Plan B Forum

Beekeeping for Dummies arrived last week, the Brushy Mountain Bee Farm catalogue arrived today. Going on vacation next week for two weeks and will be reading up on my new hobby.

For the record, I asked my neighbors as a courtesy and they are delighted I'll be keeping bees - should improve gardens all around the neighborhood! I'm getting English garden hives and will be placing them among the fruit and flowering trees at the edges of my back garden, which happens to be at the furthest point from their property anyway.

Can't wait for next spring! Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Good luck! Do they deliver packaged bees in April in Montana? Will you have to do anything to insulate the hive in winter?


yrs,
rubato

I'll be getting my bees locally from friends who have a hobby-farm-scale honey operation. I will be taking guidance from them and other local beekeepers I've met about wintering the bees.

On advice of one local beekeeper, I'm checking into horizontal hives, too: http://www.horizontalhive.com/

If they are available, look into carniolan bees, aka 'grey bees'. They build up numbers quickly when food is abundant and decrease numbers quickly in the fall. The ones we had were very gentle.


yrs,
rubato

Did you look into horizontal hives at all, rubato? Just wondering if you have thoughts about those v. the traditional type used in the U.S.

Looks like one of the local farm/ranch suppliers has Carniolan bees available every spring, sourced from Harvest Lane Honey farms in Utah. I'll probably order those, based on your recommendation.

If you have time between now and next spring to give me a list of stuff you'd wish you'd known before you started keeping, that would be great - always better to learn from the experience of others, if possible!

PS - Do you wear a full suit while keeping, or just gloves and hat/veil?

I may not know much about beekeeping, but just a hat and veil sounds like too little. I would also wear pants.






(Just for beekeeping. Some things are pants optional.)

bigskygal wrote:PS - Do you wear a full suit while keeping, or just gloves and hat/veil?

Gloves hat and veil at first then my wife bought me a full suit with a veil that zips onto it. The suit is nicer and keeps propolis off your clothes. Only traditional equipment. Switched to 8 frame equipment because full supers get heavy and I have a chronic shoulder injury.

We had to take anti-skunk measures because skunks will eat so many bees they deplete the hive and make them fractious. I raised the hive onto 2 layers of cinder blocks and put cactus in front of the hive which solved the problem.


yrs,
rubato

too easy.....

I'll get the full suit. The garden hives I'm looking at are 8 frames, so I'll stick to those as I have a badly arthritic shoulder.

I won't have any issues with small critters bothering my hive (unless squirrels do?) as my yard is fully fenced.

We've always kept epi-pens in stock. You might think about it.


yrs,
rubato

Bees stopped play.

A football match was delayed at Oldham Athletic on Saturday after unwanted visitors swarmed around the goalposts.



A queen bee had attached herself to one of the posts, causing the penalty area to become hive of activity.

The referee suspended the start of the friendly with Blackburn Rovers until some beekeepers arrived.

The club tweeted: "The Bee team has just left the pitch", while Blackburn's twitter feed read: "Un-BEE-lievable scenes here."

A club spokesman said: "We are very grateful to the local bee society who arranged for a beekeeper to come along and clear the bees."

Rovers won the game 2-0

my yard is fully fenced.

Skunks and racoons and any number of critters don't care about fences. To them they are just a speed bump.

I haven't seen any evidence of skunk or raccoon traffic, despite having bird seed and other temptations on offer in the yard.

Wait til you have bees. Maybe bears will make an apperance also.

Hopefully not, but you never know. Nature finds a way.