Beekeeping, from my own point of view.

life.gaiam.com...

Compelling video of why it is so important for us to help honeybees survive the world around them. So many people are afraid of bees..fight fear with education and understanding.

I thought you all might like to watch.

hey it's nice to see someone else on here who keep's bee's. I have five hive's in my back yard. i just got into it about three year's ago i think they're pretty cool to have in the yard it make's me some extra cash and the family loves it.

There is a very important film that is available to view instantly on Netflix,called 'Vanishing Of The Bees'.

www.vanishingbees.com...

I'm watching it right now. I think everyone should,too.

reply to post by Qouth The Raven


It's a pretty decent documentary. i just viewed it on my xbox a week or so ago and enjoyed watching it while learning how pressing of a problem we have with our bee's dissappearing.

reply to post by subliminalsubconcious


It's an eye opener,that's for sure! I'm amazed by how few people really know anything about honeybees,even the most basic of things. That needs to change.

You know,after watching that film,I feel an even deeper,more urgent desire to be a backyard beekeeper. I'm not looking to run a business,altho I am grateful to the keepers that do harvest and sell local honey..since I began eating honey daily 6 years ago,I haven't caught a cold or had the flu or suffered the typical seasonal allergies most deal with..I just want to create a safe haven,a clean and friendly environment where a hive can live and thrive,and share a bit of their honey with me. Kind of a partnership. What I saw in that film screams out the need for such a thing. It is my hope that over time,backyard beekeeping will become the norm and that every person who can,will have at least one healthy hive in their gardens. I think alot of people are intimidated by the traditional methods for keeping bees and the process of extraction. The Top Bar hives eliminate all of that and make beekeeping and harvesting simple,friendly and personally rewarding. I have the patience of a saint with things like this so capturing a wild swarm will be a thing of beauty when I go for it. lol! I'll have the husband take pictures.

So,in your area,are there any special requirements for wintering your hives over? And what do you 'feed',or do you leave enough comb in tact for your bees to eat naturally? And,is there anything you do in regard to 'pest' control or are your bees strong enough to deal with things naturally? With mono crops and systemic pesticides everywhere,bees immune systems and nervous systems are just as screwed up as us humans,unfortunately.

The Extraction: How honey gets from the hive to a jar.

I finally got the video uploaded, crunched it into 20 mins. Enjoy.



(Mind you we are quite dysfunctional, if you listen to the background chatter.)

After extraction, we had to clean-up. Here's a few pics:

The inside of the extractor.




Equipment being "cleaned".




Close-ups of the "cleaning crew".




Melting the cappings down:


Total yield stacked up.

This is really cool man. Been watching a few documentaries about bees, and the problems that have been plaguing them, also saw Sage Francis at a concert raise awareness with a good little speech, and a song as well.

I didnt manage to find if you mentioned what kind of plants they are getting pollen from? Most of the local honey seems to have a taste of Fennel or Tarragon, and I really dont enjoy it.

Another question: When some "organic" honey says it is not heated, filtered, etc in any way(Example), is that actually raw honey, straight from a hive, with the wax and everything you show being boiled off? "True raw solid state"

reply to post by smashdem


69 US pounds of our harvest was called "wildfower" honey. We got another 8 pounds of "goldenrod" honey, very light in color, with an almost buttery taste. Goldenrod is a fall crop, and that's what the last one was, very rare to isolate.

Organic honey and raw honey are the same thing. We filter ours to 400 mesh, which is pretty fine, but yes, very very minute particles of wax may enter. Almost unnoticable, but ours is organic as well. Raw honey has all the goodness that mother nature intended. Any further processing removes naturally occurring benefits, and that's the way we like it.

Hi Druid
Thanks for the vids, I went to a class this past week-end for beekeeping and I must admit it was very informative.
The instructors were down to earth and answered all questions. To be honest, I was most surprised by the attendance, it really gives me hope that humanity will reclaim our natural food resources.

reply to post by Druid42

I am new here, and apparently, messages cannot be sent between users. Sorry if me asking this makes you uncomfortable in any way, or if in one of your posts that I missed you requested people not to do this, but, could I buy some of your honey, Druid? Nothing large, just a bit for personal use. If you are interested, let me know, and we can figure out a way to get in touch on another platform.

reply to post by smashdem


You need 20 posts to send a U2U, (private message to someone). I see you just met the threshold at 21 posts now. I'd be glad to sell you some, and as a bonus I have 1 US lb. of Goldenrod Honey I'd be willing to part with, it's raw honey, mind you, but it's almost yellow, as opposed to the Wildflower honey that is darker brown. The Goldenrod honey has a buttery flavor to it.

We can work out the rest of the details U2U now. Send me a message.

I would love to keep bees but I don't think it's allowed in my city. I need to find out. I think I would be a great bee keeper, for one I am fascinated by them, and the other is I am not affected by their stings. I have been stung many times, and I have never had pain or swelling, On time I was stung, I didn't even notice until I saw the bee still attached to it's stinger with the stinger in my palm.

Really cool thread. I enjoyed your daughters narration too, she seems adorable.

When it's too hot, the worker bees will align themselves with the exit and fan their wings, keeping the hive cool.

That's nuts.

So ow much maintenance is actually required? Could you set up hives at a remote location and get away with only checking them every 4 months or is it more of a weekly thing? I could see setting up some hives on more remote property in order to have something to barter with in some extreme situation. How long does honey keep? Can you buy bees or do you have to find a hive out and about? I was surprised to learn the workers are female, thought they were all male for some reason. What's the difference between the queen and a normal female? What do the males do? I'll stop, I just think this is pretty neat.

Awesome thread

This might be a dumb question, but are there any concerns about africanized bees (killer bees) invading? How do you avoid that?

reply to post by 08051962


Believe it or not, the Africanized (killer bees, myth, thanks to Hollywood) bees still produces honey like an Italian bee. They are just more aggressive, and more irritable, but they are handled the same way.

To address the "killer bee" aspect, if you sustain about 120 bee stings in one encounter, there is enough toxin injected into you system to shut down your nervous system. That's 120 stings, period, regardless of the type of bee it is. Yes, the lethal number is 120 stings, depending on body mass.

Since the Africanized bees are more aggressive, you are likely to get stung more when dealing with a hive. Yes, people have encountered Africanized hives, and being stupid, disturbed the hive, and gotten over 120 stings, thus terminating their life. If you see a hive, don't fiddle with it. Leave it alone.

Africanized bees are more feral, and since they aren't the most popular choice for honey production, they are mostly wild bees that swarm a lot. It's their survival trait, that they move around to find pollen to produce honey. Out west they are very common, but the heat and lack of resources make them very active. Again, do not approach any hive without the proper gear. That's just common sense. Wear a bee suit. Be safe, and even Africanized bees are manageable.

reply to post by Domo1

So ow much maintenance is actually required? Could you set up hives at a remote location and get away with only checking them every 4 months or is it more of a weekly thing? I could see setting up some hives on more remote property in order to have something to barter with in some extreme situation. How long does honey keep? Can you buy bees or do you have to find a hive out and about? I was surprised to learn the workers are female, thought they were all male for some reason. What's the difference between the queen and a normal female? What do the males do? I'll stop, I just think this is pretty neat.

Depends on who you talk to Druid42 will probably differ some then me. if you use natural methods yes you could leave the hives for months at a time. if you use conventional methods you need to be messing with the hives weekly. Honey keeps indefinitely. They have found good honey in Egyption tombs I believe. It just crystallizes over time but never goes bad.. I recommend catching a swarm rather then buying bees but you can do it either way. The queen is bigger and she lays eggs. The workers do everything else. The males only mate with other queens not their own. Check out biobees.com... for natural beekeeping methods

Originally posted by Domo1
Really cool thread. I enjoyed your daughters narration too, she seems adorable.

When it's too hot, the worker bees will align themselves with the exit and fan their wings, keeping the hive cool.

That's nuts.

So ow much maintenance is actually required? Could you set up hives at a remote location and get away with only checking them every 4 months or is it more of a weekly thing? I could see setting up some hives on more remote property in order to have something to barter with in some extreme situation. How long does honey keep? Can you buy bees or do you have to find a hive out and about? I was surprised to learn the workers are female, thought they were all male for some reason. What's the difference between the queen and a normal female? What do the males do? I'll stop, I just think this is pretty neat.

Not much really. 4 times a year. We have our inspector come once a year, and he'll come out again upon request. Remember, on that yearly visit, he signs a certification.

There is no reason to inspect your hives weekly. None at all. As long as you see bees going in and out, they're fine, as long as there are crops/wildflowers nearby, they will do their thing.

Honey keeps forever. It doesn't spoil, or go bad. It will crystallize after about 4 years, but a double-boiler returns it to it's liquid state. Amazing.

You can buy bees, yes, a starter package for about 69 bucks. It comes with a queen, and about 10,000 bees. Last summer we bought two more "packages", brought up from a reputable farm in North Carolina, and they were our strongest hives to last harvest. Adding genetic diversity to your hives is a good thing, as a queen bee mates only once in her life, and gets impregnated during flight in the spring, having sex with over a hundred drones from all the nearby hives, during one mating flight.

In the air, being a whore, well, it only happens once per queen. She'll have enough eggs to lay about 50,000 eggs per season, for 3-4 years, then she will be superceded (replaced) by a new queen.

A queen bee differs from a normal female bee in the fact that she is MUCH larger. She is also the only bee in the hive that emits pheromones. A queen is the only bee in the hive that lays eggs, and the other female bees to all the "dirty work", cleaning the hive, foraging for pollen, regurgitating honey, and capping full cells of honey.

Male bees in the hive are drones. They are slightly bigger than female foragers, but they serve the purpose of tending the young larvae. Yes, the male bees are the "stay at home" dads. They feed the young, and cap the cells of the young when the young is ready to be born. They also dictate when to create a new queen. See, they tend to the inner workings of the hive, and yes, they are responsible for hatching out well over 30,000 new bees per season. If the queen isn't laying eggs up to their liking, they take "royal jelly", something only they can make, and feed it to several new larvae to create a new queen. Also, they are tasked with feeding the queen of the hive, as she does not eat on her own. The drones supply her with the "royal jelly" that they secrete, and that is all a queen bee eats during the course of her life.

In short, the drones are the "men of the house", making all the decisions, and the females do all the work. It's really a fascinating study when you consider that it has been going on for millions of years, and humans are just now fully understanding how hives work.

reply to post by hawkiye


I see we are mostly agreed. I was working on my response, then saw yours after posting. It is good to know there are others with beekeeping knowledge, and I wouldn't disagree with any of your techniques. Different, yes, but perfectly within the realms of safe and responsible beekeeping.

reply to post by Druid42

Male bees in the hive are drones. They are slightly bigger than female foragers, but they serve the purpose of tending the young larvae. Yes, the male bees are the "stay at home" dads. They feed the young, and cap the cells of the young when the young is ready to be born. They also dictate when to create a new queen. See, they tend to the inner workings of the hive, and yes, they are responsible for hatching out well over 30,000 new bees per season. If the queen isn't laying eggs up to their liking, they take "royal jelly", something only they can make, and feed it to several new larvae to create a new queen. Also, they are tasked with feeding the queen of the hive, as she does not eat on her own. The drones supply her with the "royal jelly" that they secrete, and that is all a queen bee eats during the course of her life.

This is incorrect the drones do nothing in the hive but mate with virgin queens from other hives. Female worker bees tend the queen feed her and the brood and produce a new queen if needed depending on their ages... Drones are important to the whole of the bee population. Virgin Queens do not mate with their own brothers they fly out of the hive to find drones from other hives this keeps the entire bee population strong by diversifying the genetics.

Drones (male bees) are the largest bees in the colony. They are generally present only during late spring and summer. The drone’s head is much larger than that of either the queen or worker, and its compound eyes meet at the top of its head. Drones have no stinger, pollen baskets, or wax glands. Their main function is to fertilize the virgin queen during her mating flight. Drones become sexually mature about a week after emerging and die instantly upon mating. Although drones perform no useful work for the hive, their presence is believed to be important for normal colony functioning.

While drones normally rely on workers for food, they can feed themselves within the hive after they are 4 days old. Since drones eat three times as much food as workers, an excessive number of drones may place an added stress on the colony’s food supply. Drones stay in the hive until they are about 8 days old, after which they begin to take orientation flights. Flight from the hive normally occurs between noon and 4:00 p.m. Drones have never been observed taking food from flowers.

When cold weather begins in the fall and pollen/nectar resources become scarce, drones usually are forced out into the cold and left to starve. Queenless colonies, however, allow them to stay in the hive indefinitely.

agdev.anr.udel.edu...

reply to post by hawkiye


I stand corrected. You are right. I shouldn't be posting late when I'm tired. Twas confusing drones with workers. My bad.