Bees!

>>975355
>Does anybody have any good advice?
find a bee club

also a michigander, and apparently this state is crazy thick with pollen compared to other places

supposedly now is a good time to start looking for issues and addressing them, as the bees will be ramping up very soon

there also some really neat programs out there
http://michiganradio.org/post/tracking-honey-bees-big-data

>>975355
Register your bees. I made a homemade venom extractor (doesn't hurt the bee) but I never I invested in the hive itself

>>975388
>Does anybody have any good advice?

Clean it regularly. Letting propolis build up will wreck your frames when you go to loosen them and take them out.

Join your local bee keeper's club/society.

>>975355
What do you need advice for specifically? Are you looking for honey extraction techniques?

>>976768
I'll take any advice I can get my hands on. Primarily, though, yes. Especially without all that fancy multi-hundred dollar extracting gear

>>976807
Well, my dad and I have a spinning extractor, it works nice for big batches, but if you want to go cheap you can use the crush and strain method.

If you google instructional sites and sellers you can find the equipment for crushing and straining relatively cheap. You basically crush the honey comb up until all the honey has been squeezed out in one bucket, then you place a strainer over a second bucket and pour the crushed comb into it in small batches, letting the honey drop through. The 2nd bucket typically comes with a spigot so you can pour the extracted honey right into jars.

From there you can boil the wax into solid blocks and store it for future use (candles, lip balm... etc).