Beekeeping, Anyone?

bees are really important for our environment, they give us honey  and maintain the balance of nature. i read it somewhere that if all the bees of the world die, than all human will also die. i dont know whether this is true or not.

Hope you got some bees and are enjoying beekeeping.

I wanted to check out the latest in this thread, since we have had some more adventures in beekeeping around our place, and noticed not much activity lately, but here goes with a post regarding our latest adventures in beekeeping in case this is helpful info for anybody starting out.

After our bees were wrecked due to the bear attack last winter, they did great all through the winter, inside the electric fence with sugar water as prescribed by our neighbor whose brother was a beekeeper in Calif. almond country as his business. However, the colony must have been too small to make it all the way into spring, because they perished boo hoo and so we bought some bees via mail order through L.S. Bees in Carson City. Watched a Youtube video about how to put them in the hive, and went for it. Those guys are going great guns!

I would recommend buying bees because you get a good healthy robust queen and a LOT of bees, which will make honey fast.

Bouyed up by our success, we also got a 2nd hive from our friend James at L.S. Bees, who gets swarms from folks who find them in their downspouts, etc. This one came from Dayton, NV and that hive was doing well, although not as great as the mail order colony.

In the meanwhile, our neighbors complained to Carson City, and the code compliance officer came out to let us know we were only allowed one hive and it had to be 200 ft. from the neighbors house. So, here is some advice to new beekeepers - - lookup your local code re: keeping bees before you place your hive, because then you don't have to move the hive later.

Since we had to sell a hive, we sold the smaller colony to a wonderful young man with a family up there in Susanville, CA. Posted the hive for sale on craigslist and within a day this very enthusiastic "living off the land with his wife and kids" guy arrived in his pickup and hauled away the hive to their new home in the mountains full of flowers and open spaces. So, that was gratifying and we have made a new friend we will check in on when we are up that way.

Also, moving the hive is a little adventure, because some of the bees will cling to the status quo, literally! During the day there was quite an agitated cloud of those Status Quo bees at their old place, and they were much more buzzy-zoomy than they usually are. Meanwhile, up at the new hive, the bees were mellow as usual and focused on their busy bee jobs.

We had been advised that some bees would keep returning to the old place, so we had put out a white cardboard box with some frames in it, to give them something to go into.

And, the first day after moving the hive, we proceeded to carry the box up to the new place, and there were A LOT of bees in there literally clinging to the status quo just clumping onto the frames like icicles do when they form on the eaves. (Charles Hugh Smith would eloquently describe the analogies to human societal behavior in this case.) 

But, anyway, every evening we'll go get the status quo bees and move them to their new box, until they stop returning to their old homestead. (On the 2nd day there were a lot less of them still returning to the old place - - and they were much less agitated).

Well, there are some of our continuing beekeeping adventures with a smidgen of political philosophy.

Lest we not forget though - - Eventually we hope to get some honey!

Mary Kay at PersonalSecurityZone.com

I guess nobody else is very interested in this thread, because one of the last posts was my own and there hasn't been anything added since Full Moon a long time ago - but for the sake of blabbing, and because we are thrilled we finally got some honey, I am posting here again to report a successful happy harvest.

Our new bees purchased from a California bee source (after the old bees succumbed to the ravages of bear attack and a too cold winter during which we did not properly insulate their hive) have proven themselves busy and productive, and after a full spring-summer-fall season we finally decided to take a look inside the honey super with a mind toward harvesting. It was full up! In there we also had a sort of "top bar" experiment going, because my husband the real beekeeper of the house, left out about 3 frames that would have hung in the center of the honey super, so the bees filled up the center all on their owm. hanging their combs from the top of the super box.

So, I mostly assisted, observed and encouraged, as Tom carefully took out some of the beautifully formed wax combs that were loaded with honey. To learn how to do this, we just watched a few youtube videos, same as we did when we put the store-bought bees in there. You can learn a lot on youtube!

I cut up some of the wax and honey into nice looking "bars" and placed these in tall glass jars (the kind you get peppers in) which now have calico material and Christmas ribbons on them, waiting to go out to a few friends who were supportive and curious about our honey bee keeping venture.

Also on youtube, I saw how to boil the mushed up honey and wax, then let it separate, so the honey went into a Mason jar, and the wax is now a;; "frapped" up with grapeseed oil and ylang ylang to make wonderful face cream! (Another thing you can probably lookup how to do on youtube).

Our honey is exotic of smell and taste, and not like the store bought stuff. It is darker and obviously full of pollen that came from the mostly rabbit brush that grows out there. The smell and taste are both more spicy.

So, this is my report to finish up and say if anybody else is interested in trying beekeeping, you are in for a very nice experience. 

Mt daughter started this blog a few weeks ago.  robie,husband,father,farmer,optometrist

http://www.bluestemfarms.blogspot.com/

Hey full Moon, try this site  http://www.bushfarms.com/bees.htm . Michael Bush is the closest thing to a bee whisperer I've yet seen. His site is loaded with info including how to collect feral bee swarms; just what you're looking for. I've been planning on starting an apiary since this WSID article was posted and just recently got around to pulling the trigger. I ordered a set of plans for a top bar hive from  another good site http://www.backyardhive.com/magazine/   and am getting ready to order a Langstroth hive from http://www.brushymountainbeefarm.com/. I've been studying  the book "Beekeeping for Dummies" since I think it was written just for me!

Keep us posted on your efforts as I find all info helpful.