Michigan Thread - all are welcome!

[Whatshisface]

I thought about bees for about a week, once, once...Maple Syrup is enough for me. I do love making the Mead though!

I love making mead myself

 

[Maah]

@Maah
  You are too funny!  I'll be breeding Flemish Giants in order to have 8 week old bunnies by CS.  I have a grey buck now and he'll be bringing new colors to the mix for maximum cuteness.

Nope! No FG's! We have the Holland Lop's now & I still blame you for that. LOL

 

[aart]

Quote: Yeah, I was thinking, but didn't type.... 'at least' a couple hundred.
$350 puts it way out of my budget.

 

[RaZ]

I thought about bees for about a week, once, once...Maple Syrup is enough for me. I do love making the Mead though!

Once you try maple mead.

I have one carboy that I should bottle up, it has been aging for over 12 years. Also have a grape mead that is over 15 years old. You can make mead more quickly but the well-aged ones are extra good.

Just off the top of my head, here the bare minimum
- protective Veil, coat and gloves
- a hive consist of the following
* a bottom board
* 2 deeps
* at least 2 honey supers.
* 20 deep frames and 20 deep foundations
* 20 Honey super frames and 20 honey super foundations
* 1 queen excluder
* 1 inner cover
* 1 medal cover
- a Hive tool,
- a smoker
- some kind of book on bee keeping like Bee Keeping for dummy's < I like that book.

Then there is the price of the bees themselves. Figure about $105 - $120 for just a queen starter pack or about $130 - $150 for a 3 pound package. I haven't heard the price of a nuc yet.

 

[snowflake]

Probably between $300 and $350 and you still haven't bought your bees yet. A couple of places I frequent when I'm buying new equipment are Dadants and Mann Lake. I don't like what they put in their beginner kits. They all seem to be missing important items which means you will have to keep coming back buying things. If you are buying over the internet than that means you are going to be paying a lot for shipping and handling over and over again. I was fortunate to get most of my equipment used from people I trusted. You don't need this starting out but a cheap no frill extractor will start you about $20. I picked one up that was used by the Amish and is close to a hundred years old. I believe it was built in 1920 and it does everything I need it to do and it does it well, I paid $75 for it.

this is adding up to what I had read some time ago true cost for every thing would be about $1000 If you could buy some one out, that was quitting, I bet you could do quite well.

 

[SillyChicken]

Thanks....I'll bet that adds up to a couple hundred bucks if all bought new?

between 300-400$ +$100 or so for the bees to get started.

Just off the top of my head, here the bare minimum
- protective Veil, coat and gloves
- a hive consist of the following
* a bottom board
* 2 deeps
* at least 2 honey supers.
* 20 deep frames and 20 deep foundations
* 20 Honey super frames and 20 honey super foundations
* 1 queen excluder
* 1 inner cover
* 1 medal cover
- a Hive tool,
- a smoker
- some kind of book on bee keeping like Bee Keeping for dummy's < I like that book.

You'll also need a feeding station to provide sugar water in spring and late fall. We use the drop in that holds a lot so we don't have to fill it every day.
Source to buy sugar (Costco 25# bag),
An excluder for the hive entrance.

We first tried the soft wax with wire foundations in the frames, and they came out with the honey when we extruded it. That kind is great if you want to cut out honey comb and not spin it. It was nice to get all the wax, but it meant the hive had to rebuild the comb too. So we opted for the wax coated plastic sheet insert. It worked great for just extracting honey. The comb remained and was quickly repaired and refilled.

We will be starting a second hive this year.

We get all our supplies from Napoleon bee supply in Napoleon MI.

 

[suwahsen]

Here are some pictures of our recent addition to our coop.

We call it the chilarium ( chicken solarium ). It is 4x10 feet and made out of all recycled materials. The top is fixed panels of laminated glass. The side panels are all removable panels of plex. In the summer I will remove all the side panels and cover the top with a tarp for some shade.


This picture shows the detail of the sides. At the peak is a hinged piece that is used for a vent, I open these on warmer days to keep the humidity from getting to high. At the bottom left is the hinged door for the chickens to come out into their run. All of the side panels are held in by thumb turns for easy removal. Yesterday it was 55F in there in the afternoon when it was 18F outside. It is on the south side of the coop but is shaded by another coop for part of the day. I keep a thermostat in there so that I can open vents or whole panels if it gets too warm though that has not happened since we installed it just before Thanksgiving. It took the chickens about a week to get used to it, but now it is one of there favorite places. It provides a place out of the wind and snow and also has one of there favorite dust bath spots inside.

 

[aart]

Thanks everyone for the bee equipment info......
......I needed to hear it again as I was starting to pine for them...again.....I have wanted bees for years, just can't foot the cost.

 

[chickwhispers]

@suwahsen Nice!

 

[Maah]

So I just did a quick Craigslist search... just snooping (LOL) & see this: http://grandrapids.craigslist.org/for/4811833809.html BEEKEEPING CLASS! Dirty bugger that it started last weekend, and it's a 45m-1hr drive from me. Looks like it'd be right up there with what I want to know, and an actual live person & "visual stuff" to show me. BUT... $50 a class? I think my first stop will be to the house just around the corner from here that always has honey out for sale. I might just stop there to buy some honey, strike up a conversation, get chummy with the person & maybe they'll end up being the nice neighborly kind of folk & be willing to teach me some things.