Bee Keepers ?

[troutsqueezer]

Bee trivia: Time was when everyone had beehives in their yard (called Skeps back then). In fact, they were used as part of a dowry in many societies. Bee trails were used for that purpose too. Like gold mining claims, in the old days people laid claims to certain trails that contained feral honey bee hives and these were used for barter, etc. Until Langstroth came along and invented the bee hive, people had to kill the bees in the Skeps (round, woven hives - you've seen pictures) to get the honey out or risk getting stung to death.

 

[Lou66]

When I was a kid, if we found a tree with honey bees, we would cut an cross or X on it,, it show everybody else that it belong to someone,, we would redo the cross every year as long as the bee stayed, if we found a bee tree with an cross on it then it belonged to someone,, you didn’t mess with it.. we would get the honey out by beating on the tree and finding the lowest place the hollow spot was and the honey. Take an axe and cut a hole in the tree and let it drain out.. about half of so,, it was guess work,, then plug the hole up for next year.. I knew of five trees with in a 3 mile area.. two of them was ours and they were not the closes two to our house by far.. all five were on by grandmothers land.. Lou

 

[Rayster]

That's some great history on bees.

Due to the cold snap we had last week, our scheduled delivery has been pushed back to the week of May 1.

 

[marxman]

My 2 packages of bees are coming tomorrow. Unfortunately due to the intense cold and wind we had this winter one of my hives did not make it. Looking forward to getting the new bees and getting them up and running.

An amazing hobby, a lot of fun, and so interesting.

 

[troutsqueezer]

My 2 packages of bees are coming tomorrow. Unfortunately due to the intense cold and wind we had this winter one of my hives did not make it. Looking forward to getting the new bees and getting them up and running.

An amazing hobby, a lot of fun, and so interesting.

In the future, for a little more money, you may decide to buy nucs instead of packaged bees. Nucs are 5 frame, already established hives. The chances are better with those for a successful start. You have to wait a little longer to buy them, usually (May, around here). I've had quite a number of packaged bees abscond after a few weeks. That's a hundred bucks or more out the window. For another twenty or thirty smackers, nucs can be a bargain in the longer run. Just sayin....

 

[Rayster]

Sorry to hear some of yours did not make it marxman.

There are two hives up the road and I can see one is already very active on warmer days. I'm afraid the other has no activity. Dang this cold snap !

We are buying nucs, they said bring straps and the tops and bottoms for a safe ride home. It will bee a bit creepy... ha

 

[Bird]

In the future, for a little more money, you may decide to buy nucs instead of packaged bees. Nucs are 5 frame, already established hives. The chances are better with those for a successful start. You have to wait a little longer to buy them, usually (May, around here). I've had quite a number of packaged bees abscond after a few weeks. That's a hundred bucks or more out the window. For another twenty or thirty smackers, nucs can be a bargain in the longer run. Just sayin....

I have no idea what bees cost, how they're packaged, shipped, etc. now, but I worked in the Dallas Post Office from 1959 to 1964, before the days of UPS, FedEx, and others and we'd have square cardboard boxes, maybe a foot and a half on each side with a 4 to 6 inch diamond shaped cutout on two sides covered by screen wire come through the mail with all the bees for one hive. I guess it was grass or something similar in there and of course when they got jostled around, the bees would get excited. It was not unusual back then for parcel post packages to get damaged in transit and I once told my supervisor, "If one of those boxes gets busted you can punch me out on the time clock because I'll already be gone home.":laughing:

 

[msch2112]

i have roughly 3 dozen hives on our property. Now i have absolutely nothing to do with them cause i don't know squat. A beekeeper is currently taking care of them and i get paid nothing nor do i pay him. My only payment from him is free honey!

mike

 

[Bird]

My only payment from him is free honey!

Depending on how much honey, that might be a considerable payment.

 

[Rayster]

Yeah, I hear the cost of honey is on the rise. $$

My stands are made and we are ready to receive our nucs.

 

[RTII]

We started with 2 hives last year. They both went queenless near the middle of summer. Replaced one queen and waited to see if the other hive would raise their own. that one didn't make it but the new queen is a heck of a layer and that hive did well over the winter and up 'till now. Installed ten more nucs this spring so now have a total of 11 hives. 9 are looking pretty good and 2 we are monitoring closely as they don't seem as strong.

Pretty engaging stuff.

 

[Redbug]

I am retiring in about a year from now and planning to have few bee hives.

Me too! I used to have 3 hives years ago. But after I retire in less than a year, (and hopefully will have the time), I want to get back into it. I still have my old equipment and I miss having them.

I watch Bill Moyers each Friday evening on PBS. He had this short video that is really good.
Bill presents the short documentary Dance of the Honey Bee. Narrated by Bill McKibben, the film takes a look at the determined, beautiful, and vital role honey bees play in preserving life, as well as the threats bees face from a rapidly changing landscape.

“Dance of the Honey Bee” on Vimeo

Interesting stats posted about bees in the video comments...
All worker bees are female, The average lifespan of a queen is 3-4 years; drones (males) usually die after mating or are expelled from the hive before the winter; workers live for a few weeks in the summer and up to several months in winter. In the bees lifespan it produces about 1/12 of a teaspoon full of honey. 10 drops of nectar yield a drop of honey and ten drops of honey yield a single flake of wax.

 

[troutsqueezer]

Bees have been around for 50 million years. Nothing we do will ever kill them off. The Africanized Honey Bee is proof of that. When have we ever caused an insect to go extinct? Can't be done, despite our best efforts.

The news media loves to champion stories about the honey bee vanishing. They've been doing it for years. It's the kind of stuff that sells. Even NPR is guilty of it. For them, it's part of the big plan to demonize big corporations and their chemicals and bring us all back to the Garden of Eden.

Honey bee populations have been ebbing and flowing ever since man decided to harness them. Before that, too.

 

[vabiker23518]

This is a great topic, and I'd like to have a couple hives or two to keep the trees and veggies pollonated on my 30 acres. I did find a wild hive in a dead tree last fall, but they seem to be gone now. I plan to take a course at a local college or work with a bee keeper to learn the "ins and outs". I hope to retire in less than two years and that would be the time to start up. My land is in "bear" county, so understand I'll need an electric fence to keep them safe.

 

[Rayster]

Redbug, thanks for the link. I have not seen that before.

:thumbsup:

 

[Rayster]

Here are the photos of the nucs. We drove about 30 miles to get them. you can see Lisa inspecting the brood before we take them. The guy put grass in the hole and a single strap to keep them closed . We had a few escapees on the ride home but it was not too bad. We are very excited about being new bee keepers. You can see the nucs in my jeep, and then the new hives facing southeast on the stands I made for them.