If I want to keep bees and don't give a shit about honey (just want to help out the bees) can I just buy a hive and stick some bees+queen in it? Do you need to actively maintain the hive if you're not harvesting honey?
>>2341330
I'm not a beekeeper myself but I believe that honeybees generally do require some maintenance. Now that Varroa mites are everywhere regular hives have a tough time surviving through winters.
I love your plan though, bees are awesome.
>>2341330
I keep finding abandoned artificial hives in the hills. Implies to me that the need maintenance.
you have to collect honey either way, if the hive gets filled up, they'll move.
>>2341462
>if they have too much food they move to a place where they have no food
are bees autistic?
>>2341354
Would VSH bees be able to survive without maintenance? Also, I live in California and winters here are very mild.
>>2341462
Why don't the bees just throw out the honey?
Also I heard today someone said there's a type of bee that lives in the ground and you can keep them easily by just keeping bare patches of dirt in your yard. I didn't hear the species but she said most bees actually don't make honey so I think that's one of them. Sounds low maintenance.
>>2341747
>Why don't the bees just throw out the honey?
Dumping the honey will just attract predators.
>>2341466
Honey is survival food in case shit happens. When you have a survival cache, you don't dump it out when you run out of space, you get more space.