Do we have any beekeepers here?

[jen b]

I took a 10-session beginner beekeeping course over the winter/spring and this past saturday I picked up my new bee pets, all 20,000 or so of them. Italian queens Bizzy and Buzzy with three pounds of workers each.

I was pretty nervous about fumbling and unintentionally causing all the bees to either die or leave, but my first hive inspection three days after installation found them to be alive and busy building up brood comb. Until they really start digging into the nectar flow of the nearby flowering fruit trees I'm feeding them sugar syrup infused with essential oil of lavender, and their new wax comb smells very pleasantly of lavender, which is kind of cute. Success! So far! We'll see!

I live in a city neighborhood and have too many cats in a small back yard for bees to be practical at my own house, so my ladies are living in two colonies on a friend's rooftop deck a couple of blocks away.

[papas34]

Love bees.....

If your a newbee, someone who is limited by what they can lift, interested but not so sure about spending a little money for all the equipment......look into TOP BAR BEE HIVES !!!!!!!


Bees are a great addition to any yard, just remember to leave them an open path to water and try not to pinch them if you get close to them......most of us have a bee hive much closer to us than we may realize!

Hope you enjoy the new hobbie.

Del

[CarolMarie]

I have always thought about doing that...very interesting. I just saw "The Secret Life of Bees" on TV and it was an excellent movie, part of it explaining about beekeeping. What will you do with the honey? I will look into the top bar hives. Good luck.

[Lizbeth]

Congratulations Jen! I have been wondering if it is legal to keep bees here in our city. I love honey and have been buying at the farmers market. That works for me because I am actually afraid of bees and other flying insects even though I know it is silly!

[jen b]

At such time as we have honey (probably won't really harvest any till next year, so the bees have plenty of stores to survive the winter) I guess I'll be sweetening my tea with it, and we do like honey on fresh bread around here. Sharing with friends, etc. I am also eager to try making beeswax things, too, like soap and whatnot. There's a honey bottler in Philadelphia who bottles by zip code, and if I have an ample honey harvest between the two colonies I may look into being a 19130 supplier for that.

I decided I wanted to learn with a regular Langstroth hive given I was starting with two colonies - and the expense of a top bar is considerable unless you build your own. Once I get the hang of this, I may go next to a top bar because they really do have a lot of advantages. I may have gotten the university where I work to agree to let me put a hive on campus next year.

[papas34]

Originally Posted by CarolMarie

I have always thought about doing that...very interesting. I just saw "The Secret Life of Bees" on TV and it was an excellent movie, part of it explaining about beekeeping. What will you do with the honey? I will look into the top bar hives. Good luck.

One of my favorite treats was and is honey on the cob (bees wax).....
With the Top bar it is real easy to just break off a piece and get all sticky

[Normand Choiniere]

Just stopped beekeeping a year ago. A fantastic hobby.

[john warren]

how fun for you. now start collecting honey recipes. love all the things you can do with it.

[floyd]

Listen honey...This may be none of my bee's wax, but the buzz is, that beauty is in the eye of the beeholder. So don't be sting-y with that comb and use it to hide the point of this post. Hive gotta go now, I don't have the stamen-ah to continue.

[Fegbee]

Hi there, I also keeps bees. This is my second year and man is it a learning experience. Come march I was thinking this isn't so bad I've got the hang of it. Boy did those bees teach me a thing or two about being humble. Any way I saw you were from PA....any chance you took the class from Vincent @ temple? That's we're I took my classes. He's the real deal. Good luck preparing for winter and drop me a pm if you have questions. I probably won't have the answer but I can at Least sympathize with you. Lol

[Tim Wood]

I guess I missed this the first time around, but I use to have some hives many years ago. Its a great hobby and I'm sure you will enjoy it.

[john warren]

very cool hobby,,,or is it a vocation? i love bee's and honey, unfortunately with the economy i can only afford to keep 1 for the moment.... but someday i hope to get another one and start a bee family.

[Thomas G.]

Oh sorry, I thought it said barkeepers.

But why do they call it an apiary when it doesn't contain apes?

[Mike Magee]

Originally Posted by Thomas G.

Oh sorry, I thought it said barkeepers.

I'll just let that one bee.

Say, did anyone see that news story this AM about all the weird-colored honey in Europe that no one wants? Some was bright blue,some a muddy green... it seems that the bees were flying to the nearby M&Ms factory and getting discarded candy residue.

[papas34]

Just went out and dug the bee's entrance out of the snow again...took my grandson with me....snow was thigh high for him....lol!!!

Seems like just yesterday they were out and about, hive was humming with activity.......today dead silence......sure hope they make it through the winter.....it's this hives first and not so sure it was a strong hive to begin with.

[Carol H]

Originally Posted by floyd

Listen honey...This may be none of my bee's wax, but the buzz is, that beauty is in the eye of the beeholder.

bee keeping has become popular in my area. Funny enough though one city bee keeper wrote a letter to the editor of our local paper this summer complaining that bears showed up in his yard & destroyed his beehive and the Wildlife folks refused to come to his place to trap or shoot the bear. The letter writer felt that having bears coming into his yard in the middle of the city was dangerous and as he had never had one in his yard before so it must be because the population of bears has been allowed to get to large.... seems it went right over his head that the beehives were a tab more attractive to the bears than the old marigolds he use to only have in his garden.

[Bill MacDermod]

many years ago we had a small 25 acre farmette I kept 5 hives, they went when we sold the place, lot of work, lot of fun, we had a neighbor with much more experience than I and he knew how to separate the seasons for different types of honey. The favorite was sourwood honey. It was clear as water but very tasty

[jen b]

So my bees did really well this year despite my initial helicopter bee parenting - I was pretty sure they were all gonna die shortly after I installed the packages back in the spring.

But they thrived, produced a boatload of honey - which I left for them for the winter save a couple of frame (TASTY!)...and then the little ingrates picked up and left a day or two before Hurricane Sandy arrived on the east coast. No note, no nothing.

So I'm starting up again from scratch this spring. At least now I know a little bit more about what I'm doing.

[papas34]

There a lesson for ya....get out of town when the bees leave!!!

[Anne H]

Hmmm . . . abandoned ship did they? Maybe they sensed the approaching storm and buzzed off to a less stormy location.
Hope your next batch produces as well and sticks around a little longer.