New Family at the Garden of the Goats
Just a quick post to introduce our new family members, and quite possibly the hardest working family members at the Garden of the Goats. Ladies and Gents, please welcome...
** Our First Beehive!**
I bought the hive, bees and all from the teenage son of a good friend who decided he'd had his fun and wanted to sell. I've been wanting bees for some time now, and this was ideal timing for me.
I will admit I was nervous (and still am). I know there is a lot to learn. I mean, moving them, orienting them to a new place, what am I forgetting? Time will tell, but so far they are still here and hopefully making honey!
Look! There's some now!
And we have some treats close by...
If you can't tell, I'm super excited! I just had to share it with my new steemit friends.
Please comment, upvote and resteem if you think this is awesome too!
They reorient themselves pretty well 😆 don't know about your area, we don't seem to need to do a lot with ours aside from make sure their bird bath has enough water (to stop them coming to look for drinks at the water pots around the house) and that they're not getting attacked by other bees or mites or things.
Have fun 😄
The guy I bought them from suggested I keep them screened in for a day or so before letting them out. I just did the branch in the entrance trick and crossed my fingers. I see bees, so I think we're ok. He also suggested feeding sugar water through the summer. I didn't think that was necessary. Any thoughts?
Do you know how much honey is in the hive? Do you have a lot of flowering plants in the area?
If the hive has been completely stripped of honey and/or you don't have a lot of flowering plants nearby you may need to feed them just over the first summer so they can stock up for winter (especially if you have short summers or long winters, I forget if you mentioned where you were). After that they should be fine though.
But we are generally of the opinion that some beekeepers micromanage their bees too much ;)
Best thing to do would be to hunt down beekeepers in your local area as they'll obviously know more about how they respond to the local climate and all that jazz. There will be a directory or a forum somewhere :D
I'm in Missouri. They had a good harvest last year I believe, and have been feeding sugar constantly as far as I know.
They added a super a few weeks ago. I'll have to ask if they looked inside lately.
If you are not already aware of him you should check out the bee Whisperer from the bee friendly company out of Cheyenne Wyoming. I've been listening to his interviews with Jack Spirko of the survival Podcast he's on his expert counsel panel and has been very helpful in educating me and millions of others on how to sustainably keep bees.
Thanks so much. I definitely will check him out. I need all the help I can get!
Good for you on this bee hive. I'm not really wanting to keep bees but for the sake of my garden I hope my neighbors will!
LOVE THIS. This is in my near future too, i hope. We have wild bees but i need honey! Enjoy! Upvoted and resteemed
I can't wait to harvest my first honey. Honey has always been a special treat, but too expensive to really enjoy. I'd like to do more with using it as a regular sweetener and for breads and other baking.
I pay 23 dollars for 6#s from our local apiary. Its soooo worth it, but we've had to cut back lately.
I bought a couple lbs from the Amish a couple years ago. Before we realized it, my oldest @addijayne0911 used most of it in her evening cups of tea. I almost sent her to college a year early.
Well I hope all goes well with your new buzzers. Thats going to be a great series of posts!
LOVE IT, and love that you are taking responsibility in feeding your family from your garden. Following you, please do share again.
Thanks for following. I intend to share more as I learn. I'll follow you too.
Awesome. Follwed. Upvoted.
Following you as well. I like your new homestead project!
Thanks.
Great post. Love the photo's. Good luck with the bees.
Thank you!
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Hi @goatgarden, sorry I missed this post. Are you owning the bees, or is someone checking them for you and you are splitting the honey? That is a pretty common way of setting up hives in different areas. I hate to say when I had 6 hives spread around that I had some to far away to check on. It was when I had a job and just didn't have the time.
The one thing my excellent instructor suggested was that you not disturb them by checking on them all the time. That's why Im asking if you are taking care of them. Good luck and I hope you get lots of honey.
SDG
Yes, I own them. I bought them from the teenage son of a friend who decided he didn't want to keep bees anymore. As far as checking them, I've left them alone since I got them. I'll probably suit up and check them out in a few days just to see how everything looks. As of now they are coming and going so I assume they are ok.
One of the neat things in checking them was trying to find the queen. Bee keepers that have been doing it for a while can generally spot them easier, but it's pretty neat to see the queen going around laying eggs and having the workers follower her around.
I'm anxious to get into it. I plan to take pics and do a post. Maybe I can get one of my kids to play photographer.