“Come, and Let us Build up the Wall”

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m actually not going to be keeping the bees at my home, because I have no place to keep them. I guess I could keep them on the roof, but I don’t think the apartment management would be too happy with that idea. Instead, a friend agreed to let me use the side yard of his house in Baltimore County to house them. So I went to my local Home Depot on Friday after work to buy some cinderblocks and some wood to create the elevated Beehive stand for our prospective beehive location. It was shortly after I bought the materials and arrived at my friend’s house that I realized the real work was just getting started.

Not only was the side of my friend’s house full of dead leaves and broken branches, but it was filled with building material debris, decayed 2x4 planks of wood, 3 fallen tree logs and tons of rusted over pipes. I spent the first 2 hours of the afternoon clearing every bit of that side-yard down to the very barebones dirt floor. I must say, I hadn’t done yard work in a really long time and I’m a bit sore from the pick-axing, raking and lifting. But it was so well worth it! I cleared an approximate 12-foot by 15-foot rectangle area and now it was time to really start setting up.

I called the Maryland Department of Agriculture Friday morning and spoke to Jerry Fisher, Maryland State Apiary Inspector and Vice President of the Maryland State Beekeepers Association. He informed me that Baltimore County zoning regulations mandate that any beehive be kept at least 200 feet from the boundary of the neighboring property. However, if there exists a wall, of at least four feet in height, surrounding the beehive and the beehive is maintained out of the reach of the general public, the 200 foot zoning regulation becomes void.

So, I cleaned and raked the area one final time and began building the walls of newly established “Beehive Corner” with materials I found in my friend’s yard and garage. I grabbed 4 sheets of expandable metal diamond mesh, took 5 of the iron bars, a sledge hammer, some copper wire, a walk-through steel gate and immediately went to work. I hammered the bars deep into the ground, placed the mesh against the bars, wired them together and completely encircled the “Beehive Corner.” It took about an hour and a half to put the whole shebang together and was waaaaaaay better than paying $800 plus labor costs to some guy I know who owns a general construction company. My friend actually had a metal table which I decided to use as the stand for the hive, since it would most likely provide the sturdiest foundation for the hive. I still decided to use the cinder blocks and the wood as a stand for the water source we will be providing the bees. I need to head to Michael’s sometime this week to buy a couple of pieces of styrofoam to act as floaters for the water in the buckets so that the bees don’t drown. Later this week, my friend and I are also going to head back to Home Depot to buy some mulch so that the area’s floor doesn’t remain so bare. That, and some ground cinnamon to sprinkle the area immediately surrounding the hive to drive the ants away (Apparently, ants are repelled and driven away by the scent of cinnamon)

I must say, I’m pretty proud of myself and my work on a Sunday afternoon. I guess you never know what you’re capable of doing until you actually do it. And now I have the bees to thank.

Thank you ladies!