Beekeeping?
 

Any beekeepers here?

I am interested in this hobby, but after reading a short book on the topic, it sounds bloody complicated and time-consuming.

I'm not afraid of bees and don't react much to stings. I do live in the city. I'm not particularly interested in getting honey out of it, as I don't really eat it.

Why? If you aren't after the honey, and its time consuming? Why?

This is all I know.(not really)

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Bees are very resiliant.


We'd go on adventures and see the square manufactured hives.
I could not believe that the bees were flying around the hive at minus fifteen degrees celsius.
There was snow on the ground.
Strange.

Be careful. I got severeley stung on the stock market investing in Australian mining shares, but I think investing in bees could be worse. The is a bee mite going around that is devasting hives and bees.

Who lives in the San Francisco bay area and uses the word "bloody"?

My GF put a couple of hives in my backyard. Fascinating creatures, and a lot of fun to watch. Can't wait for the honey.

So far, not that much work, Portland has a thriving community of beekeepers, just hope they don't swarm

(The bat house still hasn't found any takers, but I'm hoping.)

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Cool! I'd like to come over and take a look sometime.

John, you're always welcome to come over and look.

Keeping bees is pretty easy to do and is not time consuming at all. Honey bees are very mild. After you get used to them you might not need smoke or a suit even to harvest honey. I grew up on a farm where my father decided to start keeping hives, more or less on a whim. We had them for almost 20 years until he died. For many years he'd walk right into the hives, take the tops off and remove the "supers" with no more protection than heavy jeans, a net over his head and long sleeves.

All you really have to do is keep them from freezing. All you have to do to do that it to feed them sugar water when they can't feed themselves. When starting out put out bowls of sugar water while they get their footing. After that, just keep them safe, make sure they have enough to eat, and keep enough supers on the hive to house them all. It's fun and not hard at all.

This reminds me of my grandfather in England. He had bee hives near a row of houses he rented out. Sometimes the bees would go on a rampage and sting the tenants. He was as tough as nails - the bee stings did not bother him.

One of the guys on the 914 board keeps bees. He's been keeping us updated on Fakebook

There is a beginning keepers class on 5/18 so I'll go to that, and visit Herr O's setup, then think about it.

Looking around my postage stamp back yard, I'm not sure where there is a sunny spot that isn't "taken" by human uses - grill, tables, fire pit, seating. My side yard is largely unused, but it isn't sunny (north side of house). My driveway is on the south, but borders my neighbor's front porch which they use a lot. Not sure they'd like lots of bees coming and going right where they sit and sip mint juleps. Hmm.

my friend is really into it.

he has several hives. he loaned me all his books and i read them all. in the end, it just seemed like a lot of work. collecting the honey seems like a sticky mess.

he gives me all the honey i could possibly want. i figured having a friend that keeps bees is better than actually keeping bees.

he is dropping off some beeswax next week. i am gonna melt it into some mineral oil for an all natural wood perservative..for my axe handles and cutting boards.

good luck.

I used to have seven hives. They are very gentle.You sit back and they do the work and they never call in sick.I handled them many times with out smoke. When you smoke them they eat the honey.I was in the garage yesterday looking at my equipment.I've also been thinking about getting some more.It's good to get stung once in a while.

I've remembered the name of the mite, varroa Varroa destructor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia







.

A very important part of the eco system is the Bee.

Is it important for the hive to be in a sunny spot?

I live in the Pacific NW, a temperate climate.

They can overheat if in a completely sunny spot in the summer. In a cool climate, I have always seen them under a roof with mid-day shade but facing south and with morning and evening sun on the opening.

Main issue I see is liability. What if they go sting your allergic neighbor? Is this something that's problematic in the US? They are not the best thing to keep on a small lot in a neighborhood IMHO. They will be quite dense in a 50 yard radius from their hive, even though they will of course fly a lot farther. I am sure they go by the reverse square law in distance from the hive, but I have seen issues with allergic neighbors, where the bees had to be moved, just out of common decency, not wanting to increase the neighbors risk of sudden death! ;)

Another thing bees always do is reproduce and swarm. You will have a huge drove of thousands of bees going ape in your neighborhood, only to settle down in a random spot the queen lands in. This can also be a problem, if you are not really close to all your neighbors and can't ask them to go pick up your swarm of bees. Generally they also do this during the day when you are not home.

Ask me how I know ... my dad had bees when he was at work 12 hours. I always had to catch the fuchers in his absence. But he did give me the money he would get selling the hive, so I certainly didn't mind. We lived in the countryside where beekeeping was common and you could go across to the neighbor to catch them without even asking.

G

A couple of videos demonstrating hiving a swarm using a white sheet.

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Yea, I'd like some. But wife is anaphylactic.

So it's a no go.

As already said, they are very interesting. They behave as a collective organism, and are remarkably gentle. Very fun for kids. The honey is satisfying to harvest and eat, and makes great gifts. I'm a pretty poor beekeeper, but on a very small scale, I enjoy it.

you-tube has some video's of bee keeping.You should watch a few.

Some of this is interesting.

Modern Farmer | Dear Modern Farmer: How Do I Legally Start an Urban Bee Hive?

My dad and I both kept bees. I stopped about 20 years ago. Neighbor came up to me because he had a swarm 5 years ago. I gave him some pointers and some equipment and he is now full time beekeeper.

I always placed my hive in orchards under the trees.

Great link. Big hurdles there. Geez! I'd check on all points in that article before even going to a beekeeping class. Liability would be a big one for me to worry about. People can die from a bee sting and if they blame it on you, even if you did everything according to the rules, you will have a nice lawsuit going where you will have to defend yourself.

An alternative to having the bees at your house is to have them in the countryside. You may find a rancher that will let you keep them on their property all year, if they have fruit trees of any sort. Or of course if you have a cabin or other property. The bees need fairly little work, except during swarming time, when you may miss the offspring if you aren't home.

I also have seen bees on public land, such as national forest and BLM. Something to check into. There the bees would be subject to possible vandalism and bears. The former is handled pretty well by the bees themselves. If in doubt, one can always have one hive that is a little more aggressive as the watch dog for the rest of them.

G

There was a guy here in North GA that got in trouble for keeping bees in his neighborhood. The HOA tried to get him to remove his hives because "keeping domesticated farm animals" was not allowed per the bylaws of the HOA.

He got a letter from the University of Georgia that politely reminded the HOA that bees are wild animals and have not been domesticated so he was allowed to keep them.

Raising backyard animals and bees in Portland | FAQs | The City of Portland, Oregon

Technically, I'd need the written permission of all neighbors w/in 150 feet, which is about 8-10 houses. Also supposed to have a 6 foot enclosure around the hive - means it would have to be in my fenced back/side yard.

Great hobby:)

We got into it a few years ago and love it. There is bound to be a local beekeepers club nearby...great source for info.

My wife and son volunteer at our state zoo for the apiary exhibit...super hobby for kids also.

It's always fun to see one of the "girls" in the garden doing her thing:)

So, that should kill the project right there, unless you have an out of town place to fall back upon. Try the BLM / National Forest!

G

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Beekeeping
 

A few weeks ago, a beekeeper friend of mine came by to check the hives. She found that because of a misunderstanding, a couple of frames were not present in some of the bee boxes.
(Frames are wooden structures inside the hive that the bees attach the comb to.) The boxes hold eleven frames each, but two of them only had ten.
What the bees will do, of course, is fill the empty space with comb, making it difficult to get the frames out to harvest the honey, or do maintenance.
The solution is to remove all the loose comb and attach it to empty frames with a few rubber bands. A few really mad bees later, done and done.
I asked her what would happen to the rubber bands, and she said that the bees would take care of it. They like a clean hive.

It's been about two weeks.

The first picture shows one of the ladies trying to pull a purple rubber band out of the opening. You can also see three other rubber bands in the gravel.
I felt sorry for how hard she was having to work to fix my screwup, so I reached in and grabbed it.

Bees are unbelievably cool.

Here come the rubber bands. She was literally flying around with this thing trying to pull it out.
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Beekeeping Industry ‘Doomed’ – Destruction of Food Supply Soon to Follow?
Beekeeping Industry ‘Doomed’ – Destruction of Food Supply Soon to Follow? | Health Impact News
Sounds like you can sell them to desperate farmers and just forget about the honey.

It will be interesting to see what happens when bees become scarce enough that agribusiness starts taking big financial hits. I expect that money will talk and you'll see various insecticides banned quickly, funds flowing into bee research, incentives for farmers to plant flowers, etc. Beekeeping will be "cool".

It doesn't take the government making new regs for this too happen - the obvious problem will result in farmer's taking action themselves in what they chose to plant. SmileWavy

Maybe. If I'm a farmer growing crops not dependent on bee pollination, maybe i don't havr an incentive to stop using a given insecticide or plant anything else.

What do you do with the honey? Just eat them raw?

I was searching on how to chase honeybees away from my backyard. Reading this thread which makes me feel like I want to keep them.

What we've been doing is opening the comb, draining the honey into a big pan and then transferring the contents into jars.

We got six or seven jars last Sunday.