Beekeeping & Beekeepers

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rej19

rej19

Member
Joined
Jul 19, 2008
Messages
823
Location
Indianapolis, IN
I know it's been discussed a few times here but since I have actually got started this year it would be interesting to see how may others are keeping bees. It seems to very popular right now. I have one hive in my backyard which is in a residential neighborhood although the yards are fairly large. And just yesterday installed 2 nucs at a lake cottage about an hour away. I have found it to be very interesting. Only time will tell if I have done everything correct!
 
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My father started raising bees and building hives about a year ago. He gets lots of bees given to him, The african strains like to build in the water meter boxes and people just want them gone. Wd 40 is your friend when it comes to bees. it will stop the sting and more importantly kill the pheromones that cause other bees to sting as well.
 
Beekeeping has been trending up the past few years. I know a few people that have their own hives now all three have run into colony collapse disorder as well. I thought about doing some beekeeping as the bee population here has gotten so low I have problems pollinating my vegetable garden ;(
 
I ran into a commercial beekeeper about a 18 months ago and we started discussing colony collapse that was plaguing the world of honey bees. He told me that there was one major manufacturer of pesticides that was using a certain chemical in their most popular pesticide used for aerial spraying of crops. Europe had already banned the use of this chemical as they found it was extremely harmful to bees. When this company "voluntarily" stopped using this chemical in their pesticides, the large majority of bee colony collapse incidents also stopped. The company never admitted that that chemical they were using caused colony collapse; they just stopped using it in the production of their pesticides. I'm sure they wanted to avoid the huge lawsuits that would follow as bee keepers and farmers all over the United States lost millions of dollars as a result of the large number of bee colonies both "domesticated" and wild were destroyed. Thankfully, colony collapse is much less common now as it could have resulted in VERY severe food shortages if it had continued even for just a couple more years.

Jim Smith
 
started my first hive this year... it was something i wanted to do right from the get go when we bought our house, and this year my wife finally said sure lets try it! woohoo!!!

installed a nuc at the end of may, and things have been moving along nicely so far... watching them do their thing is absolutely fascinating... stopped by the hive this morning to have a look and they were out on the landing board washboarding... first time ive seen them do it... very interesting behaviour!

--Dave
 
12 hives here and 1 recent swarm catch in a baited box. We have extracted 15 gallons of honey so far. You all are in for an interesting and refreshing journey. Congrats to all of You.
 
I was on a church work-camp last week, and one of the ladies commented that honey bees had started a nest under her mailbox. She didn't know what to do, but the area is semi-rural so I recommended that she contact a local beekeeper to collect the bees. She mentioned it to the owner of a local market who sells local honey, and POOF! the bees were gone! Everyone happy; beekeeper has a new colony; lady doesn't have bees in mailbox; bees have new home.
 
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