Is there another thread about Beekeeping?

I'm very interested in starting a hive.

I have only seen a few threads on bees and most are concerning feral bees in blinds and what not.

I have 10 hives now, fluctuates with the times. I would recommend a lot of reading and finding a beek in your area willing to mentor, much different now then it was 25-30 years ago.

I dont belong to a "club", but they can be a great help starting out I think if for anything to meet a local beek that is willing to work with you.



Not sure how current this is.......
Big Country Beekeepers Association

Contact: Ken Hobbs
P.O Box 7369
Abilene, TX 79608
Phone: (325) 665-4045
EMail: Paniolobee@icloud.com

Meetings:
3rd Tuesday of every month except December at 6:30pm.
Ben E. Keith Company (Budweiser Distributor)
2141 Cottonwood Street
(Ambler and Cottonwood, entrance on Cottonwood next to flag pole.)
Abilene, TX 79601

Don’t know about another thread.

What you need to know an old timer told me. Take 1,000 cash, put 500 on a shelf to look at, take the other 500 and flush down the toilet. After a year of staring at the 500 on shelf, if your still game get you a hive!

It’s costly and a gamble. You will lose hives and sometimes you will not know how or why. You will fight beetles, wax moths, ants, and other things. You can find a bunch of used equipment for sale for the simple fact someone wanted to do it, got into it, lost a few hives and then gave up. This is the reality of it. It’s a thing like the emus back in the 90’s.

If you are interested see if a bee club is in your area and join. You can get help and info from them. A lot of them have Nuc purchase programs to get you started. Someone will be along shortly to criticize what I posted, each his own. I’ve been doing it for 10 years or so now. Internet is full of info but it’s like everything else, you have to find what works for you.

I only try to attract them. They are now working my cilantro blossoms on the warmer days. I'm also careful by not using insecticides.

Startup now days will run you close to $1,000.00 Prices have gotten crazy.

I was just about to start a thread myself. I am looking at ordering my first as well. Have been looking a lot at Elzner Farms

In the gardening thread, we just talked about this and I learned something new. I've done honeybees and I had not heard of Mason Bees.

If you're wanting to do garden pollination, read up on the Mason Bees, very interesting, not as expensive, but they make no honey.

Honeybees require minimally, a hive or two with frames, bees and a queen. Hat, gloves, smoker etc. There's a price to pay for harvesting honey.

Charlie

They are extremely fascinating to me.

I really would like to try and start my own hive. I've read a lot and watched a bunch of YouTube videos.

There was an online class offered for free recently that I'm kicking myself for not entering.

Someone want to make a starter list of what you need for anyone wanting to get into beekeeping?

Following.

Thought this was pretty good..

Just placed an order for two hives and boxes for pickup This spring from Elzner farms

You can also contact your local youth 4H & FFA programs - lotsa options open for landowners if someone nearby.

We ended up ‘hosting’ a couple of boxes on our property - and getting some new friends - didn’t cost us a penny.
They brought & setup, and did all the ‘hard’ work, we helped maintain in between .
They taught us along the way, and we got ‘a share’ of the honey harvest.

Beekeepers are always looking for additional places to set hives.

I had about a dozen colonies and enjoyed them. They certainly aren't worry free. Then I married a woman who we found was highly allergic to bee stings. So, I sold them all and put my equipment om EBAY. I still have a smoker somewhere.

For a home hobbyist, I think about 2 colonies would be ideal. But, you still need all of the gear.

What a lot of people don't realize is that all honey isn't the same. It all depends on what the bees forage on. Some is dang near inedible.

I didn't know that.

I looked into it for a while then did not do anything after that. I found this style hive and the ease of getting the honey. I had 2 colonies of bees to start with already in the walls of an old farm house that I would have had to use as starter.
https://www.honeyflow.com/

Seen those before, pretty cool.

One of my biggest concerns is how to deal with varoa mites. Any tips

I never had or really worried about mites too much. I used all screen bottom boards and Beeweaver bees. Their bees will eliminate infested pupae and are heavy groomers. I never used any chemical treatments. There are powdered sugar dusting options, traps you can use.

https://beeweaver.com/beeweaver-queen-pick-up-navasota/

One year our area had a huge outbreak of horse mint. It was everywhere and the bees hammered down on it. The honey had a real minty taste to it. It pretty much sucked imo.

I didn't either. Interesting.

My experience is dated (30 years ago) we had a small square of cloth stapled to the top of a frame, I think one in the top honey super and one in the bottom brood chamber. Placed a few eye dropper dots of some kind of chemical on those cloth squares. Back then, many people assumed if you lost a hive, it was due to mites, I think they've proven now that's not necessarily correct. As a hobbyist, most of the time when you mysteriously lose a hive, usually have no idea why. It would really suck when it happened after trying to create a new hive from splitting an existing one.

Charlie

When I was a teenager I had a little girlfriend down the road and her Daddy owned a huge bee farm. Had a huge barn full of big stainless vats, vessels, tables etc for processing honey to sell. GF and I used to ride horses out there and everywhere you looked were old dead bee colonies, hundreds of them at least. Anyway, I was told it was fire ants that killed all of his bees and shut the whole operation down. We do have bad fireants here.

This is very true. Reason most honey is harvested by August. The “flowers” that bloom after the spring bloom often make the honey less than good. This is usually left for the bees to eat.

There are many occurrences that will determine the success of the hives.

Yep, even Gordon Ramsay talked about it on his new show.
Did y’all also know that there is a ton of imposter honey coming into the country as well? Local honey from individuals is where it’s at if you don’t have your own hives