NS2a, you should get a hive or 10. I only have an acre here and it is plenty room enough for my hives. I took hives 1 and 2 to my in-laws stables last week cause it is planted heavily with clover. I was missing them and was gonna go buy another nuc from the bee inspector, but he called me yestarday morning about a swarm hanging on a fence at a business. I got there around 10 and left at 12 with about 4 lbs. of free bees. I finally got stung. The girls got me twice on my forearm and it wasnt that bad. I only stung for about 5 minutes and it didnt swell much at all. Look around the internets a little and you will see thousands of people keep bees in the city, some even on rooftops. Those people would love to have 2 acres. Keeping a couple hives is totally different then running a hundred. That would be too much work, but with just a few it can be fun. Get your kids involved too and you may have something to keep them wanting to hang out with dad once they hit their teenage years. Let me know if you decide to start a couple, it would be great to share info. and experiences!

Aaron

 

I'd love to, it's just I'm in a spot where we're all on 2.5 acres. If the one neighbor would be cool with them on the property line, I'd love that, kit'd be the perfect spot. I'll have to ask them. They have over 100 chickens and wanted to get a pig, so it's not like they're against any of that.

 

Usually with most type of bees there is a look out bee, a bee that is hanging out on the nest, on or above the entrance. That is the bee that sounds out a signal to attack any threat, if you take out that bee or bees that are near entrance, then rest of bees wont know what to go after. I once came across a nest that was the size of a watermelon, the bees themselves where the size of peanuts (bull faced hornets?), anyway getting stung by one of this gigantic bees would be painful. Took all of em out with dursband TC. Biggest hive, and biggest bees, I've ever seen. They were the same size of a humming bird to better describe them. Then recently took out a hornets nest which was next to my mud bog in a stump, used some pyrithiums on them. I rarely see honey bee nests, but do see them on my propertry from time to time. It's the yellow jackets and hornets, and wasps I keep an eye out for.

I remember one client many years back, called up and said she had bees in her house. The yellow jackets entered through a bottom of a gutter and made a huge nest inside the walls of the house. After dosing it with pyrithiums and using a microgen, then some lethal powder, we got em all. We then took apart the wall and to our dis belief, the hive was 6ft tall by 4 ft wide plus. Must of been well over a million hornets in that hive.

 

Watch a show were you have to make sure no African killer bee queen takes over the hive, then be fore you know it you will not be able to go outside.