I've wanted to keep bees for years now and I've finally ordered the bees, hive, and equipment. Everything I've read has told me I should begin with two hives so I can compare them but I could only afford one. How fricked am I, PrepHole?
Beekeeping
I've wanted to keep bees for years now and I've finally ordered the bees, hive, and equipment. Everything I've read has told me I should begin with two hives so I can compare them but I could only afford one. How fricked am I, PrepHole?
Bees are so fricking based. One hive will do.
>How fricked am I
No more fricked than you will be if you never try. Get a hive and have fun with it.
How much space do you have? Are neighbors an issue?
If anything they'll like it, they have a pretty big garden and seem like the type to love honey. I have plenty of space, just not enough money for two hives.
Thanks for the encouragement bros. I'm doing this for my grandfather who passed away, we took a class on it but he never got to see me actually keep them.
You can make them out of pallets once you're more into it.
your bees will likely not collect pollen from your nearby garden. they will travel miles away and collect pollen on the way back.
Why would they waste a resource that is right next to their home? That would allow bees from other hives to come into their territory and take it instead, no...?
they conserve energy by traveling large distances and carrying bits of pollen starting from the furthest distance
this video explains it well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0oJZgr3kPk
I think most if not all counties in the us have laws specifically protecting people who keep hives as long as it's on private property, i.e. you cant have a frickin hive on an apartment balcony
Bees are actually fairly finicky things and prone to diseases and parasites. You need a mentor, frankly trying to keep bees the way you're going about it is unethical. Not only can you destroy your own hive, but your poor beekeeping practices can spread disease to neighboring hives as well. If you could only afford one hive, how are you going to afford all of the other work that goes into this? The hives aren't even the most expensive part of beekeeping.
Where does one find the best resources for getting started with a beehive? Either books, mentors, videos, etc.
>Where does one find the best resources for getting started with a beehive?
Fat bee man on youtube. Beekeepers are opinionated buttholes. Kinda like those pro gardeners. If one already likes you, they'll help you.
I had no mentor. I literally found a wild swarm hanging off a branch and after watching a youtube video on how to catch a wild swarm, I cut the branch and dumped them all in a bucket and dropped them all in a bucket and then went and bought everything.
Tell me about your location. State, and elevation.
WA, sea level
Garbage response. Not worthy of help.
You asked for my state and elevation and I gave it to you. Ask better questions if you don't like the answers, moron.
>WA, sea level
Puget Sound Area noob beekeeper here - our winters are damp as frick, so I have had hives die out over winter and get moldy inside.
A lot of other folks in this climate use a bunch of Cedar bark/strips in an empty honey super box above the hive (close it off to bees, but leave a little bit of airflow) - the cedar absorbs the water a bit and helps regulate moisture, according to my mentors.
Puget Sound Beekeepers is one of the bigger groups.
and pay the $35 bee registration fee to the state and comply with the super minimal requirements there, and then your neighbors cannot harrass you for having bees. (actually a pretty bee keeper friendly set of laws)
Beekeeping for dummies was very helpful for me
Thank you, anons. I appreciate the spoon feeding to send me off in the right direction.
I just watched a frick ton of youtube video, and experimented a bit. It's easier than you'd think.
Local library. I found a book on top bar beehives, it apparently is more hygienic and avoids the problems of recycled wax and bees starving in winter.
>your poor beekeeping practices can spread disease to neighboring hives as well
Not my problem
>is unethical
Oh no, anyways.
>You need a mentor
thread
Bullshit I used to manage 2.4k hives and everything I know can be learned from videos.
I run 15 colonies.
ama
OP here, were there any easily avoidable mistakes you made that I should watch out for? Also do you do it commercially? Is it profitable?
How many bees would it take to lift a man?
What sort of space clearance do you need for bees? I would like to start a hive, but I dont want to hurt the postman or neighbors.
depends on your local rules, I can keep bees no problem but I have a large garden
Not sure how much i can help OP but I've had a hive for two years now. Having more than one hive is better since you have a backup and can give extra honey/brood to each other in times of need. After a year you might be able to split the hive to 2, I'm hoping to this spring.
The two most important things I've learned is mite and moisture control especially in the winter. I used Apivar this year with success, a quilt box on top and a slight slope to allow excess water to fall out. Also gave it oxalic acid vaporization treatments a few times this summer and might again while they're still in their winter clusters.
I'm not 100% sure on exact space. The direction you keep the entrance is important because that's where it will get the most traffic in the summer
Yeah the plan is to split it or maybe, possibly, perhaps capture a live swarm to supplement the first hive next year. I'll note the treatments and ask my mentor more about it. Thanks for the input.
Have any other beekeepers seen the workers preform pseudo death rituals around other deceased workers?
I started with one hive as well but it has been nice to have more than one. If I were to start again I would start with one because I don't want to pay $300 for a second nuc. Just split your first hive next spring
I've got 7 hives in the great state of Utah. I've been keeping for 4 years.
>Everything I've read has told me I should begin with two hives so I can compare them but I could only afford one.
Find a local beekeeping group/store/mentor, so that you can re-queen in case your queen dies (by getting another queen, or buy getting some frame eggs only a few days old and putting in hive).
Honestly bee-having was a bit easier than I thought (3 years into the hobby now).
In my climate the bees have died off over the very damp cool winters though, so I have had to restart hive each year. (Don't buy Flow hive if you live in damp cool winter climate.)
Bee variety matters more than I thought, Italian breed western honeybees were super chill in my experience, I could stand right behind the hive (not by hive entry point) with no issue for hours without suit or smoke. Other bee breeds I picked up didn't do that as much.
Scientific beekeeping is a good blog/internet resource.
"Honeybee democracy" is a very well researched yet still very trippy exploration of how bee colonies make decisions, suggest you give it a read and you will get a new appreciation of bees, and how they are like the Zerg.
Where do you live and what kind of bees did you order? If possible I'd get a nuc from a local apiary. I lost a hive this year I think due partly to the bees being from Georgia and not being cold hardy enough during a bit of a cold snap in my area where it was -20 for a week or so
Tennesee, I got local Italian bees so I'm hoping it's alright. I'm going by the book besides the 2 hives thing.
This is something that's kind of brushed over by the book. How do you kill a queen? Just crush her? Guillotine?
Squish her, stomp her, cut her head off with a hive tool, can even give her an alcohol bath or soapy water if you're more of a chemical regicide activist.
Only reason I'm considering killer her is winter performance has been lackluster so I'd rather get heartier genetics.
Going from 3 hives last year to hopefully 10 this year. Frick my life bee bros equipment costs frickin me hard. Just ordered bottom boards and a case of deep frames and mediums and it was like $700 bucks. I haven't even bought boxes yet.
> Have a hive of wild bees I caught from a swarm out of a tree.
> Have a hive of Italian mutts I ordered last year
> Ordered 2 nucs of sascatranz
> Ordered a package of Russians
I'm thinking I'll let the wild caught bees produce a queen for their splits but I think I'm going to kill the Italian queen and replace her and queen the splits with vsh Carolinian queens
Opinions?
save the bees
if you live in burr country beware. a few of my neighbours are beeists and routinely have all their hives wrecked by scavenging burr
pic not altogether related