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Honey bees

Hedgelj

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Mohicanish
Anyone else keep them?

The wife andI have taken a class and read some books and ate going to give it a go.

Starting with 2 nucs later this spring. Have a swarm trap near a hive in a tree that was cut down humping for luck.

Well keep this thread updated as i build the hive stands and work the hives.



 

bowhunter1023

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Looking forward to following along Doug!

My wife's grandpa has kept bees for decades and I've "studied" under him some over the years. I am in line to inherit his hives some day assuming they are still active at the time of his demise. We are set to move next year and will have more room at our new place, so I will probably plant some fruit trees and get a hive of my own going. The benefits of local honey are well documented and I enjoy cultivating things, so I imagine bee hives are very satisfying in that regard.
 

jagermeister

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Great thread! I would like to try it someday. I think it's interesting as hell. My cousin started his own hive last year and had excellent success. I've got a bottle of honey as proof. It is delicious!

 

"J"

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Have a former coworker who's been into it for over a decade... He's been past president of the local beekeepers association and he's hooked... Lots of strikes against it from the sounds of it from mites to rodents and critters messing up the hives but he keeps at it....


 

Fletch

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When I was young my Dad had bees... I was told that when I was young I went out with just a diaper and pounded on the boxes with a small shovel.. I got covered, but only bit a few times...No epi pens back then.. Lol.. Back then they would put some flower on a bee and follow it back to a tree where they were living. The flower made it easier to see it in flight.. Then they would get the bees out of the tree for their hives.. Anyone that has bees here have electric fences around them, otherwise yogi gets into them.
 
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Jackalope

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When I was young my Dad had bees... I was told that when I was young I went out with just a diaper and pounded on the boxes with a small shovel.. I got covered, but only bit a few times...No epi pens back then.. Lol.. Back then they would put some flower on a bee and follow it back to a tree where they were living. The flower made it easier to see it in flight.. Then they would get the bees out of the tree for their hives.. Anyone that has bees here have electric fences around them, otherwise yogi gets into them.
I did the same with my grandfather's hive in the winter. I said "anybody home" and beat it with my plastic sandbox shovel. 27 stings. The next year I was playing in my sandbox that was a good 25 yards from the hive and a pecan fell out of the tree and hit the hive box. Another 18 stings. Lol. I was probably only about 4 or 5. I'll see if my mom can't find a picture of me swollen up like the Michelin man. Today CPS would take your kids for that. Lol.
 

OO2

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My grandpa kept bees later in his life. He got about 60lbs of honey out of them once I believe. Man that was some good stuff.
 

Jackalope

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My grandfather loved bees but as he got older he quit messing with the hives so much and left them alone. They got so mean you didn't dare go within 10 foot of them. One year they swarmed and took up residence in his carport. They found a crack in the plywood ceiling behind a support beam for the second story and built a nest between the first and second floors. He just let them be for years. I can still remember looking up there and seeing them. In the summer grandpa's house always smelled of honey. Mom tried to get him to get them out of the carport but he would always say leave um be they ain't hurting nothing. He passed back in 03 but I still have an unopened Mason jar of his honey.

I forgot to mention earlier a strange side effect I think was caused by getting stung by that many bees. Number one I'm allergic to honey bees, not any other bees or wasps just honey bees. If I get stung by two or more my ass better be on the way to the hospital eating benadryl. And the other one is I can smell a honey bee hive a mile away. Even when I smoked and couldn't smell very good I could still smell honey bees hundreds of yards off. More than once my nose has led me to a wild hive in the woods.

Last summer Alex and I were hunting a farm that he had permission on, as soon as I stepped out of the truck I said "I smell bees" about 400 yards away down a trail through the woods in a clearing the farmer had allowed a beekeeper to put up about a dozen hives.
 
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Hedgelj

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Made the base the hives are going to sit on. Three separate groups of 6 concrete blocks leveled and then 3 4x4s across them. Should be plenty sturdy.

Will get a picture next time i am out there.

Planning to cut out the hive from the tree on Friday. Should be an interesting experience.

 

Hedgelj

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So we cut the hive out on Friday. It was an interesting experience.

The weather was chilly for Bees and windy which isn't the best.

We started by cutting out small window like sections to see where in the hive we were. As we got into the broodnest we started cutting selections to fit into frameswhich we held in place with rubber bands.

We also got about 10lbs of comb honey.

It was massive about 8 feet long and anywhere from 6 to twelve inches inn diameter for just the hive. The trunk was about 24" diameter in the cut out.

We found the queen at the end. We put her in the hive and her pheromones drew the rest of the bees in. Probably 10-15 lbs of bees total.

Waited till nightfall and moved the hive to its new home. Gave them some feed and will check on them in a day or two.

I got stung once for the whole process.



 
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