Bees please

[Broncosfan]

Every year I think about get a couple of hives. I can only imagine how they could help my fruit trees and garden I have read some on the subject. Does anyone have bees? Any book(s) you recommend? Advice?

[Dwight55]

Bees are not hard critters to mess with, . . .

Go to www.worldofbeekeeping.com

In the middle of the opening page is a "Basic Beekeeping Video", . . . and I believe it is $40.00

It is a well spent $40 in my opinion, . . . as you would burn up that much in gas going from beekeeper to beekeeper getting advice on the subject, . . . and here you have it where you can eat chocolate chip cookies and drink coffee while you learn.

I'm up north of Columbus by about 40 miles, . . . have one hive at present, . . . plan on robbing them in about 2 weeks, . . . I'll PM you the info if you want to drive up and watch / participate / learn / and "hopefully" not get stung.

No pun intended, . . . it is usually a painless process.

Although several years ago, . . . as I left the hive area the first time, robbing hive # 1, . . . no problems. When I robbed # 2 and started to leave, . . . they followed me, . . . I had to take my tractor (with the honey) almost a half mile down the road before they quit following me. And when I went back to the house, . . . I could see em hanging around the back door up in the air. I made a "bee line" for the front door.

Anyway, . . . they are a lot of fun, . . . fairly low maintenance, . . . and the produce from them is sweet as honey (pun intended).

May God bless,
Dwight

[Baglady]

Dwight has experience and I dont, but all I've read on the subject has me believing it's a complicated thing to learn.
But for me it's always easier to learn "hands on", and given the opportunity, I would try if I had a mentor.

[Dwight55]

Seriously, guys, . . . beekeeping is NOT a hard thing to do.

The cliff notes version kinda goes like this:

1. Spend upwards of $125 to get your first wooden hive, . . . with all the "pieces" to establish a colony. After that you have a pattern, . . . and can make your own parts if you are of a mind to do so , . . . or do like I do, . . . have just the one hive.

2. Either capture a swarm, . . . or spend another $100 or so on a swarm of bees and a queen.

3. The first year, . . . don't think about getting any honey, . . . unless you get them started good before mid May.

4. From there on out, . . . your "colony" will be in two brood boxes. Every spring, . . . mid March or so, . . . move the top box to the bottom, bottom box to the top. A couple weeks or so later, . . . put on a super.

5. From time to time, . . . lift the lid and check your super, . . . see if they are filling the thing out. Mine was coming along fine a couple weeks ago when I last visited. I actually go out there in a white tee shirt, no gloves, no veil, . . . the girls always just laugh and tell each other that the white haired monster is peeking in the hive again, . . . and go on about their business.

6. Rob the bees by taking that super when you first see the Goldenrod begin to bloom, . . . OR, . . . when you see it is all capped over and sealed.

I got 11 quarts of honey from my hive last year, . . . at the most I had 4 or 5 hours involved before robbing time.

It is really not labor intensive, or as problematic as many would make it out to be.

May God bless,
Dwight

[inceptor]

I have been doing research myself. I'm not into having a bee hive and honey bees can be aggressive. What I will have for my new garden is solitary bees like leafcutter and mason bees.

We tried a garden several years ago. The 2 problems we had were no pollinators and bugs. The garden was an expensive disaster. This time I'm building a waist high garden bed, we bought another and I am working on attracting bees and butterfly's. Leafcutter and Mason bees are easy to care for, not expensive to buy and cover a lot of plants. They also stay within 300 feet of their home. Honeybees can travel up to 5 miles I'm told by a friend who just became a beekeeper. He has 2 hives going right now.

[Dwight55]

I have been doing research myself. I'm not into having a bee hive and honey bees can be aggressive. ............

And you can be very much correct on the aggressive statement, . . . living in Tx.

Thankfully, . . . we don't have much of that up here in Ohio.

Only know of one "aggressive" hive, . . . they were very small bees, . . . solid black, . . . and didn't take nothing from nobody.

But they would not go looking, . . . just being defensive. And that was almost 200 miles due south, . . . down in "Tucky".

May God bless,
Dwight