Bee keeping

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lthenderson
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Re: Bee keeping

Post by lthenderson »

For those who want to try to beekeep and produce honey without heavy lifting, I am reminded of the Flow Hive system. I have never used it and have my doubts on how effective it is, but if it works, it would be a game changer. I don't know anybody in my former beekeeping community that has tried it but would like to see one in person some day.

https://www.honeyflow.com/
Dottie57
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Re: Bee keeping

Post by Dottie57 »

Nicolas wrote: Thu Aug 27, 2020 9:49 pm
Calico wrote: Thu Aug 27, 2020 12:18 pm I sometimes just eat a tablespoon of it or drizzle it over plain, unsweetened yogurt. I also put it in tea or just eat it smeared on bread.
Put honey on hot cornbread, it’s the best.
+1. Melt-y butter then honey. A great treat.
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Tamarind
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Re: Bee keeping

Post by Tamarind »

Calico wrote: Sun Aug 30, 2020 11:19 am I was a way for a couple of days and just got back to this post. Thanks again for the additional information. I am not sure about lifting 40-80 pounds. I know I can lift about 35-30 pounds easily. I scuba dive, not as much as I used to, it's a dying hobby of mine for a variety of reasons. But a tank weighs about 35 pounds. But I also know that I can't lift a set of doubles (two tanks) without a lot of effort (and sometimes help) and that's not quite 80 pounds.

That might put a damper on things. But I will still read up on things. Maybe there is a way you can manage hives and such without having to lift the whole hive. What are the reasons you would lift a whole hive anyway? I remember watching my grandfather and uncle back in the day, and I don't remember them ever picking up the whole hive for any reason--I just saw them taking out frames, one by one. But I wasn't there every day either.
You don't lift the whole hive, but the most common hive design (Langstroth) is made of a stack of boxes with frames inside. When working inside a box you pull out individual frames, like you remember, but to get into any box but the topmost box you must remove the box(es) above, and put them back on again after. If the box you are moving is full of honey it can be very heavy. 40lbs+

There are hive design options that help to reduce weight.

* Using Langstroth boxes with different dimensions so that the boxes have less volume i.e "8-frame" or "mediums". Still have to lift, but each box is lighter and standard equipment is freely available. My neighbor does this and it works well for her.

* Using "long hives" which are designed to take frames from a Langstroth box but are horizontal rather than vertical. I use these myself, with a single long box on a higher stand that holds as many frames as 3 standard boxes. No heavy lifting but boxes must be custom built.

* Using other hive designs that reduce the size/weight of frames and/or are in horizontal orientation. I.e. Warre, top bar, etc. Same as above but all parts of the hive must be custom built.
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Elsebet
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Re: Bee keeping

Post by Elsebet »

I have been wanting to keep bees for years and am finally planning on starting with 2 hives next spring. I have honey every day in my tea and i love drinking mead. I'd love to make my own mead too.

When we lived in Ohio I took a class on assembling a beehive from mail ordered parts, it was fun but at the time my house was on a very small lot so I wasn't confident to have hives there. We have acreage now so that won't be an issue.

I'd love to hear your updates and I will post mine too!
"...the man who adapts himself to his slender means and makes himself wealthy on a little sum, is the truly rich man..." ~Seneca
hightower
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Re: Bee keeping

Post by hightower »

Calico wrote: Thu Aug 27, 2020 10:56 am In less than two years I am moving back home (meaning to a rural area, away from the suburbs I live in now). I've already started daydreaming and thinking about things. Two things I would like to do is grow my own vegetable garden (I used to help with my parent's garden when I was a child and teen) and I would like to maybe keep honeybees.

I've always been fascinated with bees, ever since I was a kid. I used to sit and just watch them go from flower to flower. My grandparents had beehives and I would often go up to the hives and watch the bees come and go. I thought it might be nice to have a hive for my garden and possible flower garden too. And it will be nice to have a source of honey.

Does anyone here keep bees? And if so, what are some of the advantages and pitfalls? I've found a lot of information online about beekeeping. But what is considered a good authority on it? There is a lot of information out there and it would be nice to have a clear starting point. Where should a beginner (in a few years) start to look? I would like to spend some time reading up and learning about beekeeping for a while before I move.
I don't keep honey bees (yet), but I am currently in the planning stages and about to start preparing the ground for planting a prairie. We have about 1 acre in our front yard that I am going to turn into a prairie with the primary purpose of feeding pollinators and a secondary purpose of having something amazing to look at everyday.
If you love bees, plant as big of a pollinator garden as you can and you'll be in heaven looking at all the native pollinators that show up.

My in-laws tried keeping honey bees on their property a few years back, but they kept having problems with the hive swarming and leaving. I believe this is due to the fact there wasn't enough around for them to eat. They need lots and lots of wild flowers or flowering trees to stay well fed and produce the best honey. That's another reason to plant a pollinator garden nearby.
Filetmerlot
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Re: Bee keeping

Post by Filetmerlot »

Haven't read all the replies, but my kids (now 9 yo son and 7 yo daughter) and I are on our third year with our couple of colonies. Both of them will suit up and get in the boxes and hold frames of bees and see which frames are available for harvesting honey and which ones we should leave behind for the bees. They aren't that adept at spotting queenie just yet, but they can tell which of the hives is doing better than the other, so at least I know they are learning something. They really like the harvesting part, especially my son. he likes to turn the crank on the extractor as fast as he can. My daughter prefers using the wax to make soaps and lip balm, etc with her mother

Selling the honey is really fun, too. They made a sign to sell their honey at the front of our neighborhood once Covid started back in March for $5 for a 6 oz honey bear. They take a little cooler out with honey bears each morning to the front of the road and we pick it up in the evening. They sell anywhere from one to 10 bottles a day.
Once they have sold a bunch we divide up the money - I get $1 from each bear sold (since I fund the operation), $.50 goes to their charity of choice, and $3.50 gets divided between my 2 kids for their help harvesting, bottling, selling, etc. Since they don't get an an allowance this kind of replaces that and that money is divided between spend(little indulgences)/save (bigger items like lego sets)/invest (their bank account or college fund)/give (also to go to a charity or our church). This year they have sold about 250 bottles - 120 from last years harvest and about 130 this year (we didn't sell any from last year since they weren't sure how they wanted to sell it).

It's been a good experience for them. They earn some money, they give to charity, they even learn a little business. Last week one day when we picked up the cooler we noticed that some honey was missing and there was no money in the jar. I let them know that maybe someone was really down on their luck and needed some (Or they took the money that someone else had left for their honey).

I hope they remember it as they get aolder and they continue to do it even after they grow up and leave the hive.

One thing I keep in mid is a beekeeper saying I heard once about the difficulties of beekeeping and how what you learned one year may not apply the next. I'll see if I can paraphrase here - Nobody has 25 years experience of beekeeping, they have 1 year experience 25 times
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dratkinson
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Re: Bee keeping

Post by dratkinson »

Filetmerlot wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 2:53 pm ...my kids (now 9 yo son and 7 yo daughter) and I are on our third year with our couple of colonies. ...

It's been a good experience for them. They earn some money, they give to charity, they even learn a little business. ...

I hope they remember it as they get older and they continue to do it even after they grow up and leave the hive.
Excellent! Can also get them started toward investing for their retirement.

See: https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Accounts_for_children

A custodial Roth account for each of your brood would seem to bee a natural fit. :)

And as a taxed side business later in life, they would qualify for self-employed retirement plans. Though the opinion seems to that it's low paying.
Last edited by dratkinson on Tue Sep 01, 2020 5:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Panky
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Re: Bee keeping

Post by Panky »

Calico wrote: Sun Aug 30, 2020 11:19 am I was a way for a couple of days and just got back to this post. Thanks again for the additional information. I am not sure about lifting 40-80 pounds. I know I can lift about 35-30 pounds easily. I scuba dive, not as much as I used to, it's a dying hobby of mine for a variety of reasons. But a tank weighs about 35 pounds. But I also know that I can't lift a set of doubles (two tanks) without a lot of effort (and sometimes help) and that's not quite 80 pounds.

That might put a damper on things. But I will still read up on things. Maybe there is a way you can manage hives and such without having to lift the whole hive. What are the reasons you would lift a whole hive anyway? I remember watching my grandfather and uncle back in the day, and I don't remember them ever picking up the whole hive for any reason--I just saw them taking out frames, one by one. But I wasn't there every day either.
If you are weight limited you can buy smaller equipment (8 frame instead of 10 frame, for about 20% less weight).
I opted for this, its slightly less common to find 8 frame but still a big market.

After that you can get to much more exotic configurations (not langstrom hives, instead warre or top bar or other less conventional set ups) which can be even less lifting, but those are much harder to purchase equipment for.
Panky
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Re: Bee keeping

Post by Panky »

lthenderson wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 9:10 am For those who want to try to beekeep and produce honey without heavy lifting, I am reminded of the Flow Hive system. I have never used it and have my doubts on how effective it is, but if it works, it would be a game changer. I don't know anybody in my former beekeeping community that has tried it but would like to see one in person some day.

https://www.honeyflow.com/
I bought one this year - only 4 months in but so far not really worth buying 1 flow hive instead of multiple 'normal' hives. (If you have a budget for 2 flow hives, eg 2 sets of 2-3 brood boxes and 1-2 Flow Supers, then it will work well for you, but you have spent a mint!)

I only bought one hives worth (2 brood boxes from flow and 1 flow super, plus roof and stand) since I didn't have a budget for 2 hives, since flow hives are about 3-5x more expensive.
I then had a big die off in my one hive, and had to buy a nearby local hive basically for parts to salvage my first hive (transferred over brood to requeen).

That first hive is stable again, but producing very little. I moved the Flow Super over to my stronger non-flow hive (since it is compatible) but am seeing very very few bees migrate through the queen excluder, and have not seen any honey storage in the 2 weeks since putting the flow super on it.


I really like the idea of honey from a spigot, and am hoping next season I see the production I want (I would love to sample honey to see week by week flavor changes for example) but so far I think its over-hyped.
Panky
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Re: Bee keeping

Post by Panky »

spectec wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 8:14 am Love this thread. About 60 years ago I kept bees for quite a while in order to earn my Boy Scout Beekeeping Merit Badge. As I grew into adulthood and began living in suburban environments I was never able to return to beekeeping. But I've never forgotten the fascination with bees and the experience of working with them. Beekeeping is a wonderful activity, whether as a business or a hobby. Hope you find it as engrossing as I did.

Even today, I will stop what I'm doing to read any article concerning bees that I run across. Here's a fascinating You Tube video about the "waggle dance" that worker bees perform to communicate critical information to others in the hive, for example. It's only about 2-1/2 minutes long after you skip the ad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU_KD1enR3Q
Read "Honeybee Democracy" - if this is an area of interest for you, you will find this book absolutely fascinating.

Trying to summarize a very interesting section - It turns out the way bees select a new hive location mirrors the way primate's visual part of the brain works - with each bee effectively acting like a single neuron. This has been proven in MRIs of the brain and bee hive observation.

Amazing!
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lthenderson
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Re: Bee keeping

Post by lthenderson »

Panky wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 6:14 pm
lthenderson wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 9:10 am For those who want to try to beekeep and produce honey without heavy lifting, I am reminded of the Flow Hive system. I have never used it and have my doubts on how effective it is, but if it works, it would be a game changer. I don't know anybody in my former beekeeping community that has tried it but would like to see one in person some day.

https://www.honeyflow.com/
I bought one this year - only 4 months in but so far not really worth buying 1 flow hive instead of multiple 'normal' hives. (If you have a budget for 2 flow hives, eg 2 sets of 2-3 brood boxes and 1-2 Flow Supers, then it will work well for you, but you have spent a mint!)

I only bought one hives worth (2 brood boxes from flow and 1 flow super, plus roof and stand) since I didn't have a budget for 2 hives, since flow hives are about 3-5x more expensive.
I then had a big die off in my one hive, and had to buy a nearby local hive basically for parts to salvage my first hive (transferred over brood to requeen).

That first hive is stable again, but producing very little. I moved the Flow Super over to my stronger non-flow hive (since it is compatible) but am seeing very very few bees migrate through the queen excluder, and have not seen any honey storage in the 2 weeks since putting the flow super on it.


I really like the idea of honey from a spigot, and am hoping next season I see the production I want (I would love to sample honey to see week by week flavor changes for example) but so far I think its over-hyped.
Thanks for the review! The part that always makes me ponder is do the bees really chew back through the wax capping the cells after the honey has been drained and how do they know when the cells have been drained.

Do you have a pollen source right now for the hive with the Flow Super? If not, honey production may be slow for awhile until a new pollen source becomes available.
Panky
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Re: Bee keeping

Post by Panky »

lthenderson wrote: Tue Sep 01, 2020 9:04 am
Panky wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 6:14 pm
lthenderson wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 9:10 am For those who want to try to beekeep and produce honey without heavy lifting, I am reminded of the Flow Hive system. I have never used it and have my doubts on how effective it is, but if it works, it would be a game changer. I don't know anybody in my former beekeeping community that has tried it but would like to see one in person some day.

https://www.honeyflow.com/
I bought one this year - only 4 months in but so far not really worth buying 1 flow hive instead of multiple 'normal' hives. (If you have a budget for 2 flow hives, eg 2 sets of 2-3 brood boxes and 1-2 Flow Supers, then it will work well for you, but you have spent a mint!)

I only bought one hives worth (2 brood boxes from flow and 1 flow super, plus roof and stand) since I didn't have a budget for 2 hives, since flow hives are about 3-5x more expensive.
I then had a big die off in my one hive, and had to buy a nearby local hive basically for parts to salvage my first hive (transferred over brood to requeen).

That first hive is stable again, but producing very little. I moved the Flow Super over to my stronger non-flow hive (since it is compatible) but am seeing very very few bees migrate through the queen excluder, and have not seen any honey storage in the 2 weeks since putting the flow super on it.


I really like the idea of honey from a spigot, and am hoping next season I see the production I want (I would love to sample honey to see week by week flavor changes for example) but so far I think its over-hyped.
Thanks for the review! The part that always makes me ponder is do the bees really chew back through the wax capping the cells after the honey has been drained and how do they know when the cells have been drained.

Do you have a pollen source right now for the hive with the Flow Super? If not, honey production may be slow for awhile until a new pollen source becomes available.
Chewing through wax - I haven't been able to harvest via flow spigot yet, so cannot confirm from first hand observation, but I am fairly confident in this.

Pollen has been extremely abundant early season, we are in a slight nectar/pollen dearth now compared to a month or two ago when the amounts of pollen in the hive were very large (I saw more 'beebread' pollen stores than honey).

It seems like the bigger issue is that bees are not migrating through the (flow brand) queen excluder.

Image

Here is a shot of the Flow Super with observation windows open installed on top of my non-flow hive (since it turned out to be the stronger one).
Note the empty Flow Frames - basically no honey stored at all in the Super even after about 4 weeks, and no bees in outer 2 frames of the super, though I was able to see some bees in the inner frames (not visible in shot)

I have to say the quality of the build and the color of the wood for the cedar Flow is much nicer, but again you are paying ~3-5x as much.

Next year I may relocate the pretty flow hive to be a statement piece in the garden, whereas the ugly hive will be a workhorse hidden away but still producing
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lthenderson
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Re: Bee keeping

Post by lthenderson »

Panky wrote: Tue Sep 01, 2020 11:34 am no bees in outer 2 frames of the super, though I was able to see some bees in the inner frames (not visible in shot)
I don't know about the dynamics of a flow super but for regular ones, bees typically start filling in the center of the super and work their way outwards.
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theduke
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Re: Bee keeping

Post by theduke »

I've been keeping bees for 13 years. My best recommendation is to join your local beekeepers club. Nearly every county has one, just google for your county beekeeping assoc. Most clubs have a beginner beekeeping school, go to that when it's available, but covid has kind of postponed the schools. When you do those, you'll get a feel if it's something you really want to do. I will say that beekeeping can really get into a persons blood.
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Calico
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Re: Bee keeping

Post by Calico »

Thanks for the tips on the lighter way to do bee keeping.

It sounds like my "best bet" is to read books and such now. Then, after I move plant my vegetable and flower gardens. I plan to plant all sorts of things in raised beds alternating decorative and vegetable/fruits (flowers near tomatoes and such). I want those gardens even if I don't have bees. While doing the gardening, join a local beekeeping group and see how things work and if it's something I can do.
I am a mere Boglehead apprentice... even after all these years.
momvesting
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Re: Bee keeping

Post by momvesting »

Bumping this because earlier today I became an accidental beekeeper, which means I came home to a giant swarm in my backyard and a tree on city property directly behind my house cut down and gone. Within an hour they settled in a pine tree in the yard. I called a beekeeper club in my area and a keeper came right over. He gave us a wooden box and moved the bees from the tree to the box. Now I'm trying to absorb as much info as I can from the internet and I ordered a few library books. Any book recommendations, website recommendations (or any you advise against) are welcome.
forgeblast
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Re: Bee keeping

Post by forgeblast »

Calico wrote: Thu Aug 27, 2020 10:56 am In less than two years I am moving back home (meaning to a rural area, away from the suburbs I live in now). I've already started daydreaming and thinking about things. Two things I would like to do is grow my own vegetable garden (I used to help with my parent's garden when I was a child and teen) and I would like to maybe keep honeybees.

I've always been fascinated with bees, ever since I was a kid. I used to sit and just watch them go from flower to flower. My grandparents had beehives and I would often go up to the hives and watch the bees come and go. I thought it might be nice to have a hive for my garden and possible flower garden too. And it will be nice to have a source of honey.

Does anyone here keep bees? And if so, what are some of the advantages and pitfalls? I've found a lot of information online about beekeeping. But what is considered a good authority on it? There is a lot of information out there and it would be nice to have a clear starting point. Where should a beginner (in a few years) start to look? I would like to spend some time reading up and learning about beekeeping for a while before I move.
I did until a bear wipped out 3 of my hives. I was stung a ton of times trying to save them. I just never got back into it. I leave a hive open in my garden shed in case any swarms want to take up residency but I just do not want to go and get them again. We were also worried being so rural about a friend having an attack if stung, so we had Epinephrine on hand.
I ran a warre hive.
Biobees and beesource are great resources.
The flow hive looks cool too.
Look at the psu bee keeping site for how to make a good electric fence. Mine was shorted out by weeds and the bear got in.
3feetpete
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Re: Bee keeping

Post by 3feetpete »

Look for a beekeepers association in your county. They will be happy to share knowledge and usually pool resources on equipment.
casun
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Re: Bee keeping

Post by casun »

great thread. i hope to pick up this hobby in five years when i retire. i’ve spent hours and hours watching the bee keeping related videos on this channel: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLylx ... PDYhCrHRHU
flyingaway
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Re: Bee keeping

Post by flyingaway »

I have a friend who is a medical school professor. He bought a farm and started bee keeping as a hobby. After a few stings, he gave up and sold the bees.
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