Postal service doesn’t even accept queens anymore? I didn’t know. It’s been a few years since I had some mailed to me. I had to go pick them up at the post office because they wouldn’t send them out with the carriers. Just as well; who knows what the carriers would have tossed them around with.
I must admit one of the reason I’d dread harvesting honey is because of the stickiness. I’m a grown man and I love to get dirty and messy but I hate to get anything sticky on my hands. haha Motor oil, dirt, grass is all good. But sticky things drive me nuts.
Something tells me that you’ll be correcting me on a lot more than ONE thing! ha. But I seriously don’t mind…its how I learn. ANd this is a good example. In spite of my reading so far, I actually did think the queen was the only female in a hive. So I’m already learning here. THanks.
Congrats on your new hobby. I’ve been keeping bees for about five years now. I’d highly recommend getting nucs or, if your mentor can do so, split some of his hives into your new ones. Package bees seem to have a high failure rate - especially if they have to build out new comb, which is usually the case on new hives.
http://www.beesource.com/forums/ is a great resource.
There are lots of little books about bees and bee keeping. In the pamphlet type books they can leave a lot of details out, kind of like saying " grafting in two easy steps". There is a book called ABC and XYZ of bee culture. There are newer additions but I just got a copy at the library and it really explained most things about bees and bee hives and how they function. It is a long read but very informative. It will help you make sense of what is happening in your hive and notice issues early on. Don’t get too hung up on getting gallons of honey but enjoy the hard work your little friends put into every ounce of honey they make. Two million flowers must be visited to make a pound of honey.
Congratulations on your new hobby. As others have warned it is as addictive as fruit growing. I started out with one hive and finished with 65 colonies. My work required a relocation and that ended my beekeeping several years ago. It is an enjoyable hobby. Just in case you still have time for another obsession try out queen rearing which I enjoyed as much as collecting honey. Best of luck with your beekeeping. Bill
Oh wow bill, you used to raise queen? I read extensively about it but didn’t really have the hive resources to attempt it. I did make me a grafting tool and a few wax cups and try to get a hive to raise a new queen but they were too week to pull it off I think. I wish I could have worked with bees sixty years ago before mites and colony collapse disorder
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The mite were arriving as I was exiting beekeeping. Queen rearing was a lot of fun but I only did enough for my hives.
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Its so nice to get the encouragement you folks are giving me, so thank you very much. I had some pretty serious reservations based on how much it costs to get started and how much time I feared it would take, so I was already worrying about whether I have time (and ability) to pull off one more hobby. So the positive feedback is just what I needed. Its also nice hearing from all those who have done bee keeping and still love it- whether you are still in it or not. Your positive feedback and encouragement bodes well for the quality of people here, and I am grateful to you all.
My very limited understanding of colony collapse disorder is that they may have finally figured that one out- I sure hope so. My “teacher” says mites are definately something to watch for and he has had them, but not often and he was able to treat them and rid his hives of it, so hopefully that will be the case. But as several of you have said, it sounds like there are quite a few things that can cause problems. Sounds familiar! ha
Kevin, I PMed you.
I guess I’m lucky; I have a neighbor about a quarter mile away who is an avid beekeeper. He took a lot of grief from one of his closer neighbors, that got all the way to the city council, but he won the fight.
I live in a left-wing area so bees are like next to dolphins around here.
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I started to rear queens that would handle everything I could dish out. They were orange Carny’s that were gentle, hugely prolific in the spring so I could pull 3-4 frames of sealed brood in April to start nucs, requeen without a skip, still produce 3-4 med. supers of honey, shrug off Varroa, handle mid Ia. climate and do it in one brood box without wrapping them. I got into that 4 yrs. and got wiped out when a raccoon knocked out my reducers and mice got into them. Still makes me sick to my stomach.
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I am going a different direction and building homes and habitat for the natives, especially the mason bees. They really do a good job on my peaches, plums, and apricots. But I have loved listening in on bee talk for decades, especially when the pros get going.
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Funny you mention that, @kokopelli5A . It turns out that my mentor had problems with one of his neighbors too. When he started 6 years ago he actually went door to door to tell his neighbors that he was going to have bee hives just so they’d know. The thing is, he lives on a 70 acre farm and his hives were way in the back and probably 1/2 mile from any neighbor. But they got all bent out of shape. Eventually he took them honey and explained how safe it would be and so on and now they are accepting. But who in the world would have imagined a neighbor (one that isn’t close) would object to honey bees!!! Seems silly to me.
On a similar note, I had someone come to City Hall just a couple weeks ago to complain because their neighbor got 4 chickens and built a little coop behind their house. Keep in mind that our town is a small and mostly rural one, and agriculture is the number one “industry”. This neighbor was fairly close, but not like an urban subdivision- probably 200 yards from the small coop. I have to tell you that I sort of enjoyed telling the complainer that I have 19 chickens, that they don’t even stay in a coop most of the time, and that there are no city ordinances at all against small-scale chicken hobbyists. The complainer wasn’t happy when they left but I didn’t much care. How to you move to the country and complain about a few chickens (no roosters, btw, so no crowing). Some people just like to complain!
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Pretty much. With regard to bees it’s an inverse square proposition. If you are more than a 100 feet away, you might as well be a half mile.
There’s a community near me that almost had a civil war over chickens.
I think a lot of these fights are really psychiatric issues.
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Trust me, as the person who works for the City and has to hear the complaints, I couldn’t agree more that many are psychiatric issues! ha. Nashville, TN- clearly an urban area- just changed their city ordinances to allow chickens, so I was proud of them. But like you said, it was very controversial. Our town, because it is small, rural, and agriculturally based, may even be too far on the other extreme (though I’m ok with it). For example, even in our subdivisions there are no rules against horses or goats or other animals! This has led to some situations that were pretty hard for me to defend and justify, but in the end I like the idea of personal freedom and people being able to be more self sufficient and enjoy having animals and growing things. But it can be a tricky thing when it really does affect your neighbor. But again, 90% of the time complaints are silly and unjustified.
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Ive kept up to 30 hives before. Its heavy work and through the years ive cut back signifigantly. My grandfather taught me about bees. My advice is start with italians and stay clear of carniolans or caucasions for awhile. The italian bees are more gentle. Buckfast are hybrids that are heavy producers. Your colony as you have heard will only be as good as the queen. Face your colony to the east in my opinion because bees have a tendency to sleep in and the sun shines in the door earlier. Many of us out of necessity keep bees for our orchards. I enjoy the fresh honey but mostly the benefit of pollination.
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Nothing much to add except congrats on your new “hobby”. The wife got a hive of bees several years ago. They are incredible creatures and a joy to watch. The more you learn about the workings of the hive the more fascinated you’ll become with them.
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Congratulations on your new beekeeping journey! I will be watching and looking for more updates on this thread. I find beekeeping fascinating, and, have been interested in learning all I can before I attempt the same. I have been reading books and watching You Tube videos over the last few years. I just want to make sure I have all the knowledge, and, the time to devote too it before I attempt it. We have a few people that live locally that are beekeepers.
Ginny
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This forum is like an improved version of facebook where every single one of my “friends” have the same interests and hobbies! As proof, I posted about my new hobby on my facebook page and about all I got was people telling me how scared they were of being stung and a few requests for honey! I’ll take my GrowingFruit.org friends any day!
So thanks for the encouragement everyone. I will update this thread as I get started on my hobby. And Ginny, I too have had an interest in bees for a long time. I always stop flipping channels when I see some kind of national geographic-type show on bees- they are fascinating as you said. I wouldn’t have had the courage to try this on my own, but I recently learned that the owner of a new high-tech business in my town is a bee keeper and he has been good enough to tutor me and is turning out to be a great teacher. I’ll let you know from a beginner’s point of view how it goes!
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