Beekeeping

[beerfish]

Anyone on here keep bees? I've been reading up on it and considering getting a hive, so I went out today and inspected hives with an experienced keeper. It was a blast!

 

[Bry17nyc]

Interesting..
But how do you first even attract them to the box

 

[masterswimmer]

My buddy keeps a couple of hives. I helped him rob a hive a number of years ago. Had to be 50-60,000 bees all around us. None of us wore any beekeeper protective clothing and not one sting. The honey was great.

Have fun with it. His hives are now gone due to black bears helping him rob the hives

Russ

 

[edd]

i always found it very interesting, and had the urge, sounds like a cheep hobby. i read that some people in nyc are keeping bees, because it doesn't require a lot of space. they use roof tops.
if you get a hive lmk I'm in oakland, would like to take a look. maybe we can trade queens down the road.

 

[beerfish]

i always found it very interesting, and had the urge, sounds like a cheep hobby. i read that some people in nyc are keeping bees, because it doesn't require a lot of space. they use roof tops.
if you get a hive lmk I'm in oakland, would like to take a look. maybe we can trade queens down the road.

Sounds like a plan. I'll keep you posted!

 

[jbjints]

Speaking of bees:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/brooklyn_bees_get_3s0iDhG7gkiDx4aogSP0xN

There was a huge beehive found in Brooklyn yesterday. Bees scare me so there would be no way I could ever even consider bee-hiving as a hobby.

 

[beerfish]

Speaking of bees:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/brooklyn_bees_get_3s0iDhG7gkiDx4aogSP0xN

There was a huge beehive found in Brooklyn yesterday. Bees scare me so there would be no way I could ever even consider bee-hiving as a hobby.

This happens when a colony gets too big for its hive. A new queen leads a swarm out and they hang out somewhere until their scouts find a suitable home. It looks scary, but since they have nothing to defend, and they're a new colony, they're at their most docile when they swarm like this.

I've actually been afraid of bees since I was a kid, when a nest found their way into my bedroom. I started getting into this as a way to get over the fear. Once you realize how awesome they are, you get so caught up in it that you forget that they're bees. The first hive I went to freaked me out, but after a few of them I started getting more comfortable. By the end of one day, I was taking my gloves off and getting pictures, and even stuck my hand on a comb to try the honey.

 

[beerfish]

So I've gotten all of the approvals, and I'm going out and buying a hive this weekend!

 

[yesjenks]

So I've gotten all of the approvals, and I'm going out and buying a hive this weekend!

Good luck!

 

[edd]

what kind of approvals, legal or domestic?

 

[beerfish]

what kind of approvals, legal or domestic?

Lol... The wife and the landlord!

Picking up hive equipment this weekend and putting it together / painting it.

It's late in the season to start, but another local beekeeper is going to try to find me a nuc (mini-colony), so that I can get started this year.

 

[edd]

yea thats what i thought. i was looking on line at the cost of bees, and see their all sold out. they say to order by january.
how much honey does a hive produce? i presume thats what your keeping them for.

 

[beerfish]

yea thats what i thought. i was looking on line at the cost of bees, and see their all sold out. they say to order by january.
how much honey does a hive produce? i presume thats what your keeping them for.

Honey, garden pollination, wax and propolis are all products of having a hive.

I have a keeper putting feelers out, and it's too late to start with a package colony, so I'd need either a nuc or a larger colony to get started at this time of year. I probably won't get much, if any honey in the first year, but a strong hive can produce 100-200lbs a year. I'm planning on getting the equipment for 2 hives to start, but I'll probably only fill one this year.

 

[jbjints]

Good luck. Please post pics when you get going.

 

[beerfish]

Went out and bought the hive and all of my equipment this weekend. The hive takes quite a bit of work to put together, but it's finally all assembled, primed and painted.

My wife is a pretty amazing artist, so once the protective paint was on, we decided to have some fun with the hive. She's going to decorate the whole thing, but here's the first piece she did for our Winnie the Pooh themed bee hive!

 

[edd]

very nice but its going to look like a toy box. haha
did you get your nuc also?

 

[beerfish]

very nice but its going to look like a toy box. haha
did you get your nuc also?

It is a toy box... Just one filled with bees instead! lol

Haven't gotten bees yet, but hopefully one of my contacts will pull through with some.

 

[beerfish]

It's been quite awhile since I've been on here, but I wanted to come back and update this thread. We didn't get bees the year we bought our equipment, but we did finally get them last spring. We started with two hives, and lost one over the summer, but the other one overwintered strong enough that we were able to split it. We also bought another hive this spring, giving us three. The other day, I got a call that someone had a swarm, and I went and collected it, which put us at four hives. We're expecting another two nucleus hives in about a week, for a total of six. Unless we catch another swarm, we plan on going into winter with these, then hopefully splitting up to at least ten hives by next year. Here's some pictures of our beekeeping adventure... ok, and maybe one of our dogs!