Time to split soon!

[RegionalChaos]

Last year I started keeping a bee hive. They over wintered fine, and I'm getting ready to split them soon. :rockin: Planning on making mead with all the honey I'll be rolling in

 

[Bush_84]

Is it really as easy as it sounds? Where did you get your bees/equipment? I'm really interested in making mead, and getting bees almost makes sense if it's truly that easy.

 

[summersolstice]

I've always wanted to do that. I've been thinking of sneaking a a hive in my back yard here in town.

 

[mordantly]

im game... how do we do it? i got 40 miles^2 of vineyards for them to feed on.

 

[Texron]

Yes, I am interested my self. Like summersolstice I wouldn't mind hiding one in my backyard.

 

[RegionalChaos]

If you are interested I suggest checking out Michael Bush's site, http://www.bushfarms.com/bees.htm

In my limited experience he's been pretty spot on with everything. As near as I can tell there isn't huge amounts too it. It does cost a little money to get set up. You have to get a hive, bees, etc.. but once they are set up it can be pretty darn hands off. Last year I hived 3 lbs of italian bees. I harvested close to a quart of honey and left at least 40lbs of honey in the hive for them to winter over on. I used a crush and strain method to harvest, so that end of it really wasn't much work.

This year I'm hoping to be able to harvest a decent amount of honey. I've never tried mead before, but I figure with home grown honey I might as well! My hive is just in my back yard, and the bees do just fine, without annoying the neighbors or kids too much. Honey bees are amazingly gentle really...

 

[badmajon]

Dude, that's awesome. I can't wait to own some land to try this. Let us know how the honey gathering goes.

 

[RegionalChaos]

Well my split never really took. So I still have only 1 strong hive, and one small one I'm trying to limp along. If I can get it through winter, maybe it will take off next year. Here is the good news though. This weekend I'll be harvesting 30-40 pounds of honey. I think this is even a bit of a small harvest from my strong hive. Next year I'm hoping it will double. I'm going to gift a lot of it away, but I'll be making one batch of mead for sure!

 

[RegionalChaos]

I ended up with about 27lbs after everything was said and done. The strong hive was honey bound, and I think I could have filled another box or two of honey if I would have put it on during the strong honey flow. Live and learn I guess. Next year I'll add more boxes, and hopefully have a second hive going strong into the flow.

 

[Randar]

Thanks for the updates! Wish I had the space for it and wasn't worried about my neighbors freaking out. Only on a 1/4 acre and I have so much other stuff going on in my yard it would just be too much. Fun reading about your experience, though!

 

[TerapinChef]

damn you people and getting me wanting to start yet another hobby....

 

[MeadWitch]

I:d

 

[rowingbrewer]

I to would like to get into bee keeping. I don't have the space but a friend of mine has 10acres with lots of flowering fruit vines trees bushes etc. Now to convince him of the benefits of bee keeping

 

[RegionalChaos]

If your friend harvests his fruit of food from the garden then you can use the pollination angle. Having bees around to pollinate will increase yields. Last year our cherry tree was worked hard by the bees and we had a bumper crop of cherries. This year it was rainy while the tree was blooming, and it wasn't worked by bees. Our yield was very small compared to last year. Also, my neighbors are all happy that there is a hive close by. I give them honey and they are happy to get it!

 

[rowingbrewer]

Well its not so much convincing my friend, he is just about ready to start brewing beer and making mead. it's his parents house and I don't know how they will react to us wanting to put a few bee hives in the back yard. He mostly has blueberry bushes, which there are like 60 plus of. there is like 50-75 yards of of concord grape vines, and several apple trees. all his neighbors have blueberries too. as well as small vegetable gardens. I actually picked 12lbs of blueberries with plans to pick 12 more for 2 batches of blueberry mead, one sparkling one still. The bee keeping would be a way of saving some money on the honey bill ( long term investment, im sure it would take a few years to make up the difference between what i would pay for honey and what i put into the bees and hives and all the other equipment. there is an apiary near me where i get 60lbs of honey for $102

 

[KingBrianI]

I was under the impression a hive had to be registered and get regular inspections by a USDA guy or something. And that you had to dust them for mites or something. Sounded like a lot of hassle when I heard about it but I don't remember all the details now.

 

[GTG]

I would like to get started in this too but SWMBO will not allow it. She thinks we don't have space, or I have time. We and I do but then we don't know if the grandkids are allergic to bee stings yet too. Maybe I could keep them at someone else's house? Hmm... My local honey supplier is an apiarist and he fabricates hives too. It's pretty cool to go to his place to get honey and get to see working hives as well as hives being fabricated as well as all the extraction equipment.

GTG