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Post by Alan on Aug 19, 2007 22:15:04 GMT -5
The local honey man, a great friend and good neighbor of my family as well as a local market farmer has been on me lately about getting into raising honey bees, I am currently investgating this route and plan on spending a good deal of time with him learning this ancient art, that unfortunately is literally dying out. I encourage everyone here to take a bit of time and get to know their local honey producer, visit them and if you can give them a hand with their hives just to see how things are done and gain a better unerstanding and respect for this most majestic of natures creations.
-Alan
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Post by plantsnobin on Aug 26, 2007 21:40:35 GMT -5
Hey Alan, if your neighbor wouldn't mind someone else coming along, could you let me know if you are going to be working with the hives? I don't know anyone anymore with bees. My stepfather used to have hives, right in the area where our house is now. He didn't know what he was doing, so nothing ever came of it, but I would like to learn more. Our neighbor also used to keep a few hives, funny thing is, with all those bees around I don't even remember the last time I got stung. Although I am not afraid of bees in general, and they land on me sometimes when I am working in the flowers, I still think it would be a bit unnerving to be messing with a hive. I think I would need to see it done several times before I could do it. That is if there are any bees still alive before too much longer.
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Post by rodger on Aug 26, 2007 22:02:28 GMT -5
I secound that . I have bees and have raised bees for years. I can spend hours sitting by a hive watching them bring in different color pollens. I have been lazy this year and have not robbed any of the honey. I have three hives down from a high of 8 not a big operation but I usually get around 50 qts of honey a year. I would encourage anyone to check out the local bee club first and get educated on keeping bees. Then if it suits you get a hive and let them go to work. Rodger
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Post by Alan on Aug 30, 2007 23:39:16 GMT -5
I'm sure tony wouldn't mind the extra company. I'm really excited about the prospects of bee keeping, I just gotta find the extra time and money to play around with it as usual. It's weird, sometimes I use this messageboard as a way to "remind" me of all the things I want to play with.  |
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Post by hoosierheightsfarm on Sept 1, 2007 14:50:10 GMT -5
Lets try to coordinate that into the tour of your farm Alan.
I'd love to see some bee keeping action.
Patrick
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Post by cff on Sept 2, 2007 10:00:10 GMT -5
We've had bees for as long as I can remember, my grandpa kept bees close to some 20 acres of garden (his hobby) when I was a child. Beekeeping was fairly easy back then and I don't remember any problems with mites before the 70's. In the early 80's my grandpa passed away and I took up his garden/beekeeping hobby with my dad. Varroa mites had become a real problem by the mid 80's and loses were common. We had bees but we were not beekeepers.
I tried to keep a few hives at the garden over the next few years but I always ended up buying new bees to replace our loses. It took about two seasons for a hive to completely collapse from mite pressure. I didn't like the thoughts of using pesticides inside the hive, everything I read seemed to prove my concerns about non organic beekeeping methods and I continued to struggle with the loses.
Many of the older generation beekeepers in our area would tell me " you gotta buy them hive strips or your gonna lose them bees."
Well in part they were correct, but I wanted organic bees or as close to it as I could get. Now many of the them have mites that are immune to the strips and searching for new pesticides answers.
Today there are many new methods for integrated pest management (no single one is a magic bullet) but each is a step in the right direction.
One of my first major improvements was in simple genetics, I switched to more mite resistance races of bees. I purchased breeder queens from several people who were selling Russian bees and the cream came to the top after several generations. I had found a good breeder to get future breeder queens from and it was a major help.
When you decide that your going to own bees do yourself a favor and take some time to investigate (SMR) (Suppressed Mite Reproduction) genetics. Glenn Apiaries is a great source for SMR genetics and a high quality queen breeder.
Good luck with your new endeavors!
Glenn Apiaries
Post Office Box 2737
Fallbrook, CA 92088
e mail: queenb95@aol.com
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