Anyone thinking of keeping bees in 2015?

[fabindia]

If you are, then now is the time to start planning.

For starters, as it is not cheap to get into beekeping, I suggest that you start checking out the prices of hives, tools, smokers and beesuits. Next, start reading up. There are lots of good books on beekeeping out there. If possible, see if your local beekeepers' association runs an introduction to beekeeping course, and if so, get yourself booked on it now as the places are nearly always over subscribed.

Then come end of March/April time, you'll be ready to start assembling your hive and getting your first colony.

I would say I have learnt three main things in my first year:

1. You will get stung - so you must able to cope with that.
2. You will have varroa and so you must learn how about treatments.
3. Bees will swarm. Not a problem for the first year but a challenge for me soon.

Let me know if you are interested and how you get on.

Happy 2015 to everyone.

[Richard]

Hi Micheal

It would be great to have someone else take this special hobby up.

Wish I could but............etc.

Richard

[tosca100]

Hi Micheal

It would be great to have someone else take this special hobby up.

Wish I could but............etc.

Richard

I agree with Richard. We got our first hive last year and they are fascinating creatures and no trouble.

And the honey is fantastic.

[fabindia]

they are fascinating creatures and no trouble.

They do sting though when they get tetchy

[p.penn]

I would so love to keep bees. I am mid terrace and have a tiny garden, and have been told its ok, but I am not so sure. Also, to be fair there are other things in the equation too, but I am certainly a would lije to be keeper if nothing else!

[tosca100]

they are fascinating creatures and no trouble.

They do sting though when they get tetchy

But it's learning what upsets them. The only time OH has been stung was if he accidentally grabbed one and when he was silly enough to use a sickle on the weeds under the hive. He only did that once!

I stand by with the camera!

[chook]

Hi , am going on a bee keeping course sometime soon, a gift from my hubby for 50th birthday.. Really looking forward to it. Have just started reading your posts, have lots of fears but will decide for sure once I have done course .

[fabindia]

Hi , am going on a bee keeping course sometime soon, a gift from my hubby for 50th birthday.. Really looking forward to it. Have just started reading your posts, have lots of fears but will decide for sure once I have done course .

Well done and good luck.

Spring is the right time to go on the course. Then you'll need to start thinking about buying a hive and your first bees. In order to get your bees through their first winter, you probably need to be up and running no later than mid-June.

A company called Thorns has an offer on at the moment, 'bees on a budget'. You can get a self-assembly hive, nails, glue, supers and frames all for £150.00, which is a pretty good deal. I've order another hive today from them. Then you'll need to order your first bee 'nucleus' anything from £60 to £150. So all in all not cheap to get into. Then you're unlikely to get any surplus honey in the first year.

It is a great thing to get into though. I am totally hooked, despite the fact that there are occasions these little critters want to kill me.

[manda]

I always want to keep bees...but as we've decided that we will probably move in the next couple of years (all being well) we're still holding out on it.

I don't know if you've heard of them but I have been looking at flow hives (soon to be released)....they have been developed over the last 10 years and now they're finally going to release them to the world

http://www.honeyflow.com/

[Mo]

Fascinating, Manda.
Extracting honey is a right messy, wasteful job, and not cheap to buy an extractor. Answer to a beekeepers prayer if it works. I wonder if it would here, the company is based in Australia, and what they say about their beekeeping routine sounds different from ours (UK).
I had to Google Australian native bees, didn't know people kept other sorts of bee. Don't think anyone has tried to get honey from bumblebees here.

[tosca100]

There's a bit of a buzz (!) about the flow hives over here, honey is a huge industry, but the people are very poor so I doubt many of them will stop making their own hives.

We have a brand new hive on order, so will have two active and a spare. The bees are very active at the moment as we are having warm, sunny days. But their main focus is chicken food, even though they have syrup available. with a few amongst the spring flowers and on a cornus just breaking into flower. Such a summery sound.

[manda]

Fascinating, Manda.
Extracting honey is a right messy, wasteful job, and not cheap to buy an extractor. Answer to a beekeepers prayer if it works. I wonder if it would here, the company is based in Australia, and what they say about their beekeeping routine sounds different from ours (UK).
I had to Google Australian native bees, didn't know people kept other sorts of bee. Don't think anyone has tried to get honey from bumblebees here.

It is isn't it Mo....I must admit I was fascinated before this but this has just made it all the more interesting to me....they're just about to release info (any minute now literally).

From what I can see the flow hive techno can be fitted to all sorts of different hives - they're designed to fit Langstroth size deep boxes and are inserted into standard bee supers (boxes) in much the same way as standard frames.

This is o their FAQ's section about different hives.....
Can I put a Flow Super on a UK National?
Yes, this can be done in two ways:
1/ Use an adaptor from UK National to Langstroth size box. This can be made or bought so that the more common Langstroth size box can be used.
2/ The Flow frames are available in lengths to suit a UK national. Eight Flow frames fit across a UK national box. However, UK National boxes and frames have different depths than Langstroth. The box wall height can be adjusted by adding a strip of wood to the bottom of the box.
They can also be fitted to top bar hives (which is what we had been thinking of making to begin with if we decided to do something before we moved ...although we're going to hold that thought I think now)

I think in the long run they are planning on having production from the US rather than Australia just from a delivery point of view ...cost of shipping will be less....and the potential response from the US is a factor too.

[manda]

They have just gone live... so there are more details about costs etc....very exciting
...if anyone's interested it's Here