To 'bee' or not 'to bee'šŸ¤­

Yep, my husband was very into bee keeping in a small way.. me not so keen.. he's gone but I still have the Hive..

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The landlord planted trees in all the yards, one of the trees in our yard was a bee magnet, shed a sticky syrup as well. We chopped it down and planted a tree to replace it. Our adult son is very allergic to bee stings. His great grandfather died from complications due to BEE sting.
 
I've been doing it for nine years now. I'm a hobby level beekeeper and currently keep three colonies. Besides providing a very beneficial effect to the local ecosystem as pollinators, my bees are endlessly interesting to me. I've sold some honey, given away as much and I use it in my farmers market bread baking operation. While I haven't even come close financially to turning a profit, beekeeping is an important pastime for me. And luckily for me, my immune system's response to bee stings has always been at the mild end of the spectrum.
 
Repondering said:
I've been doing it for nine years now. I'm a hobby level beekeeper and currently keep three colonies. Besides providing a very beneficial effect to the local ecosystem as pollinators, my bees are endlessly interesting to me. I've sold some honey, given away as much and I use it in my farmers market bread baking operation. While I haven't even come close financially to turning a profit, beekeeping is an important pastime for me. And luckily for me, my immune system's response to bee stings has always been at the mild end of the spectrum.
Click to expand...
Do you have a netted bee suite when you get the honey out? We have a bee house but not much to attract them yet. This year Iā€™m adding some flowering vines to attract more bees and humming birds as well as add attractive scent sources close to our house.
 
Division of labor...of course..those who do..know...
Honey bees divide the labor among the hive's members.
For example, guard bees watch for intruders.
Nurse bees look after newly hatched bees.
Forage bees search for nectar, water and pollen.
The Queen bee lays the eggs.
 
PeppermintPatty said:
Do you have a netted bee suite when you get the honey out? We have a bee house but not much to attract them yet. This year Iā€™m adding some flowering vines to attract more bees and humming birds as well as add attractive scent sources close to our house.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I have a full torso, hooded protective suit, but I only use it when I'm harvesting honey, administering medications or intruding deeply into their hive for any reason.....like an inspection of the brood chamber to see if maybe they're preparing to swarm. On those occasions, they go to war on me. They're fanatically protective of the brood chamber. It's like being at the center of thousands of dedicated flying warriors searching for any possible bit of unprotected skin to inject their venom into.

Other than on those occasions it's a much friendlier relationship.
I go out there every day when it's warm and usually lift off the outer cover and peer into the top level just because I like to......and to see how much honey they've stored up and if they need another box added to the hive. On those occasions I don't wear any protective garments and certainly don't use the smoker. I move slowly, they seem to know me and fly around me and they scurry around inside their hive and pretty much ignore me.
I've been planting nectar and pollen bearing flowers for years but haven't noticed any difference it makes to the bees. I live in a rural area and the foragers fly off to and return from two different directions.....they could have a 3 to 5 mile range....I've seen as many as five different colors of pollen at the height of the season's nectar flow. So at least five different species of flowering plants, maybe more...
It's endlessly fascinating. Honeybee society is weirder than anything any science fiction writer could dream up.
I would encourage everyone to consider taking up the hobby. Study up on it now and prepare to go active next spring.
 
I have a great but very spontaneous friend who got a free hive somehow thru a government program. She had no place to put the hiveā€¦so it ended up at our house for about 6 months or so. They were funā€¦they were pretty placidā€¦and I missed them when she hauled them up to colorado.
 
Repondering said:
Yeah, I have a full torso, hooded protective suit, but I only use it when I'm harvesting honey, administering medications or intruding deeply into their hive for any reason.....like an inspection of the brood chamber to see if maybe they're preparing to swarm. On those occasions, they go to war on me. They're fanatically protective of the brood chamber. It's like being at the center of thousands of dedicated flying warriors searching for any possible bit of unprotected skin to inject their venom into.

Other than on those occasions it's a much friendlier relationship.
I go out there every day when it's warm and usually lift off the outer cover and peer into the top level just because I like to......and to see how much honey they've stored up and if they need another box added to the hive. On those occasions I don't wear any protective garments and certainly don't use the smoker. I move slowly, they seem to know me and fly around me and they scurry around inside their hive and pretty much ignore me.
I've been planting nectar and pollen bearing flowers for years but haven't noticed any difference it makes to the bees. I live in a rural area and the foragers fly off to and return from two different directions.....they could have a 3 to 5 mile range....I've seen as many as five different colors of pollen at the height of the season's nectar flow. So at least five different species of flowering plants, maybe more...
It's endlessly fascinating. Honeybee society is weirder than anything any science fiction writer could dream up.
I would encourage everyone to consider taking up the hobby. Study up on it now and prepare to go active next spring.
Click to expand...
Thank you Repondering. Itā€™s fascinating!
How much honey do you gather?
Do you have any plans to expand?
 
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PeppermintPatty said:
Thank you Repondering. Itā€™s fascinating!
How much honey do you gather?
Do you have any plans to expand?
Click to expand...
I extract enough honey from each colony to fill one 5 gallon bucket....usually....on average.....that's about 65 lbs. And that leaves a generous quantity remaining in the hive for the bees to feed on through the winter.
I only extract once a year, in late October. I could probably harvest more honey but it's kind of a tricky proposition: Take enough for myself for it to be worthwhile, but leave enough for the bees.....who do all the hard work anyway. I'm not in the game for the profit so if I err, I err on the side of the bees' well being and leave them plenty. And if it was a harsh year........unusually dry, or a late wet spring, or with devastating mid west summer thunderstorms with damaging winds or hail, or any other manifestations of Mother Nature's capriciousness that knocks back flower growth and hence the nectar flow (and a lot of other effects in the ecosystem too.....everything is connected to everything else), then I might not extract any honey at all that year.

No, I do not plan to expand. At my age I'm content to remain at the hobbyist level. To provide a substantial supplementary income, I'd be obliged to increase to 100 hives or so. Maybe not that many.....75? The real money in beekeeping isn't in the honey but the pollination services. That means hundreds of hives seasonally transported cross country on flatbed 18-wheeler trucks to the various agricultural zones that simply must have reliable insect cross pollination. California almonds for certain, and probably the apple and citrus locations too. Not my cup of tea.

I have however considered branching out into queen breeding. That is a whole other specialized area. And it really, really involves manipulating the honeybee life cycle into meshing with the human agenda. Kind of interesting actually. And it would be filling a niche in the local beekeeping community. We all benefit from regularly introducing fresh genetic information into our apiaries. The big queen breeding sources are located in year-round warm climates like Hawaii. A source of honeybee stock derived from bloodlines resulting from multiple generations that have survived and flourished in our local, sometimes harsh environment would be a real asset to us, here where we live.
I've been catching the occasional wild bee swarms then hiving them to accomplish the same sort of thing.
And I've bought bee packages too. They're made up of a few thousand random worker bees vacuum sucked out of commercial hives, confined into a transport box with a mated queen from some commercial queen breeder, provided with a can of sugar syrup to feed them, and then shipped cross country to end users like me.

Ask beekeepers a question and they'll just drone on and on...........
 
Sorry Repondering.
I meant to get back to your post and completely forgot. Iā€™ll blame it on the cold medication I was on. šŸ˜

That Bee keeping you are doing sounds fascinating. You can tell how excited you are about it to think all this through.
Seriously 65 lbs?
Thatā€™s a very enthusiastic hobbyist then.

Im so happy for you. You needed this. Now you have something to sell with the homemade bread you make. You found your passion. Namaste! šŸ’• Thatā€™s wonderful

I had no idea Bee Keeping could be so exciting. You could actually recognize different pollens by the colour!!! How cool is that? Amazing!

Do you order these Bees online?
Im not sure why I was so surprised that they got shipped by transport truck.

We have a Bee nesting thing here. Itā€™s a rectangle and inside are sections that look like bamboo pieces. Is this what you use? Iā€™m wondering if I could use part of my raised garden beds to do something similar. The idea of getting our own honey from bees that we look after would be exciting.

How far away is your nest from the house you live in?
Unless you are taking their nest apart, they arenā€™t aggressive with you?
I hope thatā€™s what Iā€™m understanding from your posts. Ive never found bees aggressive are have rarely been stung by one. If I did it was probably my fault. Lol

And what do you mean by ā€˜Youā€™ve been catching occasional wild bee swarms?
Are you serious? Are these bees attracted to your bee hive? Do they communicate to each another? Are they actively seeking to swarm up with other colonies if they find them? How do you catch them successfully without getting stung? I assume you where your new net suite!!

Well this is incredibly interesting. You definitely have my interest peeked?
Ummm! Fresh made bread and honey!!! šŸ¤¤
 
Repondering said:
I extract enough honey from each colony to fill one 5 gallon bucket....usually....on average.....that's about 65 lbs. And that leaves a generous quantity remaining in the hive for the bees to feed on through the winter.
I only extract once a year, in late October. I could probably harvest more honey but it's kind of a tricky proposition: Take enough for myself for it to be worthwhile, but leave enough for the bees.....who do all the hard work anyway. I'm not in the game for the profit so if I err, I err on the side of the bees' well being and leave them plenty. And if it was a harsh year........unusually dry, or a late wet spring, or with devastating mid west summer thunderstorms with damaging winds or hail, or any other manifestations of Mother Nature's capriciousness that knocks back flower growth and hence the nectar flow (and a lot of other effects in the ecosystem too.....everything is connected to everything else), then I might not extract any honey at all that year.

No, I do not plan to expand. At my age I'm content to remain at the hobbyist level. To provide a substantial supplementary income, I'd be obliged to increase to 100 hives or so. Maybe not that many.....75? The real money in beekeeping isn't in the honey but the pollination services. That means hundreds of hives seasonally transported cross country on flatbed 18-wheeler trucks to the various agricultural zones that simply must have reliable insect cross pollination. California almonds for certain, and probably the apple and citrus locations too. Not my cup of tea.

I have however considered branching out into queen breeding. That is a whole other specialized area. And it really, really involves manipulating the honeybee life cycle into meshing with the human agenda. Kind of interesting actually. And it would be filling a niche in the local beekeeping community. We all benefit from regularly introducing fresh genetic information into our apiaries. The big queen breeding sources are located in year-round warm climates like Hawaii. A source of honeybee stock derived from bloodlines resulting from multiple generations that have survived and flourished in our local, sometimes harsh environment would be a real asset to us, here where we live.
I've been catching the occasional wild bee swarms then hiving them to accomplish the same sort of thing.
And I've bought bee packages too. They're made up of a few thousand random worker bees vacuum sucked out of commercial hives, confined into a transport box with a mated queen from some commercial queen breeder, provided with a can of sugar syrup to feed them, and then shipped cross country to end users like me.

Ask beekeepers a question and they'll just drone on and on...........
Click to expand...
So interesting @Repondering. I never realized there was so much to bee keeping. Thank you!
 
PeppermintPatty said:
Sorry Repondering.
I meant to get back to your post and completely forgot. Iā€™ll blame it on the cold medication I was on. šŸ˜

That Bee keeping you are doing sounds fascinating. You can tell how excited you are about it to think all this through.
Seriously 65 lbs?
Thatā€™s a very enthusiastic hobbyist then.

Im so happy for you. You needed this. Now you have something to sell with the homemade bread you make. You found your passion. Namaste! šŸ’• Thatā€™s wonderful

I had no idea Bee Keeping could be so exciting. You could actually recognize different pollens by the colour!!! How cool is that? Amazing!

Do you order these Bees online?
Im not sure why I was so surprised that they got shipped by transport truck.

We have a Bee nesting thing here. Itā€™s a rectangle and inside are sections that look like bamboo pieces. Is this what you use? Iā€™m wondering if I could use part of my raised garden beds to do something similar. The idea of getting our own honey from bees that we look after would be exciting.

How far away is your nest from the house you live in?
Unless you are taking their nest apart, they arenā€™t aggressive with you?
I hope thatā€™s what Iā€™m understanding from your posts. Ive never found bees aggressive are have rarely been stung by one. If I did it was probably my fault. Lol

And what do you mean by ā€˜Youā€™ve been catching occasional wild bee swarms?
Are you serious? Are these bees attracted to your bee hive? Do they communicate to each another? Are they actively seeking to swarm up with other colonies if they find them? How do you catch them successfully without getting stung? I assume you where your new net suite!!

Well this is incredibly interesting. You definitely have my interest peeked?
Ummm! Fresh made bread and honey!!! šŸ¤¤
Click to expand...

The rectangular bee nesting thing is intended for native bees of which there are many species. They are not social bees who live in a colony numbering in the tens of thousands.....those are honeybees, Apis Mellifera....which arrived in America with the European colonists. Those wild bees are very important pollinators and I'd encourage everyone to put up "nesting things" for them. Look up how to make them.....there are tons of designs......they pretty much all involve tubes for the females to lay eggs in.

My bee hives are about 100 yards from my house, because that's where a favorable location happens to be. It faces the morning sun as it rises, is shaded in hot afternoons and is sheltered from cold winter winds. I would have no objection were it to be nearer the house......
If I'm not intruding into the brood chamber near the hive's bottom, where the eggs and larvae are and which the colony aggressively defends, and if I move carefully, no sudden moves, and am not exuding any kind of strong odor, then my bees are not aggressive at all. I can even remove a frame or two to inspect the colony's health and well being if I move slowly and don't fumble. Frames are the removable structures that the bees build their honeycombs on. They're what we extract honey from.

Catching wild bee swarms? Well, yeah. That's how people started the beekeeping game in the first place........thousands of years ago.
Consider that a colony is a single organism and the bees are like cells in that organism's body: Thousands of workers (non fertile females all), one queen (the colony's only breeding mother) and a bunch of drones.....50? Maybe 100? Drones are the males and their only function is to mate with queens from OTHER colonies......and most of them live their entire lives without ever 'doing it'. So they hang around the hive, fly around when they feel like it, eat the honey the workers produce, and do not do any work at all. When winter comes they are forcibly expelled from the hive to starve or freeze.

Oh yeah, catching a wild swarm. When a hive is flourishing, when it's successfully increased its population, the entire colony "reproduces" itself. If the colony is considered as a single organism, the swarm is how one of them becomes two. It's fascinating beyond measure. Basically, the nurse worker bees raise several new queens (a whole story there) and the old queen departs with maybe half the workers and some drones go along too. Everybody should witness a bee swarm at least once in their life. The swarm flies off en masse, searching for a new place to live, scouts have already been out looking, but sometimes, usually, after departing the old hive (or hollow tree if it's a truly wild colony), the swarm (thousands of humming bees) will pause on a tree branch or someplace to decide on where to go.
That's when one can catch a swarm. It's really exciting. Slowly, carefully, cut the tree branch off, carry it to a cardboard box (with 10 lbs or so of living, humming bees...all with a stinger BTW) and carefully deposit the swarm into the box, duct tape it shut, take it home and GENTLY shake the bees into an empty hive which of course, one has ready and waiting, fully prepared.
If you've given them a nice place to live, they'll stay there. OK, that was plan A.......there are a multitude of options all depending on where the bee swarm is resting.

The old hive with the bees who didn't leave? They've got 4 or 5 new queens hatching out.....the first one who emerges promptly stings her sisters and potential rivals to death. Yes. There's only one queen at a time.
And then is when the drones from neighboring hives get to perform their only life function.

As I've said, beekeeping is an interesting hobby.
 
Repondering said:
The rectangular bee nesting thing is intended for native bees of which there are many species. They are not social bees who live in a colony numbering in the tens of thousands.....those are honeybees, Apis Mellifera....which arrived in America with the European colonists. Those wild bees are very important pollinators and I'd encourage everyone to put up "nesting things" for them. Look up how to make them.....there are tons of designs......they pretty much all involve tubes for the females to lay eggs in.

My bee hives are about 100 yards from my house, because that's where a favorable location happens to be. It faces the morning sun as it rises, is shaded in hot afternoons and is sheltered from cold winter winds. I would have no objection were it to be nearer the house......
If I'm not intruding into the brood chamber near the hive's bottom, where the eggs and larvae are and which the colony aggressively defends, and if I move carefully, no sudden moves, and am not exuding any kind of strong odor, then my bees are not aggressive at all. I can even remove a frame or two to inspect the colony's health and well being if I move slowly and don't fumble. Frames are the removable structures that the bees build their honeycombs on. They're what we extract honey from.

Catching wild bee swarms? Well, yeah. That's how people started the beekeeping game in the first place........thousands of years ago.
Consider that a colony is a single organism and the bees are like cells in that organism's body: Thousands of workers (non fertile females all), one queen (the colony's only breeding mother) and a bunch of drones.....50? Maybe 100? Drones are the males and their only function is to mate with queens from OTHER colonies......and most of them live their entire lives without ever 'doing it'. So they hang around the hive, fly around when they feel like it, eat the honey the workers produce, and do not do any work at all. When winter comes they are forcibly expelled from the hive to starve or freeze.

Oh yeah, catching a wild swarm. When a hive is flourishing, when it's successfully increased its population, the entire colony "reproduces" itself. If the colony is considered as a single organism, the swarm is how one of them becomes two. It's fascinating beyond measure. Basically, the nurse worker bees raise several new queens (a whole story there) and the old queen departs with maybe half the workers and some drones go along too. Everybody should witness a bee swarm at least once in their life. The swarm flies off en masse, searching for a new place to live, scouts have already been out looking, but sometimes, usually, after departing the old hive (or hollow tree if it's a truly wild colony), the swarm (thousands of humming bees) will pause on a tree branch or someplace to decide on where to go.
That's when one can catch a swarm. It's really exciting. Slowly, carefully, cut the tree branch off, carry it to a cardboard box (with 10 lbs or so of living, humming bees...all with a stinger BTW) and carefully deposit the swarm into the box, duct tape it shut, take it home and GENTLY shake the bees into an empty hive which of course, one has ready and waiting, fully prepared.
If you've given them a nice place to live, they'll stay there. OK, that was plan A.......there are a multitude of options all depending on where the bee swarm is resting.

The old hive with the bees who didn't leave? They've got 4 or 5 new queens hatching out.....the first one who emerges promptly stings her sisters and potential rivals to death. Yes. There's only one queen at a time.
And then is when the drones from neighboring hives get to perform their only life function.

As I've said, beekeeping is an interesting hobby.
Click to expand...
Thanks Repondering,
Sorry for all the questions but this has my interest peeked.
Looking at the DIY bee hives I see what you mean. They are very different from what I had. Looking on the internet I found this.
https://www.bees-and-beekeeping.com/build-a-bee-hive/
It shows how to build a bee hive which is something I can definitely do.

There are a few potential bee hive house places I could use on the property that are far enough away from the house and our pets, yet protected.

Iā€™m somewhat intimidated but more intrigued plus Iā€™m sure my husband will help me if needed.

The frames inside the box is what Iā€™ve always seen in movies with bee keeper scenes in them. The bee house actually sounds simpler than I expected and luckily I have lots of tools so can do this.

The bee swarms are cool. I had to think back and wonder if Iā€™d ever seen a bee swarm and realized that I had. I just never realized what I was looking at.

Just thinking about this makes me wonder how perfect nature is. The queens know they are queens, the drones know they are drones and the working need know they are worker bees. I wonder how and when they know all this information. Itā€™s a good thing bees arenā€™t egotistic like humans are ā€˜cause if I had to work like the worker bees do and I see some drone slacking off, Iā€™m not going to be a happy bee. Lol! šŸ˜‚

How the hive reproduces by dividing and multiplying is interesting but the catching a wild bee swamp is wild. Since they donā€™t know you, isnā€™t there a natural instinct for them to sting you?

Do you know what that stuff thatā€™s sprayed on bee hives before a bee keeper goes in to collect honey or whatever is?
 
PeppermintPatty said:
Thanks Repondering,
Sorry for all the questions but this has my interest peeked.
Looking at the DIY bee hives I see what you mean. They are very different from what I had. Looking on the internet I found this.
https://www.bees-and-beekeeping.com/build-a-bee-hive/
It shows how to build a bee hive which is something I can definitely do.

There are a few potential bee hive house places I could use on the property that are far enough away from the house and our pets, yet protected.

Iā€™m somewhat intimidated but more intrigued plus Iā€™m sure my husband will help me if needed.

The frames inside the box is what Iā€™ve always seen in movies with bee keeper scenes in them. The bee house actually sounds simpler than I expected and luckily I have lots of tools so can do this.

The bee swarms are cool. I had to think back and wonder if Iā€™d ever seen a bee swarm and realized that I had. I just never realized what I was looking at.

Just thinking about this makes me wonder how perfect nature is. The queens know they are queens, the drones know they are drones and the working need know they are worker bees. I wonder how and when they know all this information. Itā€™s a good thing bees arenā€™t egotistic like humans are ā€˜cause if I had to work like the worker bees do and I see some drone slacking off, Iā€™m not going to be a happy bee. Lol! šŸ˜‚

How the hive reproduces by dividing and multiplying is interesting but the catching a wild bee swamp is wild. Since they donā€™t know you, isnā€™t there a natural instinct for them to sting you?

Do you know what that stuff thatā€™s sprayed on bee hives before a bee keeper goes in to collect honey or whatever is?
Click to expand...

The bees are starting to seduce you with their allurement, PeppermintPatty.
Watch some youtube videos, there are many: How to inspect a beehive; How to extract honey; How to hive a bee package; How to split a beehive.......you'll be pulled into the craft and once you go active (next spring..2024?) it'll never let you go.

Catching a swarm....yeah it's likely a few of the bees will perceive you as an aggressor and sting......but actually, a swarm doesn't have any brood or stored honey or any territory to defend, and every bee that does sting, loses its life in the process, and so each bee lost weakens the swarm. Hence, during a swarm event the bees are at their most vulnerable and least aggressive. But of course if something crudely blunders into the ball of bees, they'll counterattack. A swam catch is done gently, gently and with great care.......one does not want to initiate any kind of adversarial relationship. Done well, the bees don't even know what you're doing....and then they are put into a comfy hive with some frames of capped honey and many frames ready for them to draw out their own honeycomb on......it's like giving them a furnished home with a stocked larder.
The next day they're busily making it their own, and flying around exploring the new territory and seeking out blooming flowers.
The stuff that's sprayed on hives is smoke. We all have devices called smokers.....a small fire chamber and a bellows-like arrangement that we can puff smoke onto and into the hives. People have been doing that for thousands of years. Ancient Egyptians did it. The smoke renders the bees less belligerent......there are many theories of exactly why it works.
 
RobinWren said:
Did you think it was a flower that you had not come across. šŸ˜„ You with the most beautiful garden.
Click to expand...

i taught at a school where kids had a chance to grow food and prepare it in conjunction with their humanities classes mostly. They had an apple press but never called it a mangle. I do find differences in English usage, vocabulary and spelling interesting.
 

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