My next adventure...

It'll take days for the 30 lbs of beeswax to finish draining honey, but preliminary 1 hive haul - 34 pints = 4.25 gallons = 68 lbs of honey.

From a single hive. And that's just an average haul.

Bees? They are pretty ****ing awesome creatures.

Any for sale?

Boone said:

Bees are truly amazing creatures. The fact that my honey was created from nectar all within 3 miles from here, makes it even more amazing. I am hooked. If you have room, think about keeping bees. Keep in mind, my house is in a neighborhood - and the only folks who even know I keep bees are the neighbors I bothered telling.

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Nice! Hopefully I'll see that type of production next year, but my goal has always been just to raise bees and help re-populate the area.

And yes, they're awesome! We need more beekeepers everywhere. I highly recommend people looking into it for next spring.

Serious question for you all. We have young kids and not a huge backyard, but this idea has always intrigued me. Can any of you speak to proximity distances from your house and to safety concerns?

I won't sell it - but I'm going to try and reserve some for the BGO Tailgate this year

James...it doesn't take much space. I would probably look at a spot if you're seriously thinking about it where you could put a couple hives at least 100 feet from any high traffic areas. Most beekeepers raise Italian or Carnolian bees which are, comparatively speaking, very calm and non-aggressive. It's possible to get an overly aggressive queen (I'm told) and the whole hive can be cranky. But I've worked all summer long in my garden which is no more than 50 feet away and never gotten stung. I've mowed within 50 yards, ditto, no issue. I've even gone out and sat down 5-10 yards from the hive and never gotten stung (except for once when I had on black clothing, which I didn't know is a BAD idea around bees since they associate it with predators like bears and skunks). The only real stings I've experienced were when I was working in the hive with tens of thousands of bees, and working pretty clumsily as a first year beek. Funny thing is - honeybee stings don't even really hurt. I mean - you'll know you got stung, but it's nothing like a wasp or yellowjacket sting. They itch like hell the day after, but in terms of pain, surprisingly mild.

If you get a chance post some pictures of your backyard. As long as none of your kids has an anaphylactic allergy, I wouldn't be too worried about them being aggressive. I honestly haven't seen any more bees in my yard than I would usually see. The only folks in my neighborhood who know I am a beekeeper are my closest neighbors, and only because I talked to them up front as they have kids.

There are also people who put their hives on flat roofs or on top of the garage if you have something like that, although getting to/from them would be a pain in the ass. You can also put up a small screen or fence (or hedges) between the hives and high traffic areas. The bees will fly up over it and they will typically not come back down, they'll just fly well overhead where no one will notice them. I wish I had done this 20 years ago. Really fascinating.

What's the liability for James if he lives in a neighborhood and the bees cut loose on some kids?

Well, first of all unless said kids are handling the hive, throwing rocks at it, etc... The odds of anything like that ever occurring are extremely remote. These are honeybees, not hornets, wasps, or yellow jackets. Most if not all counties will have ordinances regarding the keeping of bees - and most allow beekeeping (even in neighborhoods) as long as hives are kept a certain distance from dwellings. I think as long as you follow those regs there is no liability issue. If someone gets stung, how could anyone demonstrate it was 'your bees' that did the stinging? Bees are everywhere. I think talking to any nearby neighbors in advance and reassuring them is a good idea even if legally you have a right to have bees on your property. I would also say, if a neighbor or their kids have a true anaphylactic allergy to bee stings - I would not keep bees there and would try to find a farm or nursery nearby that would let me maintain my hives there. I do keep epi-pens in my fridge just to be on the safe side.

Yeah, that makes sense. I am planning on looking into it seriously when I have more time. Em has been entranced by all the pictures of your honey, John (for once, not trying to be dirty here) and she is intrigued a great deal by the idea.

We will see. I may come down your way to get lessons from the great and powerful beekeeper...

Prepping to expand my beekeeping operation. Peeked at my two existing hives on a warm weekend a month ago and they were clustered up and still buzzing away. I am going to go back in this weekend and re-check to make sure both colonies are still alive. A lot of folks around here have told me they've lost hives over the winter which is curious because it's been fairly mild in NC. I have been feeding my bees fondant (cake icing) via 5 lb bricks over the winter.

I will start 2 brand new hives in April. 4 hives is probably all I'd want to manage where I live. If I get honey from 2-3 hives per year, I will be swimming in it. Biggest challenge in year two of my adventure, how to dissuade my hives from 'swarming' in the Spring. Their natural instinct is to divide the hive, and have the queen take off with half the citizens to start a new hive somewhere. You can't absolutely stop it, but there are some tricks to discouraging them from doing it. If they do it, the rest of the year is spent recovering (ie...forget about honey from that hive). I also need to learn more about disease prevention as pests and disease are not uncommon. All in all, I learned a lot my first year, and am excited to expand my apiary.

55 here today in NC, both hives have lots of bees frolicking out front. My friend had both of her hives die. Not sure why I've been able to keep mine alive and she hasn't. Kind of strange, but thankful mine seem to be surviving the winter.

Great to hear!

Both of mine are gone. Very discouraging. I was raising to help repopulate the area, rather than for honey. I would have loved to see swarming this spring. I wasn't sure I was going to continue given the results, but I've decided to go with two new packages in April. Hopefully I'll have more success this year.

I would consider going with Nucs down the road...much better chance of success is my understanding ...

Boone said:

I would consider going with Nucs down the road...much better chance of success is my understanding ...

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Yep. I had said that if I did it this year it would be with nucs, but I couldn't convince my wife that a road trip to pick up bees would be an adventure she'd appreciate.

Encouraged to see honey bees in my backyard! They're on the crocuses and at the pond. Very cool. This is the first time I've seen this much honey bee activity in years.

I'll get my packages next Friday and hopefully I can keep mine alive this year. At least the pond is working as a water source for the local bees.

One of my hives didn't make it but the other one is booming. They will really get cranked up here soon.

Boone said:

One of my hives didn't make it but the other one is booming. They will really get cranked up here soon.

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Sounds great. Maybe later this year you should attempt a split.

I actually went into the dying hive and was going to do a split but I decided I didn't have enough frames of brood in the strong one to do a decent split. Felt like I would just end up killing both of them. Going to do a package on that one on April.

Makes sense. If you're not sure the strong hive is strong enough to handle it, definitely leave it alone. That advice of course is coming from an expert who couldn't keep any hives alive.

Wait until you do keep them alive and are trying to figure out how to keep them from swarming in year 2 - talk about confusing options! I did stumble onto a beekeeper in Texas named Dennis Brown who responds to questions via email. He has a method of adjusting the brood box frames that he says works great. He also has a book out which I got on Amazon and am going to read this weekend. Very nice guy with over 50 years of beekeeping experience.

Two new packages installed successfully. Bees very active. So active I thought it looked like robbing at first, but there doesn't appear to be any fighting, just a ton of traffic with a reduced entrance.

I also just recently learned about mason bees, which are great pollinators and extremely easy to keep. I'm going to set up a mason bee habitat as well and let them do their thing.