Checkout what today brought.....BEES(NEW VIDEO)

[Sunny the Hippie Chick]

I want bees.. I love honey... We cant have bees in our town.. We can have poultry.. Chickens (10), quail, pheasants (with permit.) I dont know about ducks for sure.. But I know, no bees.. I guess they are affraid of people getting stung..

 

[BantyHugger]

ok Mom wants to know How do you keep the broods out of the honey? and How do you winter the bees over? Do you have a specific forum or book you think would be helpful?
Thanks
Mariah

 

[SamG347]

The reason the bees have been dieing off in the past years has been because of the VARROA MITE....and this is partly do to the Langstroth hive. The Varroa mite attaches itself to the bees usually in the larval stage. And it does so by breaking into the cell and attaching itself. The foundation that you get in Langstroth frames when you buy them(usually a plastic or wax) is sized WAY TOO BIG...it is something many other beekeepers who like me are interested in Small Cell bee keeping have proved. And in topbar style hives it gives us the opportunity to regress our bees....so they will start making smaller and smaller cell sizes until they are the natural size that the bee can manage and have better control on the mites.

Here are some of my fav....links

http://www.biobees.com/forum/index.php

http://anarchyapiaries.org/

There are many more...like I said you can google it too. Also there are a lot of good videos on Topbar beekeeping on Youtube.

 

[Guitartists]

Good info and

On your new bees!

 

[BantyHugger]

Thanks for the links. We are really interested in this. It makes so much more sense AND its cheaper than langstroth hives (our original idea).
Thanks again,
Mariah

 

[AK_Button_Mama]

I was just today offered free hives... I dont know what kind they are but I suppose I should look into it huh!

 

[SamG347]

Yeah you should!!!

 

[Judy]

Quote:
Thank you so much for this. As I said, I am not into bees; I actually don't much care for honey. (Not big on sugar, either.) But I have wondered whether there was something about beekeeper's activities that might have contributed. Humans have messed up so much of the natural order, after all....

I hope you and other beekeepers who know the score can help spread the word. Already there are some 25,000 people on here who have now at least been afforded the opportunity to learn about the situation.

 

[SamG347]

I love spreading the word....especially when it is something I love! Also humans have messed up sooo much in nature...but some of the things we can also save/bring back. That is why this method of beekeeping attracted me in the first place....also because of how cheap and easy it is to do. And how it is stress free pretty much for both me and the bees.

 

[StoneBridge Farm]

Sam,

Hey there. Fellow Beekeeper here. Have you ever caught a swarm? I accidently caught one last year. We set out new hives but did not load them until the second day. When I got back, there was a swarm complete with queen. We actually added supers this week because last year we were too late and four hives had already swarmed. I lost a bunch!!! We were up to 50 hives last fall, but now..not so much. We do have four that we can split.

I hate hearing CCD crap! CCD just means we have no idea what is going on. I'm with you the mites are on the rise! Also, I know part of our problem last year was pesticides. There are way too many farmers using pesticides!

We had a really good year last year, however, this year I don't know about. We are already starting off with way less hives than the year before.

We got into it with the help of the SARE Grant. It paid for our entire set up. Last year was our second year and we won The People's Choice For Best Tasting Honey at the 2008 WV Honey Festival. I was so proud!!!

Also.. to the person who got offered free hives...TAKE THEM!!!!!!! A starting hive brand new with the bees can cost from $250 and up!!! If you do decide to do bees...you should at least have 2 hives!

Anyway... I love posts like this! I just wanted to add my support. Sam, looks like you have a good chance of catching a swarm. Have you ever tried the nuc boxes or commercial swarm catchers?