Since reading all the posts in this forum over the past several months, boy have I got an inckling to "expand my horizons"!! I seem to get set on doing things one way but now I am branching out to new homesteading experiences. You all give such great advise and encouragment and you always make things sound like "you can do it after all"! Well, I am considering really biting the bullet and attempt beekeeping. I am sooooo scared about this one I can't tell you...but I think I "could" do it.

I was wondering what your first experiences were. The bees don't scare me...it is getting stung that scares me..LOL. I have only been stung twice (not allergic) but you would think I had major surgery...I am such a baby! So, how often does a person generally get stung?

Do you need all that beekeeping armor, or can you just wear long sleeve shirt, pants, etc. and bee hood, be all tucked in properly and be "reasonably" safe. What about gloves, I hear some people just can't work with gloves.

I know there are lots of veriables, but in general, if the bees have access to orchard, etc. how much honey can you expect from each hive per year?

Also, how far from the general "homestead commotion" do the hives need to placed to keep the dogs, cats, and children safe?

Thanks for the help!

-- Karen (db0421@yahoo.com), July 08, 2001

Answers

Ther are some basic rules, like don't bug them (pun intended) when it's hot and stormy out (they're cranky, just like wasps and hornets are at such times) and do everything you can to avoid killing one (this involves lots of slow moving and careful handling of hive equipment) as the scent of a dying bee arouses the others to attack.

One of the best tricks I ever heard was to use sugar water as opposed to smoke to "settle" the bees. The reason folks use smoke is that in the presence of a fire threat, the bees hunker down and start fanning their wings to protect the hive from any fire effects, and also I would imagine that "breathing" the smoke slows them down a bit, just like it would do us. But, if you think about it, the threat of fire has got to be stressful for the bees, just as it would us, and it could have small, but lasting impact on their health and productivity to expose them to "fire alerts" on a regular basis.

The alternative that I saw was to get a fine spray bottle and fill it with a sugar-water solution. You spray the bees down with it when you go to open the hive, getting it on the hive also, and they settle right down for two reasons:

A) it's hard to fly with syrup all over your wings, and

B) the hive (and the bees) are suddenly covered with lots of glorious food, free for the taking, that has to be cleaned up right now, as bees are a fastidious lot.

Not only does this not induce any strees responses in the bees, it actually boosts their productivity by literally showering them with honey-producing material that they don't have to work for.

Consider the "settling" effect it would have on your family if invading aliens, before they lifted the roof of your house, spent a a few minutes covering the area with dollar bills or Godiva chocolates!

Have fun and good luck!

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), July 08, 2001.

Hello Karen, I worked with a professional beekeeper when I was a Kid, about 65 years ago , so my advice may be a little dated ( old fashioned )We didnt worry too much about getting stung. We would rob about 30 hives a day, and that is a lot of angry bees. WE always used a smoker with burlap or dry pine needles for fuel. You did not say where you live. We are in louisiana , which has lots of natural plants . On a good day in summer or spring we got about 3 barrels (180 gallons ) from 30 hives .About what to wear, , dont wear wool or leather gloves.We just wore khaki pants, and cotton shirts ., If there were holes in them we just called them bee escapes. Read all you can get on beekeeping. I know there are lots of problems nowadays yhat we didnt have ,. GOOD LUCK Big George

-- George Wilson (cwwhtw@aol.com), July 08, 2001.

Go for it! I am an amature bee keeper with only 2 hives. When I started out I didn't want to get too much money invested in something that I might not have any luck with so I didn't buy the bee suit but I did have gloves and a hat with a bee veil. I wore a long sleeved shirt and long pants, all light colored, but after being stung 3 times at once on the knee I decided I wanted a bee suit. I was keeping my hives in a small orchard close to the house and we were alittle intimidated while working there especially with my grandddaughter. So I moved the bees about 500 yards from the house and they seem much calmer when I work with them now. I have a small orchard but all those trees bloom in the early spring and sometime the weather isn't the greatest for bees to be out and about. So that may not give you as much honey as you would hope. I live in the panhandle of Texas and it is very dry right now and nothing is blooming and I am thinking that I will have to start feeding them syrup soon. So it depends where you are located and what is around you for them to get nectar and pollen from. If you have a local beekeeping club near you they can be a good source of information. Hope this little bit of info may help you alittle bit and good luck.

-- Marlene Leiby (mleiby@caprock-spur.com), July 08, 2001.

Karen if you don't want to buy suit, then wear 2 of everything as bees can't sting through 2 pairs of cloths. The sugar water thing is it might be giving them free food but mainly their not moveing because they can't fly when wet. The amount depends on how much necter flow there is, how strong the hive is(how many workers), how humid it is among other things. Your best bet is to call the plant board in your state and ask for the apiary section. Arkansas plant board offers classes and help to beginner bee keepers. This is a resource that has been very helpfull for us sence we started with 2 hives last year and now are 6 strong. On the beestings I swell up pretty badly so I suit up in a full outfit. I've been stung 2 times so far this year and that was in my home, lol. Have fun with them and good luck.

-- Wynema Passmore (nemad_72039@yahoo.com), July 08, 2001.

Karen, All the times I have gotten stung have been while NOT wearing the bee suit. Some experts seem to get away without using a suit all the time, but it is an art form, I think. There are many tasks that you must do that really get the bees riled. It is impossible to work your hives without ever getting the bees upset. Once one gets mad, others will follow the attack. Accidently crushing a bee (unavoidable when re-assembling the hive) releases a strong pheromone which excites the rest of the hive and puts them on the attack. The other day I thought I could get away with wearing only the tie-down veil and gloves and immediately got stung through my flannel shirt. I really reacted bad to that one. My arm swelled up for a whole week. Wearing a full bee suit lets you concentrate on your work without being worried about getting stung. It is important to be able to work quickly, deliberately and smoothly. Every time you open the hive it sets the colony back so it is important to minimize the time the hive is open. Getting stung a lot is not only not fun, but is extremely counter productive to your efforts and therefore harmful to the colony. For the times I get lazy and get stung, I keep epinephrine and a bee sting kit handy. Anyone can develop an allergic reaction to bee stings. Not reacting before does not mean you will not react in the future. The bee sting kit is a suction device that sucks the venom out of the sting site before it has a chance to spread. My last sting reaction was so bad because I didn't use it. I'll not make that mistake again.

Bees will comfortably forage two miles from the hive and can forage a maximum of five miles from the hive. What you have in your yard is not as significant as you might think. Production is influenced by several factors: available forage, weather, and health of the colony being the biggest. The most favorable conditions for good harvest are a strong, healthy and established colony (one that does not have to expend energy drawing out comb) with access to a good nectar flow during a period of good weather. With those conditions it is not unusual to harvest 100 to 200 pounds per hive.

Placement of hives: Place your hives where they will get maximum exposure to the sun during all seasons. Keep a clear area at least twenty feet in front of the hive for the bee's flight path. Bees will not generally go out seeking to sting someone, but if you are in the way of a fully loaded bee on its return flight to the hive, it gets tangled in your hair and you try to brush it away, you'll get stung. A bee loaded with nectar is not very maneuverable. It is best therefore to place the bee yard in an out of the way location to avoid collisions between the hundreds of bees coming and going from the hive and family and visitors. I would also put a fence to keep dogs and livestock away.

-- Skip Walton (sundaycreek@gnrac.net), July 09, 2001.

Karen, regardless of what you use to settle the bees, remember two basic things. When you work them, never stand in front of the hive, always work them from the side or back. Also, the best time of day to work them will be between 11am and 2pm on a bright sunny day. Most all of the field bees will be out gathering nectar, and you'll just be dealing with little house bees, who are gentle. If you harvest your honey in the fall, be prepared for mean bees with nothing to do but defend their hive from you! You might think about harvesting any honey you think the bees can spare in June or July. They will still be busy out foraging, and the honey will not be travel stained. Result: more live bees, and unpunctured you. I expect to get stung maybe once or twice a year on average. If you are really concerned about the stings, you might invest in a bee suit for your peace of mind. If you're nervous, you will be jerky in your movements, and the bees will pick up on that. Good luck, and enjoy! Judy

-- Judy Vaughan (whileaway3@cs.com), July 09, 2001.

I didn't want to invest a lot in bees when I first got started so I just bought the veil and the gloves. I wear jeans that are tied at the bottom, a collared shirt and a sweatshirt, and I am rarely stung. If I am, it's usually in the knee, and often after the fact! A bee will sting the knee of my pants and when I bend that knee to put my things away, I sting myself!! Actually, last year I was only stung once all year and that was at the end of the year when I went to pop some food in on a cool day when they SHOULD have all been clustered up down in the hive. Unfortunately, they hadn't read the book and were lying in wait for me just under the cover!!! I had no veil or gloves on, and was stung in the hand. Silly me. This year I have not been stung at all and am trying not to be silly! I have yet to have an average year, but from talking to people in my area, 30-40 lbs. is average per year in Maine for honey crop per hive. While honey is fun, I'm more interested in the ability to grow cucurbits (I had lowsy pollination in my garden crops before bees). I have known beekeepers to pull 100 lbs. off a hive in this area without breaking a sweat. I'm not sure what I would do if both my hives produced 100 lbs. of honey one year!!! My hives are quite close to my house, being only about 40-50 feet from the house. They face south, away from any travel paths of man or beast. Your main precaution in placing hives is to be sure that your "beeline" does not cross anyone else's travel paths. The beeline is simply the path the bees must take to get into the hive. This can easily be altered via fencing. If you put a solid fence in front of the hive, the bees will be forced to fly up and over it, thus flying over the heads of anyone on the other side. I have heard, though, that bees take a particular disliking to horses, so if you have equines of any sort I'd keep them apart. Also, other livestock may see those hives as an excellent scratching post, once.... I have had 2 big excitements with my hives. Two years ago, when I had only one hive, a bear got into it. It was a young bear and the sound of the rocks and metal lid hitting the ground must have scared it off because it knocked over the hive then left. I know it was a bear because it then proceeded to a couple of my neighbors who feed birds year round and raided their birdfeeders. Unfortunately in the ensuing melee, my queen was killed and I had to requeen. I had a difficult time getting a live queen (the U.S. mail is a wonder), but it did happen in time. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because the "new" bees (when you requeen, you are replacing your hive since soon all the bees will be the offspring of this new queen) are much calmer, quieter, easier to work with and more mite resistant than the old ones. The second excitement I had was last year when my hive swarmed. The "new" bees built up MUCH more quickly in the spring than the old ones, and they swarmed. I captured that first swarm and hived it. They left again. Then the hive swarmed again. I hived this swarm. They stayed. It was a late swarm so the newest hive was small going into winter, so almost all the honey I harvested off the original hive went to the newer hive. They made it into through the winter but were not doing well, so I requeened a few weeks ago. They are going great guns now, and I will need to add another hive body as soon as it quits raining. I requeened with a Russian queen (the others have all been Italians) so we'll see what these new bees will be like. It's all an adventure. You will be trying to convince wild animals that they want to stay in this home you've set out for them and let you have the work of their lives. They don't read the books and always will do what they please, not what the books say they will. I truly enjoy talking with other beekeepers to hear their experiences, and can occasionally use some tidbit to my advantage. I was truly blessed in getting to meet Fred Hale, who recently moved out of Maine but was the oldest beekeeper in Maine when he was in his early 100's a few years ago! He has since given up beekeeping, but was attending local beekeeper club meetings as recently as last fall (which was the last time I got to attend). He has forgotten far more about bees than I will ever know. Agricultural Extension in Maine offers a beekeeping course which is wonderful. It gets you set up, gives you connections for getting bees and equipment, and gives you ideas as to what to do in all type of situations and what to do with your harvest. The State Apiarist, Tony Jadzik (I think I just massacred the spelling of his name) is a wonderful resource. There are hobbyist beekeepers all around you, you just have to know where to look to find them. There are at least a half dozen elderly people in your town who may not know as much as Fred, but know a darn sight more than you or I about bees and would love to tell you about them. Don't be scared of beestings, just enjoy the bees and the people and the pollinated crops. Oh yeah, and the honey.

-- Sheryl in ME (radams@sacoriver.net), July 09, 2001.

Karen: You're not a baby. I had NO FEAR when I apprenticed...but boy am I more of a weinie now that I am in charge of it all.

Things to add: If you have just the veil, wear a button up shirt OVER it. Last time I went out, bees managed to get in up under my veil. It freaked me out to have 3 buzzing in my face.

Don't wear dark clothes. You'll be hot, and I just read that bees are predispositioned to be more alerted to dark colors, maybe thinking we are bears.

And, I was told the smoke makes them suck honey up inside of them to prepare to flee, and this is why they can't sting and why we smoke them. However, I am going to try to sugar water, as I hate to think that every time I get into their nice quiet dark home I am convincing them a fire is happening. I'd rather try and condition them to "special free treats today!"

-- marcee king (thathope@mwt.net), July 10, 2001.

Karen: You're not a baby. I had NO FEAR when I apprenticed...but boy am I more of a weinie now that I am in charge of it all.

Things to add: If you have just the veil, wear a button up shirt OVER it. Last time I went out, bees managed to get in up under my veil. It freaked me out to have 3 buzzing in my face.

Don't wear dark clothes. You'll be hot, and I just read that bees are predispositioned to be more alerted to dark colors, maybe thinking we are bears.

And, I was told the smoke makes them suck honey up inside of them to prepare to flee, and this is why they can't sting and why we smoke them. However, I am going to try to sugar water, as I hate to think that every time I get into their nice quiet dark home I am convincing them a fire is happening. I'd rather try and condition them to "special free treats today!"

Hmmm. Our hives are in the front yard, over by the property line, where I can walk over and watch them every day. No one has been stung in two years but me and my husband working over there. And the kids run wildly through the yard, up by the hives to watch them, and through the meadows where they feed.

-- marcee king (thathope@mwt.net), July 10, 2001.