Bee thread? Bee thread. Just got 2 more hives up and running

>>979393
how much honey do you average per hive and do you do any planting of nectar-rich plants?

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>>979396
You can harvest between 30 and 80 lbs of honey per hive per year.
I don't plant any plants intentionally for the bees because the bees will actually fly out 6 miles and return home each day. There is a botanical garden near by and they probably spend a lot of time there.

Anyone interested in bee keeping?

>>979592
I'm planning on getting into beekeeping as soon as I live somewhere other than an apartment. I missed my local beekeeper's association beginner class a couple of months ago, so I'm waiting for the next one to come around.

Any advice or recommended literature for an aspiring apiarist?

>>979600
I've typically stuck with online resources for my resources. That said Michael Bush seems to be the gold standard in beekeeping knowledge.
You'll have to decide which hive type you want the main types for a normalish person being langstroth and top bar.
Top bar tends to produce less honey but they are cheaper to make.
Lang is expensive but can produce more honey.

Which ever you pick I recommend getting a nuc box for the type. It will come with some brood in various stages and a little honey. It's much easier for them to get started if you do it that way.
I also recommend starting with 2 hives so you have something to compare them against and if you have a weak hive and strong hive you can transplant bees.

>>979612
Thanks OP, noted

https://m.liveleak.com/view?i=1c1_1490234101
Be careful not to cultivate them in public areas or even small backyards as they are territorial.

>>979592
Very interested in beekeeping, especially in capturing a local hive, I live on the edge of a forested estuary, so I'm hoping I'll have a good chance finding one given the water source. Have you ever found a wild colony? Or relocated them?

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Helping my buddy with his hives last year.

His bees just got back from pollinating cali almond fields so we'll be starting up soon once the snow melts

>>979393
>tfw monsanto kills your bees
This was much more my moms hobby than mine but at one point she had 7 hives. They've all died now.

>>979628
Please don't spread misinformation.
>>979637
I haven't caught swarms before but I haven't exactly tried either. What you can do is set out a bait hive with some lemongrass oil and raise it in a tree. It will hopefully attract a swarm during swarm season, which is currently going on in my area (eastern virginia).
You could check Facebook for your local bee keeping club and often they have a swarm list which is a list of people they will call if they get a report of a bee swarm. They are typically super docile and you can get a lot of bees that way.

>>979641
What if a bee is late to when they pack up the hive. And she's stuck away from all her sisters forver. That sounds sad

>>979628
Found the epi-pen carrier.

>>979697
>lemongrass oil

Very interesting! I'll give that a shot once warmer weather is more dependable (NE Wisco spring can sometimes be an extended winter lol). Thanks.

How old are your hives? Are they a domestic species? No problems with colony disorders and whatnot?

>>979393
If I lived near you I would torch your hives. Absolutely no reason for you to be endangering people with swarms of stinging assholes.

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>>979657
are the actually any studies to that topic ? i tried google but all you get is a million webpage garbage that a surly unbiased as fuck, with names like "march-against-monsanto, gmo-death, alternativ medic. blogspot or what ever. "

all i could find is that new diseases are really bad, and neonicotinoids used in organic farming are a very bad new trend. besides old pesticides used for decades which is not really a surprise. but i'm in EU so pesticide laws might be very different.

Also
>be me
>last year
>have hornets in my garden
>bros keep wasps and bugs away and devour any pest.
>BBQ in peace all summer
>tfw no signs of a new generation this year

>>979592
I'm interested. What do you think of flow hives?
https://www.honeyflow.com/

>>979956
trash, you won't see a serious beekeeper using that shit

>>979876
2 coming in on 3 years. Honey Bees aren't native to the US they are European. I have Italian bees. So far the only issue I've had with pests or similar is small hive beetles which aren't too bad.
>>979956
This
>>979973

Bees are great

What do the startup costs look like?

Decided to get into beekeeping this year, fathers friend is carpenter and made 2 hives , getting 2 swarms this july, will they get strong by the end of summer or should i get them sooner

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>>980138
$60ish for veil and gloves
$10 for spray bottle and sugar or lemongrass oil
$100 for a homemade top bar
$100-150 for a 3lb box of bees.

That said talk to your local bee club they might have people with spare hive boxes that they might let go cheaply.
>>980146
Sooner is better your bees need enough time to gather adequate honey to survive the winter, but not too soon that a cold snap happens and ices your bees. You typically cannot harvest honey during the first year unless you get an overwintered nuc. That said you can and will need to feed your bees of the winter more than likely anyway.

>>980173

Where do you buy a box of bees? I just had a vision of the FedEx guy dropping a box and then having to run for his life

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>>980185
You literally can just have them mailed to your house. This is the box I got on Saturday.

>>979763
Then she dies

>>980199
Where did you buy from?

>>979974
They're not native to yurop either. They were there before they were in the Americas though.

>>979913
They smell your fear.

>>980383
Right. But bee species are typically categorized by which European country they come from.
>>980365
Mine were picked up from brushy mountain bees in NC. That said it's much better to buy local bees. Especially if you live in a coldish climate.
Imagine taking bees that are used to a Florida summer and Florida winter and moving them to Maine or something. They will typically die because they are not used to the cold.
Also support your local bee club instead of some outside source.

>>980409
Exactly. I hear stories of idiots with italian bees in MN and they wonder why they do so poorly. And then blame it on pesticides or something else.

>>979592
How does one get started?

>>980827
Like in general?
Best would be find out about local classes and attend the few classes they offer.
Some places have been mentors where you can visit there hives for a few weekends and see the general bee keeping ways.
All of this is free for my local club. From there you should start buying the listed supplies and pick up some bees and your ready to go.

>>979657
if you register your bees, they are considered livestock and are legally protected from spraying

>>981322
>register your bees
Wat
Why
Tell me more

I fucking hate them so goddamn much.

I used to keep about 4 hives years ago. It was a lot of work. I've thought about getting a hive or two but using the Flow Hive supers because I don't have any interest in going through centrifuging frames and all of the related processing. Or maybe doing a Kenyan top bar hive, since I do like some comb, but my one experiment with that resulted in terrible cross-comb and completely unusable honey stores. Any suggestions on what I should do?

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>>981873
>>981873
Top bar. You need some combination guides on the bars which will ensure the bees build in the correct fashion.
It's easy to maintain and cheap to build.
To process the honey you can just cut off the comb, crush it in a container and strain out the comb.
Just got back from a 3 day s/k/out/ meet up where we caught and cooked pic related.

>>983444
what'd you use to catch the lobbies?
lobster season starts in a months time for me, I fish out of Atlantic Canada

>>979396
My father and I have 2 hives and in the first year we managed to get 25 liters of honey from the 2 of them (plus a couple of beautiful slabs of comb that we didn't extract).

This was in the first year when the hives were getting established, i can only imagine what we will get this year.

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>>979913
You wouldnt do shit cuz youre a pussy ass bitch.

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Support the Bees!

They need us more than ever!

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>>983508
Fingers. They are mud bugs.
>>984370
Surprised they survived winter.
Typically you can't harvest the first year without increasing the chance of death during winter significantally. Do you live in a warm environment? Or did you feed them during winter?

>>984439

>>979974
>Honey Bees aren't native to the US they are European
Wait, really? With all this "save the bees" stuff you hear about, I would have never guessed that they were non-native.

Never kept bees before, became more interested after seeing that give with the spicket for honey. Anyone know anything about them?

How labor intensive are hives? Can I check on them once a week and be ok?

>>985064
There are more than just honey bees you know

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Also guys, you can buy mason bee nests to boost up your bee numbers. The little bees move into the nests on their own. Although technically solitary, they do enjoy living next to each other.