Beekeeping Brewers?

[AJinJacksonville]

Has anyone other than me dove into beekeeping as a hobby, while also homebrewing? My wife approached me (told me) about two years ago that she wanted bees. And being a supportive, loving husband, I responded "Hell no."

Two seasons later, I am doing most of the hive maintenance, feeding, etc. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy it..but it certainly takes time away from brewing (wait a minute, maybe that was her goal this entire time?).

Just curious if anyone else is into it. We are in NE Florida, have six hives and harvest around 80 pounds of honey per season (guessing on that...probably much more than that). As hard as I work for the honey, and as much as I really don't care too much for mead, I have not used it in homebrewing yet. I'd hate to use poundage amounts of my honey in something that may turn out just 'meh.'

 

[yeastseeker]

I have 4 hives, more of a hobby and labor of love than anything. I dont enjoy mead or honey in beer, so we use our honey in food and as gifts,

 

[Sailingeric]

I don't bee keep but I have a friend who does and I have helped him make a few hives. Thanks to him I have become more aware of the different kinds of honey and how they all don't taste just about the same.

 

[AJinJacksonville]

I have learned way more than I ever would have imagined about bees...haha. All I know is, it still stinks getting stung. Just not as bad as before. Matter of fact, I feel sorry for them when they do sting me.

 

[Randar]

This is my first year. Ordered a pair of 3lb packages of Carniolan bees and started them out in a pair of hives. One hive flourished and the other had the queen die in some way... quickly ordered a replacement queen and that one was either rejected or also died... so next year I will either be splitting my existing hive or ordering another package of bees.

 

[AJinJacksonville]

This is my first year. Ordered a pair of 3lb packages of Carniolan bees and started them out in a pair of hives. One hive flourished and the other had the queen die in some way... quickly ordered a replacement queen and that one was either rejected or also died... so next year I will either be splitting my existing hive or ordering another package of bees.

Whereabouts are you? This year's been a really weird one for sure. We have had several members of our local beekeeping association (to include multiple commercial beekeepers) report poor harvests, unusual behavior, more swarms, more unexplained desertions, etc. We caught our first swarm this season (free bees), and have been lucky enough to not lose any. We lost two out of three over last winter...installed our first package this year (we had previously bought nucs).

Beekeeping is not for the faint of heart...haha. Unlike brewing, we can always blame inexplicable bee behavior on nature and not any screw-ups by us (at least we can claim that).