we’ve done a ton of reading, and have been following the instructions we were given with the bee kits as closely as possible. However, Mother Nature had another plan this week. Ideally we were only suppose to leave the bee kits in the hive for seven to nine days to make sure the queen bonds with her hive.

However, it’s been raining quite a bit the last week or so, and the temperatures have been on the cold side. I say this because in order to get the bee kits out you have to open the hive and you don’t want to do that when it’s cold or rainy. The hive likes to stay between 93° and 96°F with very little moisture, so we waited, and waited.

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Arrival of the Honeybees

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My husband a.k.a. The Renaissance Man became very enamored with the idea of keeping honeybees. I thought it might be a passing phase, but when he signed up for the Oregon Master Beekeeper Program to become an apprentice beekeeper, I knew things were getting real!

He then came home with the supplies to build three bee boxes. And so we built and painted, and built some more. Soon enough my kitchen table was covered with honey frames, and my garage became paint central.

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