Bee Hives - Who does them?

[j44ke]

My wife seems to be interested in bees and hives. She's been reading and telling me fun facts. Not sure where she's getting this from, but her sister had a bee hive for a while. Bees absolutely did nothing even though she worked and worked on the hive, read books, brought in beekeepers to consult, etc. Bees swarmed and left. She gave up and then a year or two later noticed a bee coming out of the hive. Opened it up and the hive was chock-a-block full of combs, nurseries, honey. Stealth bees. As far as I know she's never done much to it and the bees just keep doing what they do.

Anyway, anyone keep bees? We have a 400lbs honey fanatic living in our backyard, so Mr. Bruin R. Bear is going to be out main adversary I think. I do see plenty of boxes around though, and they seem to be relatively undisturbed. I can forecast that she'll be involved until the bees go in the hive (if we do this) and then I'll be left with daily maintenance while she's working in Paris. So I want to know what I'm in for.

[Tom]

Not much daily maintenance. Add a hive body when the ones on it start getting full. If it gets big enough, put an empty hive near it and let the swarm split. If you leave enough honey in the hive over winter you don't have to feed them.

Find somebody that's doing it not strictly for bidness. They're worse than bike fanatics for talking your ear off with all the lore.

[Tom]

One of the neatest things I've seen is when they swarm and you don't have a hive ready is you sprinkle the ball with water until you have the box ready and then you gently start brushing them into the box. When you get the queen into the box they instantly all clump around her and you can set up the hive. This big buzzing somewhat angry ball of bees just all jump into the box at the same moment.

[Octave]

We have two 4-stack hives (two hive/brood boxes and two honey supers, each). One is populated with a Carniolan queen and family (started from a 2# nuc we picked up locally) and the other is a Saskatraz queen (also from a local nuc purchased last spring). The two hives are positioned on opposite sides of our property, one is smack-dab in the middle of human food territory (aka farming) for pollination purposes, the other is located in the wooded back acreage of the property for wildflower honey production. Last year we got about 75# of honey from each hive, which isn't too bad for our first year. It meant we didn't purchase sugar or any other sweetener all year and have baked with it, eaten it raw, traded it for fresh fruit and vegetables, used it in salad dressings.... the fun part is comparing honey from the same hive at different points in the year.

As mentioned above, it's a pretty hands-off producer from a day-to-day perspective. Of our two hives, one is located behind some 8' fencing (where we grow most of our food) and the other is unprotected but we've never had an issue (and we do get black bears, deer, and all sorts of other miscreants on the game camera back there). The biggest work is harvesting honey, which takes the better part of a day for each hive and is done 1-3 times per year, depending on the productivity of your bees. You will definitely get stung at some point, so be aware of that - for me, it had been about 10 years since my last bee sting before we started our mini-apiary so I was a bit trepidatious but all worked out alright in the end. Like flat tires, bee stings come in threes - two from honey harvest days, and one a week later deep in the territory of magic mushrooms, which is a story for another time.

Bottom line: if you have the space (you do, Jorn), it is a great and productive hobby with very little work. Compared to our other endeavors (chickens, sheep, an orchard, a few acres of veg), it is easily the highest calorie producer from an hours-worked perspective. Plus, honey is great.

[ides1056]

Can't you put the hives on the roof out of reach of the bear?

[marley]

My employer based in Cambridge is working with this company https://bestbees.com/residential-beekeeping-services/

We have 4-5 hives located on a 3rd floor balcony on a building designed by Toshiko Mori , the building across the with the wrap around stone work was designed by Maya Lin

Bee_3.jpg

[rwsaunders]

Can't you put the hives on the roof out of reach of the bear?

Good idea...Hilton roof at the Pittsburgh airport.