First Bee Hive

Post topo’s and Aerial photos for free advice. Food plotting, land manipulation, water holes, ect.
  • Advertisement

HB Store


User avatar
buttonbuck
500 Club
Posts: 760
Joined: Thu Feb 21, 2019 12:41 pm
Location: SC
Status: Offline

First Bee Hive

Unread postby buttonbuck » Mon Jan 18, 2021 10:47 am

Just got our first bee hive put together. Bees arrive in April. Should be fun and the garden is going to pop.


User avatar
wolverinebuckman
500 Club
Posts: 2762
Joined: Fri Dec 08, 2017 11:55 am
Location: S Kentucky
Status: Offline

Re: First Bee Hive

Unread postby wolverinebuckman » Tue Jan 19, 2021 3:02 am

Cool stuff! I'm looking to get into beekeeping this year as well.
Bummer of a birthmark, Hal.
User avatar
buttonbuck
500 Club
Posts: 760
Joined: Thu Feb 21, 2019 12:41 pm
Location: SC
Status: Offline

Re: First Bee Hive

Unread postby buttonbuck » Tue Jan 19, 2021 7:04 am

wolverinebuckman wrote:Cool stuff! I'm looking to get into beekeeping this year as well.


Checkout Barnyard bees on YouTube. Hopefully soon it will be on another platform.
User avatar
Ryan549
500 Club
Posts: 1876
Joined: Tue May 19, 2020 10:12 am
Location: NY
Status: Offline

Re: First Bee Hive

Unread postby Ryan549 » Tue Jan 19, 2021 10:36 am

What is the initial investment to getting into this ?
Ryan
User avatar
headgear
500 Club
Posts: 11625
Joined: Wed Sep 08, 2010 7:21 am
Location: Northern Minnesota
Status: Offline

Re: First Bee Hive

Unread postby headgear » Tue Jan 19, 2021 11:58 am

Ryan549 wrote:What is the initial investment to getting into this ?


Same question, been thinking about it but never pulled the trigger. I would think taking care of bees is easy but maybe someone with experience can give us a few pointers.
User avatar
buttonbuck
500 Club
Posts: 760
Joined: Thu Feb 21, 2019 12:41 pm
Location: SC
Status: Offline

Re: First Bee Hive

Unread postby buttonbuck » Tue Jan 19, 2021 12:20 pm

The initial investment for a bee hive and bees with a queen was $260. But my wife also bought necessary bee keeping equipment, pest control, smoker can, etc. That ran it up to $450.
User avatar
UntouchableNess
500 Club
Posts: 2069
Joined: Tue Aug 16, 2011 9:28 am
Location: Eastern Iowa
Status: Offline

Re: First Bee Hive

Unread postby UntouchableNess » Tue Jan 19, 2021 12:33 pm

headgear wrote:I would think taking care of bees is easy but maybe someone with experience can give us a few pointers.

I’ve done it and didn’t find it easy. Lots of equipment in the barn if I care to get back in it.

First 2lb package of bees with queen was $40. Now around $120.

I read once where the suggestion was start with 2 hives so you can compare how they are doing. If you have one hive, new beekeeper, you might not realize the colony is failing to thrive.

Even though we don’t have a current active hive, plenty of bees in the orchard when in bloom. Either some swarms went feral or the neighbors are benefiting.
User avatar
purebowhunting
500 Club
Posts: 1376
Joined: Sun Apr 07, 2013 6:37 am
Location: Wisconsin
Status: Offline

Re: First Bee Hive

Unread postby purebowhunting » Tue Jan 19, 2021 1:48 pm

UntouchableNess wrote:
headgear wrote:I would think taking care of bees is easy but maybe someone with experience can give us a few pointers.

I’ve done it and didn’t find it easy. Lots of equipment in the barn if I care to get back in it.

First 2lb package of bees with queen was $40. Now around $120.

I read once where the suggestion was start with 2 hives so you can compare how they are doing. If you have one hive, new beekeeper, you might not realize the colony is failing to thrive.

Even though we don’t have a current active hive, plenty of bees in the orchard when in bloom. Either some swarms went feral or the neighbors are benefiting.


I've had simar experiences, I seem to often have a collapse late in the summer and can't figure out why. I still have 1 hive remaining if it makes the winter, if not I won't have honeybees for a while. For $120 plus for bees each year per hive, it gets expensive. The first few year I had bees I could handle them with no protective clothing besides gloves, then I had a bear tear one apart and guessing since I put the hive back together in the morning they associated me with what happened and I'd get stung dozens of times whenever I came close to the hive and that took most the fun out of it.
User avatar
UntouchableNess
500 Club
Posts: 2069
Joined: Tue Aug 16, 2011 9:28 am
Location: Eastern Iowa
Status: Offline

Re: First Bee Hive

Unread postby UntouchableNess » Wed Jan 20, 2021 2:46 am

We were given a lot of equipment from the father of a co-worker who was cleaning out his garage. We started with 3 hives, which then through capturing swarms and adding more packages climbed to 12 hives (made a lot of hive bodies in the wood shop). Then, we started losing hives over the winter until we lost them all. I think the erratic weather over the winters didn't help, from very warm days in the middle of winter to then extreme cold snaps.

Where I probably could have been better as a apiarist:

I should have probably been in the hives more often doing maintenance. 1) Rotating frames around to keep the queen laying as many eggs as possible. 2) Trimming queen cells off the bottom of the frames to prevent swarms. 3) Or take the frame with a queen cell, along with some brood to make a nuc for a new hive. 4) We didn't requeen hives. Tried that once on a hive that went "queen right" but the hive didn't accept the new queen, even after they freed her from the cage. Either way, need to replace the queen every so often to keep the hive going. 5) Did a fair job of working the hives when they were up in the farm yard, but when the one hive lost it's queen, it got VERY aggressive and attacked anything moving in the yard. Moved the hives down by the pond, where "out of sight = out of mind" and working them became more of a planned event.


  • Advertisement

Return to “Land Management”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 11 guests