Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

Just out of pure curiosity - do you name your hives?

If so, what have you named them and how did you pick the name?

Quote from: Jessaboo on May 03, 2008, 10:41:37 AM
Just out of pure curiosity - do you name your hives?

If so, what have you named them and how did you pick the name?

I thought about naming them all George, but that would just be too confusing, so I didn't. ;)


...JP

Mine are numbered 1 through 9 and the TBH is TBH1.

naming my hives would be like naming the calf that i know is going in the freezer next year.   :evil:  well, almost....  i don't plan on killing the hive, but they do die sometimes.

i  number the hives, just as i number the freezer pets.

Jessaboo.  Absolutely....I don't call them a name, but they have a designation.  I had 4 package colonies and 4 nucs colonies that I got last year.  They were called P1 through P4 and N1 through N4.  That way, when I am keeping records or speaking of these colonies, they know exactly what is meant.  My old colony was called nothing.....I forgot to paint OC for old colony on the front of the box, but it still had a yellow rectangle on the front,  so I described it as the colony with the yellow rectangle when I spoke about it, hee, hee.  I think that numbering/naming colonies is a good thing in my own opinion.  Have the best of a most wonderfully great day, Cindi

i was going to number mine but when i went looking for the stick on numbers i bought years ago to put my number on my mailbox i couldn't find them. still looking.

I couldn't remember all those names...

I name mine based on the color of th lowest box. So I have a Black, White, and Pink hive.

The only reason I number my hives is so that I have a reference for my logs.  Otherwise, I could care less what they were called.

I named mine "the Italians" and "the Russians."  :)

Mine are the G-Team & B-Team for the color of hives.  Hopreully in the future I'll have a rainbow! :)  Jody

At first, yes. Queen Lilikalani, Ester, Mary etc. Now I have added towns for swarms. Like Collingswood, Morrestown, placxes the swarm came from. Just today, i decided i needed to start a log so I can take notes about queens for breeding in the future.

Right now, my hives are labeled 1 thru 10, Nucs 1 thru 3.  :-D

If I were a little eccentric, I'd paint the names of famous and not so famous night clubs or Bars I visited in my life like " Whiskey A Go Go ", " The Stone Pony " , " Hard Rock Cafe ", " London Ale House ".
:-D

The names of my hives are useful to me, but not very interesting or unusual: upper hive, lower hive, Italian hive, English hive, new hive,etc.

    Yes but not as a letter or number.  Just a combo like a swarm this year is SW08A, for last years Russians I bought is R08C, if a split this year it will bee SP08A, ferals that are me first hive is F05A.  If I get a swarm from one of my hives I don't use the feral designation.

    Unofficially, named after the kids for their personal hives and that is the one they help me with when I go out.  Includes inspection, evaluations, manipulations, honey harvest..ect.  No honey is mixed with honey from another hive, that is his or her own honey from their own bees, unless there is not enough left over to fill a jar, .  That one is family honey and the first to go.

Just old hive and new hive.

I number by the location of each hive so I can refer back to my logs and list what needs to be done in each.  (barn 1 thru 5, etc)

 I use names to keep track of my hives.  I just pick a common womans name from the 1920s. :-D

Yes I name mine I guess. The names sort of come from where the bees came from, I had one hive I received from JP so those bees became JP hive. I had a hive that wouldn’t stop stinging my LSU hat my father said those bees must be from USC, so that hive became the USC bees. I have a hive I cut out of a bird house so of course they became the birdhouse bees.  Then I have another hive of Russians and of course they are the Russians

First colony was Beezus.  My wife's dear old Aunt Sue (Newberry) was so excited about me keeping bees she gave me some money to "make homes for more bees". So the next two colonies were named Sue-bee and New-bee in her honor. Her favorite cartoon was Scooby-Do,
so Scoo-bee and Doo-bee followed.

Thanks for participating - I think I have christened my own hive Odessa for no particular reason except that way when I yell across the yard I am not using the terms "bee" or "hive" or "bee hive" - it will take my neighbors a little while to figure out what "Odessa is very active today" means....

But that Sco-Bee and Doo-Bee were pretty tempting to steal!

      I don't name them but I do mark on the box the year of the queen and when I medicate so when I look at a box {OL07IT} I can tell thats a Oliveraz 07 italian queen  then below it i'll write {tr 2-5-08}  for teramycin or {ty2-5-08} for tylosin or what ever I happen to be doingto the hive.   metzelplex