Do any of you guys keep honey bees? This is my first year, and I am starting out with 2 hives. I bought a 3rd in case I find a swarm. I bought the bees from a local commercial keeper who is also our inspector. I got 2 nucs. They are looking good so far, hitting the apple trees, dandelions, and lilacs. I must say the workings of a colony are fascinating, and once I started reading about it I was hooked. It is amazing what these little girls can do. If there are any other bee keepers out there let me know, and for those of you that don't know much about the honeybee, google it, and before long I bet you are just as fascinated as I am about them. You'll be ordering your hives within days.

 

A good friend & co-worker started with 1 hive last summer. They did not make it through the winter. Was a mess trying to get all the dead ones off the comb. He got another hive this year and plans on feeding them until at least november or they get dormant. Kinda like kids, I am around his enough that I don't want any.

 

It's something I find absolutely fascinating and would love to do but I'm deathly afraid of bees and wasps. I'm also allergic to yellow jacket stings and that makes me kinda leery about honey bee stings as well.

One of those things I really, really wish I could do but can't.


I do keep tabs on the wild honeybees on my farm though. I'm down to two trees. At one time there were 6 honey bee trees on my place but I've lost all but two. One of those trees had a hive in it for as long as I can remember and it suddenly disappeared. CCD I suppose.

 

Talk about timing...the last thing I did before logging into the ATV forums just now was order two books on Bee keeping form Amazon.com.
I've got a line on a used hive & equipment, but I thought I would read up on bee keeping first. I'll probably end up setting up a colony--I want to make fresh, organic, honey mead. I already have all the beer making equipment, so mead is an easy process for me. Meade-yummy and alcoholic--a winning combination!

 

This will be my first year, but I have been reading everything I can since last summer when I first checked out my buddys dads hives. They say you should at least have 2 hives that way you can tell what is normal or not. You can also take a frame of brood or food from your strong hive and give to a weaker hive. Good luck this year and let me know how that mead turns out! Here's a couple links loaded with great info.

Beekeeping Naturally, Bush Bees, Beekeeping with foundationless frames, top bar hive beekeeping, queens, survivor bees, beekeeping with long hives, beekeeping with natural cell size, beekeeping with small cell bees, small cell beekeeping, organic bee

The Hive and the Honeybee Collection

Linda's Bees: What's Involved in a Hive Inspection

Beesource Beekeeping Forums

Brushy Mountain Bee Farm - Supplying the beekeeping industry for more than 30 years.

 

my dad had some once , said when his artheritis [ sp] flared up he would go mess with his bees n get stung [ said it helped it ]

 

i had a job at a bee keepers house... the bees hive was where we were working, so he moved the hives, but the bees made home on our bucket truck, using the materials box as a hive...

i HATE bees, been stung too many times, but i put my hand in the box with 100 bees in and around it and got some stuff out without getting stung, surprised the hell out of me...

why is it that i can do that with 12 hives worth of bees swarming around me all day, but if i get too close to the bees in my barn, im done for?

 

Are you sure the bees in your barn are honey bees? I have mine in one of my flower beds in our backyard right now and I have pulled weeds around it and run the riding mower within 3 ft. of the entrance with no problems so far. Maybe I'm lucky but they don't seem to mind me one bit. If anything they buzz by me only b/c I'm in their flight path. This is my first year and I have lots to learn but so far so good. I know it's not if it is when but I have found so far that honey bees are not like wasps, or yellow jackets they don't have time to go chasing you around cause they are constantly trying to fill up on nectar and pollen. I'm going into the hives today to do a quick check so I may be posting later about how I cant type cause my hands are all swelled up!

 

Honey bees are actually very docile, with the exception of the African honey bee.
Many people confuse Yellow Jackets with bees; they are not--Yellow Jackets are of the hornet/wasp variety, and can be very aggressive.

 

True. The honeybee sting isn't so bad. I've been stung 100's of times. My dad had 100+ hives at one point, and a pretty good side business. But it was a lot of work and with a regular job it just got to be too much. I'd love to do it myself, but I only have 2.5 acres. Should try to talk the neighbors into it .

Keep up the good work! We certainly need more bees around. And locally produced honey is WAY better than that Mello stuff or mass produced stuff in the stores.