One of our neighbors kept bees, he passed now about two years ago. Right before he passed his wife Girt said he was wondering where all the bees were going, and that they had fallen back to hardly any at that time. I think all the new GMO and weird creation food, that some are creating, is part of the problem.
Very interesting. I have never kept bees but my Daddy did. He would puff smoke into the hive to remove some of the honey. Did you know that the flavor of the honey depends on what kind of flower the bees collect nectar from?
No, I didn't know that. I do know they say, you should eat honey from your own area to help with allergies. Neat, that your father kept bees. You see that guy reach in that nest and get the queen out with his bare hand. Then all the other bees followed after he shook them down. I love raw honey.
I saw that. He is either very brave or nuts. Actually, our American bees are not terribly aggressive. I pick veggies in my garden with them buzzing all around my hand. Same thing with bumblebees. They will only sting if you accidently pick one of them.
Yeah like he did, I have a Florida holly tree, that sounds like it's alive with every kind of bee, wasp, bumble bee, and hummingbirds, you name it, on it each year when it flowers, and they never bother anyone.
I have a row of needlepoint holly at the edge of my yard. They are the first thing to bloom in the spring. You can hear the bees buzzing way before you get near the bushes.
That's the way this one is too. I always walk around it and check all the different insects feeding on it. They never seem to mind the other kinds on it, just seem to really love that tree.
I've never kept bees. For a while I was heavily trolling the Farm & Garden groups on 3 regional Craigslists. There are a couple of guys who sell bee "nucs," or nucleuses/nuclei. I recall one of them somehow marked his queens so he could tell what year (how old?) they are.
That sounds neat the way he can judge age by marking, I never kept bees either but was amazed after seeing that video of that guy catching the queen with his hand, then all those bees following her to the box. I have always loved honey and have a nice place here where I could keep some. Lot of people around here do it and there is always homemade honey in every store here.
We always had several hives of bees on the ranch and they made good honey from the alfalfa. I kept them in the mountains for a few years and the honey really varied from year to year. I love strong dark honey and after moving to the town's edge, I cut a lot of black locusts for firewood, I would find a lot of dark honeycombs. I just ate it as is and made no attempt to subtract the honey from the comb.
That's really cool Faye, they have in-feed stores and hardware stores here in the dark with honeycombs in it or light with no honeycomb. I ate some wild honey bee comb, when I was little, and found it to be sort of like wax but real sweet. Love the smell of hay and especially, when it is first cut.
Here ya go Jake! A DIY hive that doesn't take too much money or effort. I got the frames from amazon and the tanks from Walmart. I have wild bees in the second floor wall of the barnhouse and can put a milking machine tube through the wall to the outside. Problem is, with my leg, I can't take them downstairs, outside to harvest the honey