For many years I have wanted to raise bees, but it seems that the money is always needed for more pressing things. Can anyone give me advice how to get started and proceed at minimal cost? Thank you!

-- Yolanda Breidenbaugh (ybereiden@peoplepc.com), April 15, 2000

Answers

Bee's are a constant joy to my family as well as a good profit ! How can I help ? Do you have a local association? (this is a fountain of free help and advice) Try this--(a book) First lessons in beekeeping by C.P. Dadant published by Dadant & Sons--Hamilton, Ill. Bee Culture--(a magazine, I think this mag would overwhelm a new beekeeper) E-mail me and we will talk bees Joel and Becky Rosen

-- Joel Rosen (Joel681@webtv.net), April 15, 2000.

Yolanda, when I lived in Tennessee I would catch swarms of bees. they are really quite gentle when they swarm but you need a hive to put them in and need to feed them. I have not seen a swarm of bees since I moved ack to Kansas, maybe I am too close to town now. Good luck.

-- Karen Mauk (dairygoatmama@hotmail.com), April 16, 2000.

Ok, to take things further, I was advised not to raise bees on our property, because we have horses, and only have 10 acres. Told this was a disaster waiting to happen. True? Or will the bees, if put away from where the barn, corrals and pasture runs are, leave the horses pretty much alone? This would mean putting them nearer to the dirt road that runs out front. Either way, probably not a good idea, but I would love to raise them also. Will check on the books. Jan

-- Jan B (Janice12@aol.com), April 16, 2000.

I would not keep the bees in the same pasture as the horses. The bees are a passive crowd until they are interferred with. The horses, however, have a natural fear of hornets,wasps and yellowjackets and this might lead them to provoke the bees. Horses like sweets also and may be attracted by the odor of honey. I would not hesitate to sit my hives near my house. I've watched my wife sit on a hive and caress the bees as they come and go, almost petting them. My children play in the grass all around them but they know better than to strike the hive or interfere with the bees flight path around the door. Hope you find a place for some. We need all the beekeepers the world can muster up. Hope this helps

-- Joel Rosen (Joel681@webtv.net), April 16, 2000.

Joel, as usual, has offered good solid advice. And, Karen, the absence of swarms may have nothing to do with your proximity to the city: We (Americans) have lost an estimated 90-95% of our feral honeybee population since 1986 to Varroa mites, American Foul Brood, etc. Yolanda, you can read all about those and other challenges in the book Joel recommended. Yolanda, I suggest you invest this year in learning about beekeeping from recent books and, if possible, from helping any experienced beekeepers in your area. At this stage of your learning, avoid just about any book published before 1990 because it won't have up-to-date info on mite and foul brood treatments. Where do you live? If possible, call your county extension agent for contacts with beekeeping groups (we have an excellent state club here in Nebraska), and area beekeepers. If you decide to go ahead in 2001, think of expenses in three categories: (1) Cost of bees, (2) cost of equipment to house and work them, and (3) cost of medications to keep them alive more than one season. There are all kinds of ways to cut corners on the first two categories, but expect to pay in full for category #3. For 1&2, talk to beekeepers (our club has an annual swap meet, too), watch the want- ads (I found a complete almost-new bee suit with veil and gloves, plus a four-frame manual extractor and 12 entrance reducers last year, all for $100), and search the Internet. After starting with a few conventional Langstroth hives, I've just added two Top Bar Hives (TBHs) this year as an experiment, both built out of one sheet of cheap plywood from plans I found on the net. I don't know how well they will work out, so I can't recommend TBHs at this stage. If you are offered old, previously-used Langstroth hives from a no-longer- active beekeeper, don't hand over ANY money until they're certified disease-free by your state inspector. The reason they are no longer used could be because they're infected with American Foul Brood, and the only sure "cure" is a bonfire. I hope my comments haven't been discouraging. They aren't intended to be. And, like Joel, if I can help, please write. I'm confident that between the two of us, we can often come up with at least three answers to choose from!

-- Rog (flanders@probe.net), April 16, 2000.

Yolanda, the state bee keepers' group is the first place you need to go. Bee keepers tend to be nice, helpful people. It may be that you can find one or more bee keepers in your area through them. If you can, see if they'll let you tag along. If they're big enough, and you're responsible enough, you may even be able to get a job with one. I know that most people do NOT want to work with bees so bee keepers have problems getting good help. One keeper I know hires folks from a sheltered workshop, good for all parties involved but the employees tend to need a bit more supervision, mostly to get them started on the next project or deal with any problems that arise. Frequently they aren't liscensed drivers and the keeper spends a lot of time ferrying them around.

In any case, that will get you into the pipeline of used equipment for sale. There may be coop purchasing of certain things. Or nearby keepers may add your orders onto theirs to help you out. Or maybe set up some of their hives on your property and let you work with them.

It is possible to build your own hives and frames, however, given the cost of lumber, it hasn't been consider economical for a lot of years.The bee keeping suppliers offer a beginner's package that works the best.

Bees are in serious trouble and need all the help they can get-and that's not just the hived honey bees either. One thing we can all do is plant nectar and pollen sources on our properties. Contact the state bee keepers, your county extension agent, your nearest land grant university, or the Audobon Society (or similar) for help deciding what plants will grow in your area and benifit all the bees. Gerbil

-- Gerbil (ima_gerbil@hotmail.com), April 16, 2000.

Yolanda,

Contact your local beekeeping group. You can do this by calling your local animal control or in the yellow pages under 'Pest Control' as they will direct you to people that will come out and gather swarms. (I am one of those people that has my name on lists and am called) You can also call your local County Ag. Department as they will put you in contact with local beekeepers.

Beekeepers will sell you an old hive with a small nuc (bees and a queen) for a very small amount of money, say about $35.00-$50.00 and will help you with all your questions.

-- Ima Gardener (ima@gardener.com), April 16, 2000.

Ima Gardner--I'll take some of those 35 dollar hives--lol--around here the going rate is 100 dollars for a working hive with 1 supra. Careful though ! You might want to look at the hives and understand "Bee Space" Many homemade hives are not properly built or you might encounter some *&%$$%%% trying to sell hives that are contaminated with foulbrood. Here is the web site for my supplier of bee equipment which have a beginner kit with book,video,hive,veil,helmet,gloves,smoker,frames ad tools for 129.95(bees extra)www.beequipment.com or 1-800-beeswax

-- Joel Rosen (Joel681@webtv.net), April 16, 2000.

Thank you! One and All! I feel like I have been scooped up by a large and loving group of friends. I appreciate your advice and cautions and encouragement. I will see what I can do to track down the local beekeepers and also buy a sale newspaper and also ask the library to get the book through interlibrary loan for me. Hopefully, this year I can learn and by next year be all ready to go. I will definitely report back! Bless you all! Yolanda

-- Yolanda Breidenbaugh (ybereiden@peoplepc.com), April 16, 2000.

Re: keeping bees near livestock: when I was a kid my mom's cousin had two hives that he placed just outside the paddock behind his house. He had a cow and calf in the paddock (the main herd of reg. shorthorns was a mile down the road in another pasture) and somehow the critters irritated the bees, which started to sting them en- mass. One of his boys and one of my brothers got the dubious priviledge of being sent in to clear the bees off the cattle -- they were covered. The boys got stung so badly they were almost unrecognizable, but they saved the cow and her calf. So I would definitely recommend keeping hives away from livestock. Otherwise second all the good advice above. My husband has been keeping bees for about nine years. Lost all of them one year to mites, before they figured out the medicine and how to time it (that was the year that the country as a whole had about a 50% loss). And last summer he lost all sixteen hives to a bear that went through the electric fence, so make sure you've got good hot fence, well grounded. Oh, and he got most of his hive boxes used. He spent almost the whole winter scraping everything down and then scorched it all with a propane torch -- has had no disease problems. Of course, he didn't know if there were any disease problems in the original stock, either. Anyway, good luck -- they're really neat to have around.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), April 17, 2000.

Thank you for the possible tip on cleaning up old hives. Seems feasible to me. And your comment about your pleasure in having them around ~ I have never been the same since reading "Keeper of the Bees" by Gene Stratton Porter. I am looking forward to it so much!

-- Yolanda Breidenbaugh (ybereiden@peoplepc.com), April 17, 2000.

I took an evening course in beekeeping last year put on jointly by my county's Parks and Recreation department and our local beekeeping group. I bought my beesuit, hat, veil, and other necessary tools, including a smoker and a "hive tool" which is a kind of pry bar from one of the beekeepers who added 20% to the original cost of all this equipment which he bought from Dadant, a bee supplier business, but I had such a good time talking with the guy who sold me the stuff and gave me advice that I gladly paid the premium.

Then I found an elderly carpenter-beekeeper who was selling hives he had made with the bees in them. I paid $125 each for these nicely-made, cleanly painted hives bodies with one super and the bees. The advantage here was that the comb was already drawn. I bought the bees in February and started feeding them sugar water. Then they reproduced dramatically, so I learned how to catch and hive a swarm (now, there's an experience for you!) and ended up going back for more hives from the friendly carpenter and had eleven hives of bees going into the winter!

Alas, in my inexperience, while I medicated the bees according to instructions, I did not feed them enough this winter and all but two hives died of starvation. Even though we have had a strange spring, already this past Sunday one of those two hives swarmed!!!!! So early! But the swarm went way high up in a tall pine tree, so I was unable to capture it to repopulate my hives.

If you were around where I live -- in Virginia -- I'd be happy to show you some things about opening hives and so on. I learned a lot from the class but believe me, learning from books and lectures is really different from actually having the bees!

I second the advice on here -- the best thing for you to do is contact the local beekeepers' club or clubs and join them and make friends. You can ask to be put on the swarm-collecting list for contact when a swarm is reported -- but be sure you say you are a NOVICE! -- and also do a search on the internet for bee-keeping suppliers, sites, and so on. As to the top-bar hives -- there are some really interesting instructions for making them that you can actually print out. I would say, though, that I bought the equivalent of a top-bar hive from a man who sold me a lot of old hive bodies. His son had made this by joining two regular 10-frame Langstroth boxes side by side (and cutting out the mid-part) with a hinged tin roof over the top that lifted up like a trunk lid. This made a long one-level 20-frame hive, because I suspended the frames continuously. The bees did quite well in this during the summer, but bees like to move UPwards, so they made a big mess of wax and honey on top of their brood box instead of storing it in the ends the way they are "supposed" to in the topbar hives. They didn't have enough honey and they, too, starved over the winter. The man who sold this to me called it a "Russian Retirement Hive" and said that elderly Russians all had these in their gardens and they liked them because they didn't have to lift anything. Hmmmmnnnn. I was not able to find out anything about this type of hive on ther internet but based on my experience, I will stick with the "conventional" hives from now on.

Good luck. You'll find tons of resources in your search on the internet, but the best thing to do is search at night and find real bees and beekeepers to work with in the day time!

-- Elizabeth Petofi (tengri@cstone.net), April 18, 2000.

I second the advice on sticking to conventional hives, unless you plan to make ALL of your equipment. A fellow near us made his own non-standard hive bodies and frames -- against all advice from other beekeepers -- then grumbled furiously when he couldn't sell them a couple of years later. He didn't stop to think that his non-standard sizes wouldn't fit the boxes everybody else was using, so why would they want them?

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), April 18, 2000.

This is good help. We are getting our hives, bees and all, from a large stock of working hives from our local, reputable, production honey place nearby. We are fairly confident in a good start based on his reputation and many of our nieghbors have had his hives using their land so they have dealt with him.

My biggest concern is wintering them over here in North Dakota. (He trucks them to warmer climes in winter and the year he did leave a few behind to try he lost them, I think from not checking in or maybe not enough food?)

Anyway any suggestions?

-- Novina West (lamb@stellarnet.com), April 18, 2000.

Novina, you should be able to winter your bees over even in North Dakota, but they will need fed, you need to watch and make sure there are enough bees in the hives come fall to keep the colony warm through the winter (if not, combine the weaker hive with another one) and they will need a good windbreak. See if you can find a beekeepers club nearby so you have someone to call for advice -- and someone who can come over once in a while and show you what needs to be done. Showing beats telling hands down! Good luck with them.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), April 18, 2000.