Who else here loves bees??
I really want to have my own apiary as soon as I can (I currently live in the city and I do not have a back yard to work with) and I would love to network with current or aspiring beekeepers, or anyone who just has a love of bees and wants to talk about bees!
Conversation starters:
What goes into starting a hive?
When were you first able to harvest honey?
What is your favorite thing about bees, or favorite bee product?
What is your favorite kind of beehive?
And feel free to suggest more questions, or add personal bee stories in the comments!!
3
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14 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Update: my cousin is allowing me to start keeping bees on her land in the spring!!!
Pineapple-Pizza
Level 4
Dec 21, 2017
0
My grandfather kept bees when I was a little boy. I loved the honey. Bees are so important to our ecosystem.
SlytherinFox
Level 5
Dec 20, 2017
1
Yep. We had hives on our farm in Oregon. Nice little critters for the most part. Where I live now, we don't have hives, but we keep watering bowls out for the wild ones and maintain lots of flowering plants for them.
evidentialist
Level 8
Dec 20, 2017
1
My Dad was a bee keeper. I never cared much for them but my sister would play with them. I do love honey.
TommyMeador
Level 7
Dec 20, 2017
1
no bees no life. it's like hating rain or the sun.
LeighShelton
Level 8
Dec 20, 2017
1
To be or not to bee? I do love bees, raw honey of all sorts from white Hawaiian to Manuka from NZ. Truly amazing little beeings. There's some new "self harvesting" hives now you should check it out. Might be a less traumatic experience for the bees to harvest their honey. Let me know what you think. Got stung actually just the if here day, by accident since it flew in while driving and landed on my face...
Grim
Level 4
Dec 20, 2017
1
I was just asking a long-time bee keeper about self-harvesting hives the other day! And apparently there's a good reason they're not widely used: the moving parts get gummed up pretty quickly and at times need to be taken out entirely to be cleaned or replaced, and they have a general lifespan of about 3 years, give or take (due to breakage or failure of certain parts, and just not being able to find suitable replacements because they're not used commonly enough for a lot of bee suply stores to carry replacement parts for them), which is far shorter than the lifespan of the colony within it, so in terms of being disruptive to the bees, it's about the same and can be more so. The classic Langstrom hive (the hive boxes that you typically see beekeepers handaling) are reasonably non-disruptive already, and their modular construction allows beekeepers to treat for varoa mites with relative ease, and put feeders into the hive to help sustain them through the winter if the keeper is worried a hive doesn't have enough food to make it through
Oh yikes! That sounds like it could have been terrifying (re: face-sting while driving)
Grim:
@Pineapple-Pizza yes, as I watched the video I was wondering how long it would take for the whole thing to get all glued up, thank you for sharing a bee keepers point on it. I would probably have tried to ring the Damn thing above my bed anyways, (next to my wall mounted cow) nothing's like milk and honey! 
Grim:
@Pineapple-Pizza oh and the car thing was pretty impressive, must have done like 80, for the bee to fly in, pretty crazy odds. Could have turned to a bad situation
A honey comb is the most efficient structure in nature the walls meet at a precise 120 -degree angle , a perfect hexagon
richiegtt
Level 8
Dec 20, 2017
1
Indeed! The precision with which bee hives are built is almost hard to believe at times
Without bees - there would be no "us" - so even if one doesn't love them , they need our careful consideration !
Meanwhile, you might find this interesting :
[popularmechanics.com]beekeeping-47031701/
evergreen
Level 8
Dec 20, 2017
3
Good read! Thanks for linking that article!
I love bees! Hornets can f**k right off though. I plant different things in my gardens to feed the bees.
Engleguy
Level 4
Dec 20, 2017
2
Oh yeah, wasps and hornets are the worst
So much!
A couple of years ago, there was this green bee that I knew. I would go visit her every day on my work break. I researched pretty extensively, and I believe she was an orchid bee. She let me take her portrait from a mere 3-4" away.
FoxyMoron
Level 5
Dec 20, 2017
3
Oh wow, I didn't even know orchid bees existed, that's fascinating! I'm going to look that up now
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