Beginner beekeeping

>>958249
In the USA you have to register your hives. The best course of action is to look up your local bee keeper's association or like club. They are usually extremely helpful and can give/sell you second hand equipment.

>over 600 beekeepers in your area
http://www.alabamabeekeepers.com/

I think your location is just fine for bee keeping.

>>958249
I would suggest against getting a Flow to start. It's too expensive and if things don't go as you would like you're going to be out a lot more money than if you just went with cheaper conventional methods and then incorporated a Flow later when you were ready to expand.

I built my own boxes and let the bees make most of the comb. They do make "starter comb" that the bees can build on, which I cut into 1 to 2 inch strips and attached to the top of the frames to help get the bees started in the right direction.

As far as getting started in your area, there are often groups/clubs that meet every so often that you can go to and talk to people who have already established colonies and see what works for them and most people in the beekeeping community are more than willing to help new people out with advice and equipment.

>>958249
I have nothing to add to the convo, but as someone on the Gulf Coast in Alabama I wanted to say what up. I'm on the Eastern Shore side of Mobile Bay

>>958446
I'm over on the western shore. May I just say as an immigrant from the united kingdom, fuck your summers.

>>958469
Lol. Yeah, they aren't exactly pleasant, huh? But truthfully I'd rather take the worst summer to the muggy, disgusting fall and winter weather we often get. It's just miserable. I'm not from here originally and I miss the change in seasons. Like a couple of years ago Mobile was hit by a tornado on Christmas (or right before?). That sort of weather doesn't exactly feel like winter to me.

>>958471
I completely understand that. In the UK at least we had the variety even if it was often a little overcast. The weather here also seem to change in a matter of minutes.

>>958475
>The weather here also seem to change in a matter of minutes.
That it does. Also, I'm used to the tropical downpours we get, but I here a lot of other transplants are caught off-guard by it. The UK has a lighter, mistier rain, right? What do you think about that?

>>958482
Honestly it's just something you learn to get used to. Though it is strange I feel as though in the year that I have been here I have seen more sun and more rain than I ever have in the UK.

>>958487
We have a high annual rainfall, but that's only because the heavens unleash a torrent when it rains. Large volume, less frequency

>>958489
Very true, since moving here I think the two most common phrases I've heard are.

>Did you know mobile beat out Seattle for most annual rainfall.
And
>Oh don't like the weather? Stay a while it'll change.

The only other thing I hear is people telling me Mobile was the true birthplace of Mardi Gras

>>958490
>Mardi Gras
Yeah, well, if they ever piss you off correct them with "No, it was the birthplace of its REVIVAL." It existed before, of course, but it made a comeback there. Also, Happy Joe Cain Day!

What sort of non-beekeeping activities do you get up to? We don't really have a lot of /out/ stuff to do other than hunting and fishing along with watersports. That's enough to keep most folks satisfied though I'm more of a camper/hiker. I venture out of state to do my /out/ stuff.

>>958492
I used to really enjoy camping and hiking back in the UK which was good fun yomping around England Scotland and Wales, sadly since coming here I've been a bit restricted with having to sort out immigration paperwork, and working.

Though I ship to basic for the Army reserves in June

Where do you normally go for your /out/ fun?

>>958494
I try to hit a different place every year. I've done most of the AT and a middle portion of the Pacific Crest Trail (last leg of Cali going into Oregon). I've gone to various campsites throughout Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, etc, but the hiking is pretty boring (though beautiful if you catch it in springtime since it is nature afterall) but walking on mostly flat terrain gets old after a while. Rather than take more trips closer to home I just opt to save up for a longer trip once a year.

>>958497
That makes sense, I'll admit the Pacific Crest trail is on my bucket list as is the western buttress of Denali.

>>958249
As long as the Queen and a couple hundred drones survive a storm, they will bounce back. You can keep honey production up during our short winters by poviding sugar water (sugar is way cheaper than honey). Live about an hour and a half from you. I've kept two boxes going for 8 years. Harvest enough to keep me and friends stocked, and still have enough surplus to sell at the farmer's market to pay for incidental production costs.

Because of all the pesticides, diseases, and parasites, you will have times when the hive population dips pretty low. Just study the basics well before you start buying stuff. After a couple years you can expand your ops and make a little supplemental income without much labor investment. Once you start getting wax and honey, it's tempting to go nuts with it. Take it slow.

>>958534
That sounds pretty reasonable, do you know any good reading material? Or good books to get me started.

>>958534
What kind of honey do you guys get in the gulf coast?

*has literally no knowledge about beekeeping and just randomly stumbled on this thread*

I'm on the west coast and one of the guys who we lease property to has his bees out there for spring and we get, along with the lease money, a few cases of honey and it's split into honey based off the species of plant the honey was produced on (desert buckwheat, black sage, pomegranate, orange and star thistle are the main ones he has) and I'm kinda curious if you guys get as much variety, and if so what do you get?

EG: the black sage is a darker and earthier honey, while the orange is much lighter and has a hint of orange to it, where the pomegranate is darker, but fruitier to it and goes to sugar really quickly.

Though I might just be talking greek to you.

>>958549
Refer to this guy's suggestion
>>958261

Everything I do was learned from my dad and other keepers. Nobody registers their hives down here (at least at the hobby level).

>>958554
I only have an acre in town. There aren't any big agricultural areas in my range, but their are plenty of woods nearby.

The honey I get is almost always very light. There are alot of very common ornamentals like ligustrum and azellia. I figure my bees ripoff peoples hummingbird alot, as just about everyone around here has one in their backyards. Folks 30 or 40 miles away in more rural areas get darker stuff.

OP might get some interesting stuff, as they grow pretty big strawberry crops around his area. He might have enough cow pastures nearby to put him in some clover.

>>958249
Ausfag here. Our native bees are stingless and I've been looking to start out with them seeing as I won't get fucking swarmed. Any ausfailians know how to go about this?

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>>958261
>>958317

These guys have the right idea. Contact your local beekeeper society and try to start with the conventional Langstroth hive. It is simple, relatively cheap, and versatile.

Italian honeybees are the standard in the West. Most honeybees you can buy are originally Italian, as they are the most docile.

The picture shown is my original 2 Langstroth hives. They served me well enough until my Dad hand-made 2 new Langstroths with built-in foam insulation. We managed to get a total of 25 liters of honey from them in the 1st year.

>>958249
The bees can sense when storms are coming, and they will let you know how uncomfortable they are. Yeah, Italians are good to start with, they go through more honey supplies, but that's only a problem up here in Wisconsin when overwintering them.

>>958261
I've never heard of this, and I've taken a couple classes with experienced and commercial keepers, got a source on it?

And who here has tried one of those flow frame hive things. It honestly looks like a meme product to sell to suburban parents who want to feel closer to nature, and the old beekeepers I've talked with agreed.

>>958670
The flow hive is a bit gimmicky, but I wouldn't put it down for that reason. If I could, I would totally love to have a flow hive mounted on my living room wall with an entrance facing my backyard.

It is interesting that you mention "old" beekeepers not liking it. Ive found that old people generally don't like anything new, I wouldn't want to glorify that fear of change.

>>958685
Perhaps that was an appeal to authority, since they have years of experience. And indeed old people have a knee jerk reaction to anything new, but I'd say that because what they do so far seems to work, and adding more components can upset the delicate balance that make things work.

And while I have not had the chance to inspect one in use, much less own and use one with the hives I tend to, it just doesn't fit with my management system. No queen excluder, rotating brood boxes for pest and development control and leaving large amount of honey for overwintering doesn't fit with having a tap on the top super.

Most of all, I don't mind taking the extra time to extract the honey. They spent their entire lives making the stuff, it's not going to kill me to wait a bit as it flows into a container from the uncapped frame. So even if there are no effects on the bees or honey, it wouldn't be worth the hundreds of dollars. Cool invention, don't get me wrong though.

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Not trying to piss on this bonfire. Beekeeping is awesome. Just prepare yourself for losing your bees. I know two people who have lost their colonies. One was through an arson attack the other's colony just died. They were devastated. The victim of the arson attack had kept bees for years but the impact of his loss means he can't even talk about beekeeping without tearing up. Keeping bees is amazing, but they are fragile.

I went to a beginning bee keeping class but they didn't address some things.

How do you prevent swarming, can you prevent swarming. How do you raise new queens, do you just commit regecide and wait for them to grow a new one?

What months do you harvest honey.

I've got my package bees on order so I have a few more months of research before they get here.

>>960431
One way to prevent swarming is to keep taking their honey before they build up a huge excess. Once they sense that they have the numbers and honey stocks (ie - the hive is becoming to crowded) they will be likely to swarm.

My father and I have 2 hives and we harvested twice, once in late spring and once in the mid-late summer. After a certain point you want to stop taking any honey because you want them to have enough to last the winter.

I haven't tried queen breeding. I'd be interested to know how people do that - I bet they sell for a decent amount.

>>959387
I would tie a bee terrorist up, shove a queen way up his ass, then let a colony have their way with him.

That sucks. I worry my neighbors might get nervous if they knew I had a hive 25yd from their property. I have really thick hedgerows though.

Am I the only one who has really nice bees? I have a suit for my little son, but I just wear my lucky pollen yellow shirt when I fool with em. I haven't been stung once in years. I don't use smoke.

>>960484
My hippie dad smoked his with weed. That's probably what they were feeding on mostly. I remember when we would take the freshly extracted honey to town to sell, dozens of docile little fellers would still be wandering around the cart aimlessly. Good times.

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>>959387
> One was through an arson attack

Who burns down a bee hive? What series of events leads a person to do such a thing?

I am creating a greenhouse and I'm looking to host some bee's (probably not honey bee's) which bees are the ones going extinct? I was thinking about adding in bumble bees, but i want to build around or add vents to the greenhouse depending on which type of bees i have to accommodate for.


tldr: Which bees are the ones that are being genocided so i can try to preserve them

>>960499
If you want to help endangered bees and have pollinators for your greenhouse, Bumblebees meet both those criteria. There numbers are in decline, and they are the best greenhouse bees in most cases.

You can buy boxes that are pre-made bumblebee hives, made specifically for greenhouses.

One piece of advice is to get a species native to your area. A lot of American sellers will have European bees and there is no reason to risk letting non-native species out into the wild when you could just purchase natives.

>>960504
I think bumble bees are the native to saskatchewan so i will get some of those, what do they do during the winter? I want them to survive sufficiently and not have to repurchase bees if the winter genocides them.

>>960512
Nevermind i did some googling, these fuckers are going to be challenging to save as they all die excluding a queen every winter.

>>960518
Yeah, if you are looking for a permanent population of bees to propagate you have to get honeybees. Most other bees are solitary bees (like the ones that implant larva into holes in wood) or bumblebees, who all die except for the queen (who digs herself underground and hibernates).

Maybe there is some technique for convincing the bumblebee queen to hibernate somewhere where you can store her so she can make a new hive next season, but that seems very tricky.

If you can afford the $150 a year you can just keep buying new boxes, but if you want to have a self-perpetuating population either go honeybees or be prepared to engage in some serious bumblebee keeping wizardry.

>>960570
Well im buying them to help keep their population up(i got 140 acres) not to make my greenhouse better. So i want them to survive.

>>960589
Wow, I have serious property envy. I live in the wasteland known as the Ontario suburbs.

If you want to help pollinators in general there are a few things you can do, especially with a large plot of land like the one you have.

The first and easiest thing to consider if planting lots of native wildflowers. With a little bit of Google searching you can find seed sellers who will sell bags full of mixed plant seeds which are native to your region. If you have some free space, planting patches of these will provide nectar and pollen to bees and other pollinators in the area. If you buy the seeds in bulk they are fairly cheap, and most of those seed mixes are either perennials or self-seeding annuals, which means that they will propagate themselves year after year, so you won't ever have to purchase them again.

Another thing to consider is planting some milkweed plants. Monarch butterflies are an important pollinator and they feed and reproduce exclusively on the common milkweed plant. Someone with a property like yours is in a great position to create a large patch of milkweeds which the monarchs will be drawn to. Monarch caterpillars eat only milkweed, and the butterflies only implant their larva in milkweed plants. You can buy the seeds or plants fairly cheaply and create a large patch of them to draw in the butterflies.

When it comes to bumblebees you can help them by providing the sources of pollen they need (such as planting wild flowers). Another thing to consider is learning how to make bumblebee dens. If you look online you can find guide to making bumblebee dens using cheap materials like terracotta flower pots, garden hoses, and straw. Don't buy overpriced commercial bumblebee boxes... they are useless - learn to make cheap and simple bumblebee nests and those will do the job. If you provide some suitable bumblebee nesting places, along with the sources of nectar and pollen, then you are doing about as much as you possibly can.

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>>960598
>>960598

Another thing I want to add, if you are thinking about making your property bumblebee friendly, is to make sure there are patches of loose, disturbed soil. The queens tend to dig into these kind of soil patches for their winter hibernation. Having patches like this around will be very attractive to them, as well as species of solitary bee.

Also, if it is pollinator populations in general that you care about, consider helping your solitary bee populations. They tend to plant their larva in the holes of dead wood.

Pic related is an example of a solitary bee house. This one is very artsy, but if you want cheap and cheerful you can just drill some holes of varying sizes (2-10mm) into blocks of wood.

>>960494
It happened in a part of the world where grudges usually boil down to similar sorts of things. iirc the attack wasn't actually aimed at my friend. Someone set fire to the neighbors field and it spread to the field where the hives were.

Swarming is a good thing, it can either double your hive size or spread the population elsewhere.

>>963542
Assuming you aren't living in a suburban area. I think if they swarmed onto my neighbours property we'd be in serious shit.

>>964066
Not that big a deal usually. They're much more interested in the Queen than people. Usually they congregate pretty far up in a tree.

Many years back, a storm downed a tree right next to my house. When I went out to take a look, thousands of bees were balled up on a branch. I walked right up to it to watch. I was two feet away until they started breaking apart.

It's really cool watching this when they're up in a tree. With so many of them holding onto each other, the weight becomes too great and balls of them begin "dripping" off of the congregation, then breaking apart halfway to the ground. I've seen this 6 or 7 times in 35 years.

BEEKEEPER was the best wordfilter

>>958261
>land of the free
>have to register your bees
>cannot add a bench on your house because it violates the local regulations of your homeowner association
>land of the free

>>958261
>Have to register your hives
Please show me the law that makes this mandatory.

Everyone around here, including me, would tell them to get fucked if they told us to ((register)) our bees.

>>967822
I'm from Canada and I "had" to register my hives. I put had in quotes because in Ontario it is enforced on the provincial level (which is an Ontarian way of saying it isn't enforced and is just for show).

>>967822
I've never heard of this either. Maybe you have to do it to qualify for farming subsidies?

>>967827
If you're in the US, it wouldn't surprise one bit if there were some arcane law or regulation stating that you have to register a hive. There are somewhere around 175,000 pages of regulations in the CFR in the US.

If such a regulation doesn't exist, I hope that nobody from the USDA reads this thread, because it will exist shortly thereafter.

>>967834
May be. If such a regulation exists, I've never seen it enforced.

>>967844
Of course not. There are already too many regulations for them to enforce. But then again, I wouldn't be willing to say whether one exists or not, and I'm not going to go sifting through the CFR to find out.

States set their own laws and regulations regarding honeybees. One State can have voluntary registration, while in a bordering State, registration and inspection are manditory.

The worst example of punishment for non-compliance that I've found so far is in Florida, we're a second offence can get you charged with a 3rd class felony and a $5000 fine. I've only looked at 5 States.