Any one else keeping bees here?

I just started last year - not because of the 'troubles' as I signed on to the class before that all broke on the national news scene. I just always wanted to do that and a class was offered at a time I could take it and the price was reasonable.

I started out with two hives. One hive had queen trouble that never resolved so by last fall, I combined the remaining bees into the one. I harvested about 40 lbs last August so the one hive I had going was very strong.

This spring - just kept with the one hive and it was going strong until I noticed last week that the queen was not there. No babies. Ordered a queen and she arrived today from Wilbanks in Georgia. She's a beauty and going to her new home in the morning.

Would love to share BEE stories with others!

So I ordered the queen the next business day after I discovered no babies or no brood in the hive. It took 4 days to get to me from the queen supplier. By the time I got the queen to the hive Saturday morning, the girls had raised their own queen and she had laid out one full frame with brood. She must have already been in place when I destroyed the other queen cones the weekend before and started laying immediately.

Happy ending - found a local beekeeper who could use a new queen I had ordered and who was setting up a new hive.

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Really no one here keeps bees? I would encourage anyone interested to find a way to take a class this winter and start a hive box or two next spring. It is a very rewarding activity. The bees themselves are much more docile than you may think.

I would highly recommend any book by Susan Hubbell - especially 'A Country Year' and 'A Book of Bees'.

I don't keep bees but we are planning too. The benefits of having pollinators and honey, and we love honey, plus I will enjoy just watching the little critters.

What caught my attention was your mention of Sue Hubbell, I read "A Country Year" many years ago and it has always been one of my favorites. I would think this would be a good read for anyone not only interested in bees, but also permaculture and simple country living. She is truly a fascinating person.

Thanks for the reminder, I need a need a new bedtime read and am going to dig this one out of the dusty bookshelf.

I haven't read "A Book of Bees" Is it more about beekeeping?

Yes - it is more indepth about beekeeping but of course it also contains her extended stories about the people in her area and her thoughts about why and how she is living. She is my favorite author.

Another great book by her is Broadsides from the Other Orders: A Book of Bugs. As I used to be phobic about bugs, it is amazing that I find this book just utterly fascinating. She covers water striders, house flies, monarch butterflies among others. She does for entomology what Lewis Thomas did for Biology. Unfortunately less people know about her.

someone who purchased a few goats from me recently mentioned that an aquaintance of theirs was going to place a hive on their property in exchange for half the honey produced. I got very excited about the idea but failed to follow up and find out particulars. does anyone else have and arrangment like this?