Bee Thread!

[BoppsBees]

This is a thread for Honey Bee's! Have any question? Ask me!

 

[pysankigirl]

I don't really know enough to ask intelligent questions. where do you get your bees?

 

[FluffyDucks]

I would love to start beekeeping but have no idea about where to begin and keeping it cost effective is another issue I've wrestled with. Space and local flora however is not and I think it would be a perfect addition to our homestead. Any advice on starting out would be very helpful indeed.

 

[Rocky Rhodes]

I found your bee thread!! I have already asked a lot of questions, but I subscribed to this thread because I intend to give bee keeping a try next spring. I want to see what questions other folks ask. I live in N.Georgia and have sourwood trees all around my place. Oh, I do have one question... All the hives that I see around here are white, the one my friend purchased(and never used) is not white. Do you have to paint them, and if so, is there a certain kind of paint that you have to use?

 

[BoppsBees]

Buy a 2 hives with equipment place your order for a package of bees I suggest brushy Mtn bee supplys

 

[BoppsBees]

You can paint your hives any color if I were you i would paint them white because of the heat in Georgia

 

[FluffyDucks]

Thank you for the reply I will have to look up that supplier! Your hives are lovely by the way. Yes I think any other color of hive would just make it a little bee oven down here. I do have a question on placement you may have a good answer for. I have a large 50 X 50 garden and it is already next to a very busy buzzing natural honey bee hive. Catalpa trees border it along with muscadine and honeysuckle. I had thought to place hives near enough to the garden but wondered if wild colonies of honey bees would aggravated by new bees at all. Any thoughts?

 

[BoppsBees]

They won't be botherd at all you will only need to put an entrance reducer on for no robbing

 

[user213590]

Facing entrance to the South-East

 

[cowhlb]

Placement in a garden? I took that in a different way. With my experience I would think to locate the south east direction and place the opening of your hive facing the south-east. There are different trains of thought.

An entrance reducer is a good idea whether there are natural bees in the area or not but there are other reasons. Wasp & hornets will envade an unguarded or large entrance and steal the embryoes and take them back to their home to place in their egg cells for future food for their own.

That is a bigger problem than another bee stealing their food.
If your in a hot place please use the lightest paint one can. BUT did you know there are those that give their hives the full treatment. I only saw commercial hives in field with white hive bodies. Those that had them in their backyards used their favorite works of art. Van Gogh's Starry night painted on the HIVE. Also I have seen them painted to resemble Victorian painted Lady. And I loved the way the gray's were used to play up shadows of a porch painted on the Gone with the Wind bee hive. You can have fun, but know this, if put it in shade you just increased the chances of parasite invasion. Just what I have learned over the years. But if that happens and you loose the bees. Build a fire of tobacco and smoke the insides. Great cigarett tobacco makes a great insecticide.

And do you have bees? Im pretty sure BoppsBees knows what he is talking about.