who keeps bees?

[adk]

Any beekeepers here? I'm thinking about setting up a couple hives, was wondering how much maintenance is involved? How much honey to expect from a single hive? I'm in big-time bear country- is it even do-able?

[Admin]

There are a few bee keepers on here but haven'thad any activity from them in a while. People always come and go I guess.

[Nutso]

My Dad has a few hives. They don't take a lot of maintenance once they are established. I guess the amount of honey depends on different factors. How many bees are in the hive, how healthy they are, how much pollen they can find etc.

As for the bears....I don't see why you couldn't have bees. We have bears here, and we have an electric fence around the hives. One great trick is that you put aluminum foil with bacon grease right on the fence, that way the bear will touch it with his/her nose...that is where it hurts.

[adk]

Thanks, guys- good idea, Nutso! I have about 35 apple trees that I can see from the house with another dozen or so out in the woodlot and I'm thinking I would get ahell of a lot better pollination with having bees on the property. All my "neighbors" have problems with these bears, but they don't bother me with even with a huge garden and loads of blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries all around. I think the dog keeps em away a bit. JC, I'm surprised it's not something you've given thought to, with all the apple trees you have over there. I think I'll do some more homework and shoot for next year-------

[Admin]

Jun 28, 2010 20:50:28 GMT -5 adk said:

JC, I'm surprised it's not something you've given thought to, with all the apple trees you have over there.

I'm not really that fond of honey. A tiny bit in a cup of tea a few times a year and thats about it. I'm not really fond of bees either. I'm fascinated with the conept of bee keeping but have too many other things to keep me occupied. Definately too many things.

[adk]

It's just something I'm thinking about right now--I too, have WAY too many projects to even think about the bees this year.

[mike692]

I'd love to have bees too. But like you guys have too many irons in the fire right now. Maybe next spring.

[whistler]

Older thread but my 2cents worth, I used to have some hives, was actually more work for me than it should have been. I probably made it worse than it needed be. I had one hive that was mean....I mean it was bad news. Not so much to bush hog or work the orchard but to work the bees. I called the bee company and asked for a pretty young queen so to re-queen my hive. I had several tell me an old queen that needed to be super seeded (sp) would make the hive mean. They usually do it naturally. I never was able to find that old hussy to put that pretty young thing in there. She died a horrible death waiting. The other hives were gentle and no problem. Each time I took honey my garage would have what seemed like thousands of bees that had followed me from the field. I was never able to solve that problem. I use a little bit of honey in each cup of coffee in the morning. Don't need too much.