Two new hives and a nuc

We put the new bee equipment together today.  I buy the not assembled and not painted stuff because it is cheaper and I want to paint it like my other hives.  When we put them together we use water to wet the wood at the joints and then a little bit of premium wood glue.  Then we put the pieces together and use two big wood clamps to hold it together.  We use a builders square to make sure that the hive boxes are square and then I nail them together.

We got 3 deeps instead of 2 like I had last year because the U of M class said that 3 work better in Minnesota.  I should have enough equipment now that I won't have to buy more unless I expand.  I now have 4 complete hives.  I plan to winter 2 of the 4 hives and the other ones will just be used to make honey.  I may change my mind and try to winter all 4.  I will also have to expand my bee yard because I'm adding 2 more hives.  There is a lot of snow here still and I can't do that until it warms up more.  I can't divide the 2 hives I have until sometime in May anyway.

Here are the two new hives.  They have 3 deeps and 2 supers.

New hives

I also got a Nuc for Christmas.  It is not the kind that babies use.  It is used for selling bees to other beekeepers.  I'm going to try to catch a swarm with it.