my goat is a small female. I have heard about goats getting into gardens. So far I can't complain about her getting out of her pen. I need to give her a second pasture, because she ate all the small trees, blackberries, weeds, and shrubbery I had wanted her to take care of and now needs more.......she doesn't eat much grass, so the chickens hang out with her sometimes and don't deprive her. They like different things.
The bees cost in the initial investments you make. Equipment, clothing, gloves, hive bodies and such. Then you get the word out and people start knowing you do bees and you phone rings a lot during early spring. The easiest catch is what I call a clean catch. A huge ball of bees ( the size of a football or basketball ) hanging from a tree or building. They are just looking for a place to live, so its easy to catch those. Now if they made themselves a home in a wall.......thats another story. You can get a lot of stings tending to a job like that. Once you are setup, you have to work them from time to time and add hivebodies when their colonies get too big and then give them place to make the honey you plan on taking from them. But once you are established, you have something that will feed you for years, without you needing to feed it. My husband got into it, but he is a more exciteable person than me, so it was discovered that I was the one that could handle the bees better. It is not a bad hobby for someone that has a calm way about them. Read up on it. I learned most of what I know from my husband who has forfeited it over to me.
The bees are in my garden, but I will have to think on a way to protect them from guineas I plan on getting in June.
I can tell you that just as the store bought eggs can't compare to my eggs.....neither can the store bought honey compare to mine.
As far as trouble goes.....well everything I do gives me some kind of trouble. I'm hardheaded and I do a lot of things the old ways.
