There are classes at Texas Bee Supply for beginners. They are up by Blue Ridge on the boarder of Colin and Fannin county. They also have great free monthly webinars the first Thursday of every month. And if you go to their website they have all the past webinars posted so you can watch then at you convenience

Awesome. Thank you Steve

If you ever want to come see my hives to get a hands on experience let me know. I'm up to 9 hives now. And you can get a feel for what a strong hive looks like as well as one that is struggling (A new swarm that I caught)

They are up by Wolfe City..

Harvested the honey already. Got about 100 lbs.

As a bonus, when I let the bees clean out the extracted frames I ended up catching a swarm!!

Cool.

Hate those boardman feeders, helped a fella going through a lot of robbing, he used those and robbing went way down after they where taken out.

I hate those Boardman feeders also.. but that was all I had that day. I moved them to a deep brood box the next day with a frame feeder. They are doing great now and the box is 80% full of bees already. Going to put a second brood box on this week and continue feeding.

They are on the end of my line... I'll get better pictures later

I use the qt jars inside on the inner cover, I can go to half gal if needed with same lids. Been so dry here, I wont get much if any production, at this point just keeping them fed

I gave my bees a water source via a 55 gal drum cut in half and put some wood in it for them to land and drink

Will be doing the OA thing soon, beetles have been mild so far for me though

I started to do the OA treatments this weekend on two hives that tested high for mites. First treatment showed a good number of dead mites below the screened bottom board.

I used the Lorab Bee Oxalic vaporizer and it only takes about a minute to treat each hive.

I have a wand from back when those came out, have one made in Canada that does it it in about 45 sec. There is a new one out that uses dewalt 18v batteries and takes about 18 seconds

I’m fixing to get in the bee keeping business. We had three hives when I was a kid 7-8…

Had 2.5 acres and just purchased three more. Adding 6-10 hives for an ag exemption.

Will be doing lots of reading and asking lots of questions just as soon as I finish with the new water well.

Good luck !! Texas Bee Supply still has hives for sale if you want to get going now.

I’ll check them out. Thanks!

Awesome!

Thats so cool...........getting the water supply and a sellable and tradeable commodity........walking the walk. Good job and good luck.

SW, I would spend the rest of this year reading and working on the material budget, gathering supplies. You can start off reasonably easy, but will need/want more equipment as it goes.

Bee keeping is much different then it was when you where young as far as introduced bugs and pathogens= more supervision of the hives, ASome snake oil imo, to avoid as well starting out

When I was a kid, we had bees on the family farm (grandfathers)m we bottled and sold honey, boxes and frames to beeks and grocery store chains, back then the biggest issues where moths and rarely american foul brood.

So what's a realistic initial investment for a strong hive in the rolling plains/SE panhandle? I've seen the aforementioned $1k, but times change. Starting from scratch...I have the land but no equipment (or bees). Not looking to sell anything, just wanting our own local source of honey and a good retirement/self-sustaining hobby.

I’d say about $600 for a complete hive with a good suit and tools. See if there is a vendor near you that sells them. It’s best to get local bees that are used to the climate by you

Caught another swarm

Afternoon Colonel,

I think 1k would be a good budget to start and I would recommend at least 2 full hives, this will allow you many benefits as in, comparing the growth of both, but more importantly, having resources if one hive needs help. I would also consider keeping and extra hive body set, or at least a "nuc" (small 5-6 frame hive) can be made by you or bought when you can

You'll need a smoker and you want the large from https://www.dadant.com/catalog/tool...stainless-steel-with-heat-finger-shield. Trust me on this.

There are odds and ends you can compromise on somewhat depending , I have ultra breeze jackets and a full suit, but they are pricey, one young fella I have been helping used a hat w/ veil and a painters suit and work gloves from Lowes his first year.

Hive tool

Bees are resilient , I have had Queens from Hawaii, east coast, west coat, Canada and in between, they have all done fine, There are several "strains" of bees you can read up on, some developed for cooler temps, but do fine in the south as well, some are bred for varroa sensitivity and are sold as VSH "Bee type" Like VSH Italians for example. btw, the Italian is the most common strain in the world probably. Carniolans and Russians are used a lot in the North, but are used here in Texas s well, "Carnis" and Itailians would be good as they tend to be docile and good producers, read up on them

Will come back when I think of something else lol

Another thought as far as bees.

I would strongly recommend you getting your bees as a "nuc" if you can find some local or within a reasonable driving distance for you. Ideally they will be overwintered, but even a spring nuc you pre-order will be better than a package bees but that's just my opinion. A nuc will come as a mini hive where all are familiar with each other. Packaged bees are bees from many hives put in a cage with a caged queen and shipped/picked up.

What’s the best time of the year to get bees? Know anyone in the Freestone area looking for a place to set a few hives 4-10….

Late Spring to early Summer is when most of the swarms happen (hive splitting) if you have someone with several hives that will let you, place an empty hive close to that or those hives and often the swarm will make that empty hive it's new home