Where to begin is the question. 1st thing I want to point out is that obtaining bees can be done by knowing any bee keeper that is willing to let you purchase some bee frames and a queen. You don't necessarily have to have a queen, but that is a long story explained later on. You can purchase a Nuc from a bee keeper from $125 to $275 Nucs are 5 frames of bees that typically have 5 frames of bees. The 5 frames contain 2 frames of honey stores, pollen and the other frames brood or young bees that are still in the cells. The great thing about Nuc's are that the bees are already established and the queen can lay eggs. The 3rd is you can buy a package of bees. Typically a package of bees is 3 pounds of bees in a wooden box with screen mesh. The package has a queen in it that is in a protected box that the bees will release her in a few days. The package of bees typically cost $150 and you need to go pick them up. If you have them shipped it will cost about $75 to have them shipped to you. Last is you can trap a swarm of bees. This is setting up a bee hive with a q-tip dipped in lemon grass oil in a baggie. Put that baggy in a nuc box with some bee comb if you can with some bee frames. Swarms are from bees that got too large and the queen leaves with half the bee hive to start a new colony. It is hit or miss if you catch one. Setting about a dozen of these out in a few miles will better your chance.
I didn't know about all these ways to buy bees necessarily and nor did I understand it fully. If your going to start bee keeping and your 100% positive, then get on line and buy a package of bees, a nuc or make some contacts with another bee keeper. Ordering bees is typically in the spring as that's when the flowers are in bloom. Summer time everything in Texas is pretty much dead. So starting bees off in a good way with lots of flowers in bloom makes them healthy happy and very active.
Ordering bees is a waiting list. Get on the list as soon as you can if your ordering bees. Only order bees from a reputable company that's been in business for 20 yrs or so because they won't steal your money, rip you off, short you or give you something that is weak knowingly.
You need equipment. Buy it or make it yourself. Do it yourself links by Dummy series is a great tutorial of how to do it. I built 2 complete wooden Langstroth bee hives in a weekend with my own version of bee frames. The thing about bee hives is if it's a box bees don't care what it looks like. You don't have to do the finger joints or make it fancy. The importance is the dimensions. I am in my mid 40's and have back problems from my younger athletic racing days. I built a bee stand that was 30" off the ground so I didn't have to bend over. Shade or sun placement. Pick an area that gets full sun is probably more ideal. Here in Texas where it gets 100 degrees or more the bees get hot and honey can melt, so you don't want that, so provide partial shade artificially or naturally, but bees that do full sun do better. I pointed my bee hive entrance to the south east. We get a North and South strong wind blowing most the year constantly, so it can have a negative effect on the bee hive. Bees try and keep the brood at 92 to 94 degrees. When you have wind it makes it more difficult to maintain these temps.
A bee hive can be built for about $50 in material. A purchased bee hive can be bought with out the frames for about $100 to $125 Assembled or not a slight difference in price. Frames can be bought for about $45 per 10 of them that are foundation. Foundations are the plastic cells that bees build off of. As you can see this is why I make my own frames. I do foundationless because of the expense in purchasing frames. I rather make my own frames then buy them. Lumber is $10 and I can make probably 50 frames out of a piece of lumber/wood. Of coarse this is only good if you have the skills, time and the equipment to do it. It took me awhile to build the frames. I was attempting to do it as it was done with knotching and fitting, but that got too complicated and I simplified it. Again, bees are not picky. Bees will make a home out of nearly anything and then some. As long as you provide something for them, more then likely they don't know anything other then what they are suppose to do and that's be a bee and do what they're tasked to do. Bees are not picky by any standard.
So you ordered your bees or going to obtain them from a bee keeper. You have chosen to build or buy your bee hives. What is next? Location and stand need to be picked out. Do you have an ant problem? You can build an ant proof stand. You can build something fancy. Wind is a factor, so if you need to secure it hows it going to be done. You can pretty much do lots of things as the bees don't care. What you do will likely be permanent, so take some time and think about it.
Equipment - You will always have more bees then you know what because bees multiply. As they multiply you need to supply them with another box and frames to grown into. Or like in my case you might have a Ferrell Bee removal offered up to you. Always great to have equipment on hand for those spare of the moment unforeseen days. Who knew I was going to do a removal my first year?
Bee keeping is pretty simple as the bees do know what they're doing. Bees know best is the thing to keep in mind. We try and steer them one way, but mostly that's all we can do, is steer them. We can't make them produce more comb, more brood or more honey. Provide a home for them and they will either be happy or not. Bees do leave if they're not happy. It's an indication something is wrong. Many reasons for bees to leave.
Protective Gear- Inspections of a bee hive you'll need a hive tool, bee broom, a smoker and a bee suit. Hive tool is used to pry boxes off and getting frames up out of the boxes. Broom is used to sweep bees off frames if you need to or out of the edge of the box so you can replace a box that you've removed. Bee suit, many available and it's your choice. Here is what I have learned. The Chinese $10 or $20 bee suit depending on where you buy it on Ebay / Amazon or whatever on the internet. It's great cause it's a quick easy on and off fit no fuss. You want to go replace a feeder, then this is what you want. You don't want to get suited up for battle that takes you 3 minutes to get into and 3 minutes to get out of do you? Nah, you want to throw this Chinese bee suit on and go do something real quick and your done. Your not really disturbing the bees, so the guard bee that comes atcha your not bothered by them that you get from getting too close. I have found that if bees are following you, walking a good distance away and weaving under a tree like oak trees is helpful in getting the bees stopped harassing you.
If your going to be pulling frames looking at what is going on then you need to get suited up. Pulling frames your looking for brood, the bee population, comb building and possible the queen. Do the bees have pollen stores and honey? Do they look plump and numbers good as in population? Anything that doesn't look good needs to be addressed. Mite levels, wax moths and other things that can be a problem. Overall health and progress is what you want to look at when going into a bee hive and popping the top off.
Bee stings- Wow it hurts like dickn's the first sting. The first sting I got was on the ankle doing the Ferrell bee hive removal. I was inspecting the bee hive to see what was needed, so I didn't tape up my ankle. The only exposed area. I got stung in the ear and forearm picking my nuc bee hive up. Stepped on a bee got stung on the foot. Thigh, hand and chest too. Those are the only bee stings I got in 2015 that I know of. So getting stung all those times wasn't really expected, but I could have been prepared by wearing my bee suit properly. A bee suit will protect you somewhat. You can still get stung though. Wearing layers of clothing prevents the stinger from getting to your skin, so if your doing something that's ultimately a 10 dangerous, like a removal wear baggy clothing under your bee suit. Yes, it's hot, but better to not be stung is my saying.
Bee stings can cause a mild reaction. Something to keep an eye on. It's recommended to take benedryl. Take it immediately and you won't have as bad of reaction from it. Itching and swelling is what happens. Some ice might do good. Scrape the bee stinger off if you see it. I rub wet meat tenderizer on my stings as it naturalizes the poison. It does provide some relief.
In the spring time normally your local bee chapter/club will have a bee class you can attend. The bee class will be an all day event with many courses you can take and learn from. Because I read so much from the Fall start of the previous year I knew pretty much everything. Just reassurance that I was knowledgeable The cost was $95 for 2 people to attend. It was out in Brenham.
Feeding- Get a Mason Jar or any glass jar with a metal lid. With a nail and hammer, make small holes in the metal lid. About 10 holes give or take. 2 blocks of wood will work for your feeder to sit on. Water to Sugar equal weight 1:1 ratio. I buy it sugar at costco in the 50LB Bags. Cost is about $22 Cheaper then the $16 at the local grocery store for 25LBS.
I was told it's better to feed inside meaning put the inner cover on top of the super and add a box and put the lid on. What you do is put the jar over the hole of the inner cover. The bees didn't really go through too much, but if I did entrance feeding where you put it at the entrance, I went through a quart a day.
Observation- Knowing what the bees are doing is welcoming because you can understand what is going on. Bringing in Pollen you can see it on the bees pollen sacks. Handing off nectar, guarding the bee hive, those that are hanging out moving around slowly and other things. I witnessed the bees having a fit clustering by the strap. I didn't know what was going on. Clearly not happy, so I took a closer look and it was an Assassin bug. I get them daily about up to 10 of them daily. I kill them with a piece of wood or my finger. Smash! Your dead. Some wasps will be flying around and or the yellow jackets. Sometimes during the heat peak of Summer I have seen some bees only a handful fanning in front of the hive. A little hot for the day and bees cooling bringing in a little bit of air.
Summer evenings I have seen them fly around in mass in front of the hive just before they go in the hive. I have seen them hanging out on the entrance landing board chill'n with a glass of wine telling stories to others. Amazes me that sometimes all the sudden they just go in for the night as if the queen says night night go to bed. All flight stops and they go inside. Now what they're doing is keeping the brood warm, probably cleaning and sleeping. You can see the guard bees with a flashlight if you shine it on the entrance and also look inside. Pretty neat to see.
What types of bees? Russian, Italian and Carolinian are the main bees. I don't know the different types of bees, I can't distinguish them. Italian is what I bought, so I now what they look like and that's about all I can say to the types of bees. Queen bee ruler of them all. She is taken care of by everyone. Her only task is mainly to just lay eggs. She puts out a pheromone and the bees recognize her. The interesting thing is that bees are super super super sensitive to her smell and know if she's gone. Pull a frame with her on it and in about 2 minutes you'll here the bee hive roar loudly. I have seen it on YouTube. I have not witnessed it. Nor do I care to do that. I have seen my Italian Queen the one I bought (NUC). Oh...... Nuc stands for nucleolus. The Ferrell bee hive queen I have never really searched for her. If you see brood and the bees are calm and not noisy then she's in the bee hive.
Good article. You covered a lot that new beekeepers will want to know.
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