Well, I have been kicking the idea around of getting into bee keeping. " Help save the bees", pollinate the garden, and all that. So I’m thinking nothing to fancy, or too ambitious to start out with. Just slowly work into it; so today, I decided to build a top bar bee hive out of some old barn lumber I still have laying around.
Things were going pretty well, when about half way through the build, a bee decides to fly into my garage, and sting me on the back! I took that as a bad sign, and all construction has come to a halt! No good deed goes unpunished I guess! Maybe I just need to make a bunch more cubby boxes instead! What would you do?
I’ve always loved the idea of bee keeping but never took it up. I don’t like getting stung either, who does? I do respect and appreciate those that do it. Met a guy in a small town in Kansas when I went out there trapping. I was eating breakfast and we started talking. He was a major bee keeper and had his equipment and barrels of honey next door. He hauled his bees to California to work almond blooms and in Kansas the rest of year. I bought a gallon and it was very good light colored Kansas honey. Stacey still talks about how good it was. I myself think our own Sam Jones produces the best I’ve ever tasted.
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Well it’s interesting for sure I ain’t been stung yet, yet but they are kinda unnerving to mess with especially a hive that’s a little moody. One of my hives are gentle as a dog. The other gets moody and agitated just gotta keep your cool and not fight um.
Again it’s interesting for sure.
Colt
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Colt, on a little side note to the bee’s being interesting. The other day, my wife got tired of bees coming to our humming bird feeders, and competing with the birds for sugar water. She mixed up an extra strong batch of sugar water, and set it in a bowl several feet away from the feeders. Later that evening, the bees had it totally covered up; with probably at least 30 or more down in the bowl, apparently drowned! ( But here’s the weird/ interesting part. ) The healthy bees were pulling the dead, and semi- dead ones completely out of the bowl, and cleaning up their faces in an attempt to revive them!!! And they had some success with quite a few of them it looked like! The next morning, there was only about 6 or 7 bees dead, but the rest of them, they had pulled out of it, and they were all gone! And The bowl was a cereal type/sized bowl, and it was empty of all it’s water, and she had filled it at least half way full! I never saw anything like that, and if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would not have believed it if someone told me bees would try to save other bees!
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Mine eat a quart in about 5 hrs. And 2 gallons will we empty in a couple days.
That’s crazy about the rescue bees.
If I was you I would set up a hive next spring with a little bit of brood comb in it and some swarm lure and theyll prolly be a swarm move right in if your that close.to a colony.
I caught a swarm in my barn this time. Next year I’m just gonna set up a bait hive and let them.take it over.
Colt
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Yeah, That’s kind of what I’m thinking at this point. I’m fumbling my way along , and trying to get a hive box or two built, along with a swarm trap or two before winter sets in. That way, come spring, I should be ready to set the traps out, and see what happens. Oh, Bear Wallow was asking about you, and he was wondering if you had got a good stand of bees yet.
Talked with him last night for about an hour or maybe the night before.
Thanks.
Colt
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