Anyone here done Beekeeping?

Bee nerds... okay, maybe I'm jealous.

 

I took a Bees & Beekeeping class in college (back in the early 90's). Great fun...It cured me of my "getting stung" phobia!
I was extremely nervous the first few times handling the hives, as was the rest of the class. All the students showed up at the farm dressed like we were going to attempt to summit Everest....The professor & TA were dressed like it was a day at the beach; shorts, flip-flops t-shirts with just a hood for protection & a smoker to pacify the hives!
Within a month, the class & I were dressed in the same beach-going outfits, bees were crawling all over us, no worries. Then I missed a class one week, & when I showed up for the next class all my classmates were back in their arctic gear...I was like, "Umm, what's up?" Turns out during the class I missed, the teacher dropped one of the hive boxes & everyone in the class got stung!
The advice given about hive personalities is spot on: The last hive in one of the rows was considered a stressed hive, and was very aggressive. The first time I worked with it I felt some ‘tapping’ on my sweat pants. It was 4 bees attacking my pants because they were black, & it was theorized that they were drawn to the dark color as most hive predators (raccoons & bears) tend to have black (or at least dark) fur. The bees were unable to sting through to my skin & as I was wearing a white t-shirt (& my arms are VERY white!), it was the only place on my body that was attacked. I just backed away slowly & picked the little guys off, no drama.
I got through the entire semester without getting stung. I gained a completely new appreciation for bees & now I am always relaxed whenever I have to deal with bees in daily life. (All other flying/stinging insect better stay clear though, cause I will beat them until they are dead, dead, dead!)
Anyway, the experience was absolutely fantastic, one of the best classes I took! Good luck with the project!

 

You can re-queen aggressive hives but you need to use the enclosers that the hive has to eat through or they will kill her. The enclosure is so it takes them longer to get to her and then by the time they get to her they are normally used to her scent and do kill her. The old queen has to be removed first. After her offspring take over they should be less aggressive.

 

They only swarm if they have a queen to swarm with. There are swarm queen cells and superceedure queen cells. Swarms cells will be on hanging on the bottom of the frame while superceedure cells will be on the comb portion of the frame. Break the box loose from the bottom and just scrape the bottom of the frames with your hive tool. Toss this comb to the chickens, they love the larvae in it.

Splits can be made without queens. They'll make their own once they figure out they don't have one. This is said to produce an inferior queen due to the abrupt conversion of a regular larvae to a queen rather than a specific queen larvae. If you ever accidently unknowingly crush a queen while working a hive, this is what they(the bees) do to fix the problem. Or you can look for a swarm/superceedure cell on a frame and split that hive.

I'm sure you know who Dr. Keith Delaplane is at UGA. He has a couple of books that explain his procedure for making splits. Anybody interested in beekeeping NEEDS his book "First lessons in beekeeping." Beesource is the WERA BBS of beekeeping and Beeculture is the RRW. For anyone with questions, its a good place for answers that don't come from motorcyclists. NTTIAWWT...

 

I met up with Drebber at a local bee keepers' club "newbie beekeeper" class a few Saturdays ago. He knows this beekeeping stuff pretty well. Here he is helping a poor woman get more at ease when around them:



Honey bees are pretty cool to be around. Sadly, with Colony Collapse Disorder, raising more bees is more important than ever. It is estimated that one third of the human food supply depends on insect pollination, most of which is accomplished by bees, especially the domesticated European honey bee.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/s...ound-alarm-on-malady.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

 

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/c0.0.403.403/p403x403/521343_10151438397669934_1013532294_n.jpg

When they stopped using these in other countries, CCD disappeared there....

 

The beekeepers around here seem to all use these stackable boxes that they transport from grove to grove to pollinate the citrus. What kind of hive is that?

 

It is called a Langstroth hive. Google that... interesting stuff.

And the misinformation factor is going down. Thanks for checking in, those of you who are into it. Thanks Rick.

 

who has some good honey? I want to make mead

 

I'm just sitting here absorbing. Bees don't get here until two days before I leave for Austin. GF will be tending while I'm gone, and she's going to tons of local classes. I'm just trying to keep up.

Thanks for all the cool information.

-jim

 

I kill bees... Im not proud.... but its kinda necessary down here.

my supervisor (owners son) does some bee keeping. If someone calls us for a swarm in a tree, he will go remove them live and use put them in his hives. But, if they are in a structure, with comb and shit, we have to kill them. Just too risky, and too much of a bitch to try and get them alive. We have tried!

Supervisor dude has a suit that he uses just for live removals as to not contaminate with pesticides, and he has had his up's and downs with success. Lots of them leave the hive, or have just died off (probably due to disease or contamination). But last year, he harvested a shit load of honey and it was amazing!

 

I got stung in the lip by a bee cycling down a canyon. I hit the little bugger at about 40 mph, it felt like being stabbed with a knife. His stinger was still sticking out of my lip, I had to have some guy that passed by point it out for me. The left side of my face swelled to the size of a fucking cantaloupe, I looked worse than Rhianna after Chris Brown beat her ass. I thought it would go down after a day or two but ended up having to get IV antibiotics for a couple hours. Then I got stung on the dick a week later (don't ask). Nasty buggers.

 

Just remembered something. In maybe '05, I was riding out the paddock to the track for a warm-up lap after 2nd call at Sears Point with my visor open. I had a little visitor fly right in.

You've never seen someone stop so quick and tear off a helmet. It left the stinger in my cheek pad, thankfully.

Still made the grid.

-jim

 

No problem. Install the package and put food on them. Then normal protocol says leave them completely alone and undisturbed for a week or so.

You can handle that part, right?

 

Jim Race ? I seriously doubt it

 

Easy-peasy.

Shaddup.

-jim

 

I get what they bring. Last year I harvested twice. The first in late May; the second in mid/late July.Technically they are both "Wildflower" which means a blend of whatever has bloomed up until harvest -- beginning within the next couple weeks.

Local honey is definitely available at the Canton market on Saturdays but I can certainly arrange delivery to WERA World Headquarters. The other 'usual' vendor at Canton is my 'mentor' John Tackett whose honey is Tupelo (early) and then whatever 'wildflower' he gets from his hives which are scattered around in several locations. Last year he had an excellent raspberry honey from hives placed in a massive domestic raspberry patch. Yummy... Kylie's favorite.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjrdwXXEtLo

This video is the first of many on YT ... watch the entire series (1.1, 1.2, etc.; I think 7.4 is the last); it's great stuff. Dr Delaplane is Georgia's "bee guru."

The videos are from 1993, but the basic principles remain the same.

 

BTW two more swarms from my hives on Monday -- caught. One was a secondary swarm which I donated to a newbee keeper who came over to help. Because the secondary swarm was with a (presumably) young newly mated queen, they were 15 feet up in a tree. Somewhat more challenging...

That made a total of five swarms in a four day period from Friday thru yesterday. Maybe they'll simmer down some now. Or not.