Honey Bees

[Kopfjager]

[Blackout]

Wow, that's nuts.

[triangleforge]

My wife and I are going to give bees a go this Spring, starting with two hives. We've got all the gear, but the bee "packages" (a mated queen and a box of about 3 pounds of workers) won't arrive until the end of this month or early May. We'll be trying both the "traditional" Langstroth hive (the boxy white one on the left), and the "new" style top-bar hive on the right (which is kind of fashionable these days, but actually goes back to ancient Greece and Africa). We'll see which we prefer working.

20210210_175145 by triangleforge, on Flickr

Neither of us have ever worked with bees before, so it's going to be a learning curve - so at least a while before attempting a swarm removal like in the video, much less without being fully kitted up!

20210204_141724 by triangleforge, on Flickr

[triangleforge]

[Kopfjager]

Well I'm starting a hive in my shed tomorrow. I'll call her in a few. 

[Blackout]

Hottest beekeeper ever!

[triangleforge]

Our bee installation went pretty smoothly this past Friday, thanks to the help of a couple of much more experienced keepers. We installed two "packages" of bees - the screened boxes you see in the photos below - which include a mated queen in a little wooden cage, a can that contained sugar water for feeding, and approximately 3 lbs of worker bees. The adventure begins.

2021-05-07_08-34-24 by triangleforge, on Flickr

2021-05-07_08-33-58 by triangleforge, on Flickr

2021-05-07_08-33-10 by triangleforge, on Flickr

And after we got them settled in their new homes, we toasted with some local mead from Flagstaff's Drinking Horn Meadery

20210507_184241 by triangleforge, on Flickr

[ducpainter]

 

[triangleforge]

And a public thank-you to Nate for offering some great advice & tips.

[Kopfjager]

Not honey bees, but the Leafcutter bees are really easy to keep.

[ducatiz]

And they are actually native pollinators as opposed to an invasive species (which honeybees are).

Not honey bees, but the Leafcutter bees are really easy to keep.

[triangleforge]

And they are actually native pollinators as opposed to an invasive species (which honeybees are).

Yup - though which side of the "invasive" (ie. they're not from here and we don't like them, like kudzu or zebra mussels) vs. "non-native" (ie. they're not from here and we love them, like horses, brown trout, or phesants) they reside is a subjective matter. There is some good research showing that European honeybees have partially displaced native pollinators in some places. I will note that native mason bees and carpenter bees are doing really well up around here, and the displacement is mostly documented where there are large commercial bee operations, which we emphatically aren't.

[Howie]

Carpenter bees are thriving in the telephone pole behind my house.  They are welcome as log as they don't drill holes in my deck.

Do those of us who are not indigenous count as an invasive species too?

Nice to see you back ducatiz!

[ducatiz]

Yup - though which side of the "invasive" (ie. they're not from here and we don't like them, like kudzu or zebra mussels) vs. "non-native" (ie. they're not from here and we love them, like horses, brown trout, or phesants) they reside is a subjective matter. There is some good research showing that European honeybees have partially displaced native pollinators in some places. I will note that native mason bees and carpenter bees are doing really well up around here, and the displacement is mostly documented where there are large commercial bee operations, which we emphatically aren't.

The issue with honeybees is that 1) they aggressively push out native pollinators and 2) they are protected (by humans).

Honeybees have actually (with human help) caused the extinction of native pollinators in some places.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-problem-with-honey-bees/

[Kopfjager]

Not honeybees.