[crashdive123]

Mrs. Crash and I took a class on beekeeping today. Here are a few pics from our handling experience.

[Cajunlady]

Yes indeed, great pics. So did you learn any more than you already know about bees? Are you considering setting yourself up with hives? Still haven't checked out one I talked to you about. Need to shanghai someone to come with me.

[Celticwarrior]

I have neighbors with bees, and I find that they do a wonderful job of taking care of orchards and gardens. I keep water nearby, and they come over occasionally to dab around on my plants as well. However, most of the time, I get by with the large (and growing) population of native bumblebees. No honey from them, obviously, but they are great pollinators. When I have the time and energy, I would like to try my hand at raising a hive or two, but I am not a big fan of being stung, and that is an occupational hazard that beekeepers put up with for their craft. Can't beat having pounds worth of free honey though. Nice trade good for bartering too. When bags of the "white gold" aren't on shelves anymore, and people are starving for anything sweet, honey will be king.

[crazydave]

I keep suggesting we have a communal bee hive here as we dont see many honey bees as they are dying out with the current disorders which are wiping them out over there as well. fortunately the solitary bees and bumble bees are thriving which is a good thing.

they reckon that inner city roof top hives, despite the traffic pollution produce three times the volume and much nicer honey due to the richness of innercity gardens.

bee stings are supposed to be good for you in allsorts of ways

[kevin]

I don't know anything about bees. how is it that all those in pics with bare skin don't get stung diggin in there and 'stealing' the honey?

[crashdive123]

Originally Posted by Cajunlady

Yes indeed, great pics. So did you learn any more than you already know about bees? Are you considering setting yourself up with hives? Still haven't checked out one I talked to you about. Need to shanghai someone to come with me.

I actually learned quite a bit. We are looking at putting a hive in our back yard down the road. This is kind of the "other approach" from what I've been taught as a pest control guy.

[crashdive123]

Originally Posted by kevin

I don't know anything about bees. how is it that all those in pics with bare skin don't get stung diggin in there and 'stealing' the honey?

Most honey bees are not that aggressive unless they are protecting the hive (Africanized Honey Bees are). When you open a super cell (the boxes with the 10 frames in them that the bees build thier homes) by smoking the entrance and the top, it causes the bees to go into a feeding frenzy where they start gorging themselves with honey. When they don't see you as a threat, they'll leave you alone. Only one person got stung......of course it was Mrs. Crash.

[AlpineZone]

I watched a tv special one time on bees. I was amazed to learn that no matter what enviroment there in outside be it desert or snow or if its 120 degrees farenheit or minus 40 degrees farenheit the bees can keep a constant comfortable temperature within the hive for them by how they build, how they group, etc if it's within that temperature range outside.

[Guardian]

Sounds like you had fun and that's the important thing along with learning a thing or two. I get about 2 or 3 calls a week during spring and summer about bees and we refer them to our bee keepers, people don't understand that bees are not little animals and we don't do bees.

[cowgirlup]

Sounds like an interesting class. They look pretty low maintainence but yeah, I don't like to get stung either so it's not something I considered much until recently. I was wondering about it after this years garden. I had to hand polinate the squash plants because there weren't many bees around to do the job.