How to Start a Hive as a New Beekeeper

We often get asked "How do I become a beekeeper?", or "How do I start a new hive?". Sometimes I spend over an hour answering that question, there's a lot to it, but have put together this guide that might be helpful to some aspiring beekeepers.  This is a very high level view and certainly does not contain all the information you will need to become a successful beekeeper, but can help get you pointed in the right direction. 

1. Determine your goals for beekeeping.  Are you just wanting to help the bee population, harvest honey for personal use, pollinate your garden or crops, or grow into a honey producer for retail sale?
2. Educate yourself.  Yes, people have been keeping bees for centuries, but there is a lot to learn and we are still researching certain aspects of keeping bees.  People who do not educate themselves are loved by beekeepers that sell them nucleus colonies as they're repeat customers every year and keep having to buy more bees, the nuc sellers love these people!  We don't want that for you or your bees, though.  I recommend joining a beekeeping club near you, would be great if you could find a mentor to help, and most definitely read books and attend classes.  
3. Find a suitable location for your hive(s).  Ideally, you'd like there to be a source of water nearby.  Doesn't need to be right next to the location of the hives, but if there is a pond, creek, river, etc within about half a mile you should be good.  A location in full sun will help alleviate some pressure from small hive beetles versus hives in the shade.  A wind block to the north of the hives would be desirable for blocking cold wind in the winter.  I like to face hives south or maybe a little southeast, which helps the morning sun hit them and encourage the bees to get out and forage and also prevents winter north winds from blowing right into the entrance of the hive.  The area where you place your hives should have vegetation maintained and be relatively flat. Ideally, you'd like your hives to be level side to side but slanted a little towards the entrance so water that collects on the bottom board runs out the entrance.
4. Anticipate your needs ahead of time.  Let's face it, beekeeping supply stores aren't on every corner like gas stations so it's not like you can run into needing something on a Saturday afternoon and run down to the corner and get what you need.  Much of the woodenware sold also needs primed and painted, so you need to get the items you need in advance so that you have time to prepare them. 
5. Prepare the equipment.  Woodenware needs to be primed and painted, and I recommend an oil-based primer and quality paint, acrylic enamel if you can find it. Boxes just need painted on the exterior, do not paint the inside of the boxes.  For bottom boards and lids, do not paint the portion that is exposed to the bees inside the hive but paint everywhere else.  Some people like to melt and roll extra beeswax on the foundations right before they install their bees.  We don't really feel that's necessary if you're using quality foundation with a good wax coating from the factory, but many do it still and that's just fine.  If you do want to put extra wax on the foundation, use a 4" foam roller and a crock pot for the wax and using a light touch roll the wax on the foundation.  You don't want to use a lot of pressure as that will push the wax out of the roller all over the foundation and fill the cell bottoms up. You really just want to roll on top of the cells to build up the cell walls with wax as opposed to filling the bottom of the cells with wax.  
6. Install your bees.  The day has finally come!  You're either picking up a package of bees or a nucleus colony.  If you are installing a nuc, the process is quite easy.  Have your assembled and painted hive already setup in the location and remove the frames from it.  Remove the 5 frames of bees from the nuc and place them in the middle of a single deep hive body and then place 5 additional frames and foundation around them to fill up the box.  If you are installing a package of bees, it would be best to source some drawn comb if you can.  If not, secure the queen still in the cage between two middle frames and shake the remaining bees into the hive.  If everything goes well with the package the bees should release the queen after a few days.  
7. Feed your bees.  It takes 8lbs of honey to make 1lb of beeswax, so bees use a lot of resources when they are drawing wax and building comb.  You will likely be installing these bees before the bulk of the nectar flow starts, so it's good to help them along by feeding 1:1 sugar syrup while they are drawing comb out.  Feeding can also stimulate brood rearing and you want that queen laying as many eggs as the nurse bees can handle caring for so the colony quickly grows.
8. Begin regular inspections.  Aside from checking to see if the queen has been released if installing a package, you should leave the bees alone for a full week after installing them.  Every time you open the hive you are creating work for the bees and they have lots of work to do starting a new hive so don't disturb them unnecessarily.  Leave them alone for a week but after that week you should start doing regular inspections, preferably about 7-10 days apart.  You will not need to check them every week for the entire year, but going through their first spring and summer you really want to keep a close eye on them and make adjustments if necessary.  
9. Initiate integrated pest management controls.  Most beekeepers do not rely on just one product for varroa mite control, or just one method to fight small hive beetles, they use several small aspects of pest management together as a comprehensive plan.  You might be lucky and live in an area where small hive beetles aren't prevalent, but varroa mites are a threat everywhere and as I mentioned at the start of this blog you will be your nuc seller's best friend if you come back and buy more bees every spring and that's likely to happen if you do nothing to control varroa mites.  
10. Last thing is never stop learning.  I don't care how long you've kept bees there are still things to learn.  Even people like Randy Oliver, who is extremely knowledgeable about bees, know they still have more to learn and conduct research.  Continue going to beekeeping club meetings, continue going to classese and continue to read all you can from books, social groups and research papers.