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**Homercidal** · 04-20-2010, 06:47 PM

Cool video. Kind of piques my interest in beekeeping. But of course I have no place to keep them locally. My in-laws live in an old farm house surrounded by fields. But I don't know if I would have to tend to them very often or not if I located them down there.

**GroosBrewz** · 04-21-2010, 12:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TxBrew

Very cool. There is a huge bee keeping forum I used to read a lot. I even took some classes at the Library but then I lost access to the land I was going to use to keep them on.

How much did everything cost you?

Actually, the investment isn't that much.. It's pretty cheap to keep bees (so far) and they will pay themselves very soon if you have surplus honey.. For everything (2 hive boxes, frames, smoker, veil, and the package of bees) was around $200... At some point this season I will need to add another one or two boxes to the hive.. The boxes are around 14-16 bucks and the frames (reusable- one time investment) are about 80 cents a piece.. And my boxes each hold ten frames.. It cost me just about the same to start beekeeping as it did to set up my 4 corny kegerator....

**GroosBrewz** · 04-21-2010, 12:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Laughing_Gnome_Invisible

That is not a good video. It's not even mediocre. It's fooking awesome! Youtube is blessed to be graced by it's presence!

It reminded me of a first ever AG brew day, but with more bees to the power of 2000.

Further evidence that home brewers have a screw loose.

Prosted BTW.

LOL.. Yeah, it was almost like the first time I did an AG batch.. nervous, excited, and screwing things up right and left..

**Zen_Brew** · 04-21-2010, 01:26 AM

Very nicely done video and quite entertaining. I was holding my breath waiting for the swarm to envelope your head. Mildly disappointed when it didn't happen. I'm sure I read in the reviews that the bees swarmed your head. Might there be a sequel?

**Shooter** · 04-21-2010, 01:40 AM

Excellent! My dad used to keep bees when I was a teenager. We had these really low hanging fruit trees in our yard. One day I'm out mowing the lawn underneath those same fruit trees. You really had to duck to get under them. Thankfully the bees choose that afternoon to swarm and suspiciously chose the pear tree as their gathering spot. Nothing more wonderful than a ball of bees about six inches for your face as you desperately throw the Cub Cadet into reverse!!!!

Drumhaggart · 04-21-2010, 05:43 PM

LMAO

A couple of tips from a former beekeeper:

Put rubber bands around your pants at the ankles. Aged/weak bees that can't fly tend to crawl upwards. You definitely don't want one crawling up your leg inside your trousers. Trust me on this.
I hesitate to point this out, but your frames should have wax foundation in them to give the bees some structure on which to build. (Maybe you only had a few empty frames to provide room for the bees?)
You'll want a queen excluder to keep the queen in the brood chamber (usually the bottom box). Otherwise she'll migrate up into the super when she runs out of laying room and she'll start to lay in amongst the stored honey. Picture bee pupae floating in you jar of freshly extracted honey.
The smoker causes them to gorge themselves on honey in preparation to abandon a burning hive. It's not very effective in keeping attacking bees away from you. It was, however, entertaining to watch.

IIRC, we used to start a new hive by filling the lower chamber with frames (with foundation), and leaving enough empty space in the uper chamber to place the whole shipping box in the top, right on top of the lower frames. You have to pull the empty box out in a day or two, otherwise they'll stick everything together with propolis.

Have fun!

(BTW, that probably won't be the last time you get stung

)

-Steve

**GroosBrewz** · 04-22-2010, 02:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Homercidal

Cool video. Kind of piques my interest in beekeeping. But of course I have no place to keep them locally. My in-laws live in an old farm house surrounded by fields. But I don't know if I would have to tend to them very often or not if I located them down there.

You'd be surprised how many people keep bees in an urban setting.. There are many books devoted to keeping bees in the city in your own backyard.. There are some considerations, but it is very do-able.. Don't give up yet! If you did place them at your in-laws place, you will need to visit them more than you would in the second year when they are more self sufficient.. Plan on at least one visit per month in the summer, with at least two visits the first month after installing them.

**GroosBrewz** · 04-22-2010, 02:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drumhaggart

LMAO

A couple of tips from a former beekeeper:

Put rubber bands around your pants at the ankles. Aged/weak bees that can't fly tend to crawl upwards. You definitely don't want one crawling up your leg inside your trousers. Trust me on this.
I hesitate to point this out, but your frames should have wax foundation in them to give the bees some structure on which to build. (Maybe you only had a few empty frames to provide room for the bees?)
You'll want a queen excluder to keep the queen in the brood chamber (usually the bottom box). Otherwise she'll migrate up into the super when she runs out of laying room and she'll start to lay in amongst the stored honey. Picture bee pupae floating in you jar of freshly extracted honey.
The smoker causes them to gorge themselves on honey in preparation to abandon a burning hive. It's not very effective in keeping attacking bees away from you. It was, however, entertaining to watch.

IIRC, we used to start a new hive by filling the lower chamber with frames (with foundation), and leaving enough empty space in the uper chamber to place the whole shipping box in the top, right on top of the lower frames. You have to pull the empty box out in a day or two, otherwise they'll stick everything together with propolis.

Have fun!

(BTW, that probably won't be the last time you get stung

)

-Steve

Hey Steve- Always glad to hear from a fellow beekeeper and homebrewer!

I did have velcro straps at my ankles, because as you said, I did NOT want any bees crawling up my legs.. As for the frames, my wife and I are going to do "foundationless" beekeeping.. The frames have a starter strip at the top coated in wax.. the idea is the bees build their own comb in whatever size they want. The purpose for us is two-fold: 1) It's natural varroa mite control because the bees will supposedly build smaller cells than whats typically found on foundation and 2) we plan to harvest comb-honey, so all we have to do is cut out the entire comb, leaving a small strip of wax at the top for the bees to begin building new comb. Two of the ten frames in the hive have foundation on them, just to give the bees a ladder to reach the top of the frames and also to provide some clue as to how start building on the empty frames.

I do have a queen excluder, so there should no problems with her laying eggs in the honey! (I hope!). As for the smoker, yeah, I dont know what I was thinking.. When a bee is chasing you, he aint stopping for no smoker! I was a little panicked for a second.. heheh

So why did you stop raising bees? The old saying is that people get into beekeeping for the bees but get out of because of the honey!

TheManes · 04-22-2010, 02:51 AM

Cheers! That was fun!!

Drumhaggart · 04-22-2010, 03:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GroosBrewz

Hey Steve- Always glad to hear from a fellow beekeeper and homebrewer!

I did have velcro straps at my ankles, because as you said, I did NOT want any bees crawling up my legs..

The elderly gentleman who taught me a lot about beekeeping once dropped his drawers to let a wayward bee escape unharmed from the confines of his trousers. His hives were in the front yard of his house on main street. I bet that had the neighbors talking!

Quote:

As for the frames, my wife and I are going to do "foundationless" beekeeping.. The frames have a starter strip at the top coated in wax.. the idea is the bees build their own comb in whatever size they want. The purpose for us is two-fold: 1) It's natural varroa mite control because the bees will supposedly build smaller cells than whats typically found on foundation and 2) we plan to harvest comb-honey, so all we have to do is cut out the entire comb, leaving a small strip of wax at the top for the bees to begin building new comb. Two of the ten frames in the hive have foundation on them, just to give the bees a ladder to reach the top of the frames and also to provide some clue as to how start building on the empty frames.

Sounds like some things have changed in the many years since I got out of the hobby. Mites were not all that common back then and it was way before the "hive collapse" issue that is causing so many problems today.

Thanks for taking the time to explain. I probably should have asked first instead of assuming that you were a noob.

Quote:

So why did you stop raising bees? The old saying is that people get into beekeeping for the bees but get out of because of the honey!

My brother and I had several hives when we were in High School. I went away to college and he was left with the hives. Then he went away to college and no one at home was interested in getting stung on a regular basis.

Make sure that you take some pics of your harvest at the end of the season.

-Steve