Woohoo! Birthday presents ** Updated **

[joanm]

Wow sgtmom, that is fascinating! What sort of plants are the best to plant if you have bees? I would love to take up that hobby. I have one acre and have three flower beds. How expensive?

Congrats cookinmom, I'm jealous!

 

[SpottedCrow]

How cool! My favourite oldtimer neighbour who died last year, used to keep bees...he even brought my MIL honey the first time he came over to visit.

 

[sgtmom52]

The bees will collect nectar & pollen from many of the same flowers that butterflies and humming birds do. Examples are asters, sunflowers, salvia, bee balm and clover. Honeybees also collect a large amount of nector from trees in the spring. We have a lot of tulip poplar and oak. They also love almost any kind of fruit trees. Bees will travel about 3 miles from the hive to get nector & pollen.
You can expect to spend a couple of hundred dollars to start up and stock a new hive, including the queen and starter bee, a "bee suit" and extras. If you are handy you can build your own hives - there are lots of plans on the internet. You can often find used equipment from established beekeepers.
On the plus side - once you start harvesting honey (the 2nd year) you can get 40 to 50 lbs or more of honey per hive. Honey sells for about $3 or $4 per pound around here!

 

[bayouchica]

That's a neat b-day gift.

 

[aran]

oh man that is too freakin cool...me and my boy have just been talking about doing exactly this same thing after seeing the 4H display at the local fair. PLEASE keep us updated with pics and descriptions of what is happening. We are looking to get a hive in the next few weeks. How do the bees manage to not die over the winter? If you have 30000now and the original hive was for 3000 do you need to keep building more apiaries?

 

[cookinmom]

Sgtmom, thanks for the info and the pics! It sure is much cooler seeing pics from a real person, rather than just in books. I checked Beekeeping for Dummies from the library, and have to take it back tomorrow, but I am definitely buying that book!
There's also a website, www.gabees.com that has a month by month calendar of what to do for bees in this part of the world, and I'll be printing that out and taping it on my fridge! Thanks for your offer of assistance! I'm sure I'll have questions. I'm waiting til next spring to get my bees, so they have enough time to build up for the winter.

 

[Avrilon]

Happy Birthday Valerie - and what a nice birthday present! DH and I want to start bees at our little farm when we get there, so I'd love to hear how your experiences goes with them. It's such a win-win venture, I can't wait to get started.

Sgtmom52, thanks for posting the picture of your hive and all the info. I agree with Valerie that it's nice to see pictures from a "real person". I have several books and lots of bee catalogs, but seeing your hive and hearing about your experience really motivates me!

Avrilon

 

[Lunachick]

Good Luck with your bees!

 

[cookinmom]

Well, the birthday was yesterday.. As part of my birthday gift to myself, I limited my computer time to only that which was absolutely necessary (i.e., making sure the truck payments got made on time!). So I didn't visit y'all. Sorry!

But, we took a little trip down to High Springs, FL (Moultrie GA was a couple hours further away), to Dadant & Sons Beekeeping supplies. That part of the state is just gorgeous. Not like the Jacksonville area (most of it anyway). After (unsuccessfully) trying their best to discourage us from our venture (I guess this weeds out those who will throw in the towel too easily), the very nice ladies there got us set up with a smoker, a jacket with veil, some stuff to spray for bugs on the ground around the hive, some gloves that come up past my elbows, a book, and even threw in a hive tool and another book as my birthday present! And, best part, we are on their list to bring home a complete hive, full of bees, NEXT MONTH! And for way less than if we had ordered all the hive components separately, and then bought package bees next spring. That had a big observation hive there, with five frames of bees sandwiched between sheets of plexiglass. If y'all ever get to see one of those, you will be amazed. I'm very excited, but nervous too. I hope I can do all this right.

Let me tell you what my mom gave me too. I have been borrowing her big canning pot (water bath,not pressure) for several years, and she just gets it back from me if she needs it, which she hasn't done in forever. So she told me I can go ahead and keep it now, and passed down her jar lifter which she has had since I was little. AND, she put together an "album" so to speak (with a chicken print cover,and a picture of me and Pearl conversing with each other on the front) of all of my Grandma's and hers canning/freezing recipes and books. Even my Grandma's 1962 Ball Blue Book, held together with masking tape, which she bought for 35 cents. (Yes, I do know to follow the most recent guidelines for processing methods/times

) It was awesome. It has lots of my grandma's notes written in it too, which I love.