9 days ago we got our first hive. Well, we bought a hive and bought a package of bees that included 10,000 bees and one local Queen Bee. We Now have a hive in our back yard. It’s amazing to just watch those little buggers. They are already creating a bunch of comb and laying eggs for the next brood. That comb was about 1/5th of the comb they breathed by day five. Now we aren’t opening up the hive for a another 10ish days, so I’ll be real interested to see how much they’ve been building. Right now they are going bonkers on pollen, we can see huge pollen packs on their legs as they rerun, and we are feeding them about 1/2 gallon of sugar water per day. So far no stings and they seem very docile. We have netting we can wear bun unless we are opening the hives and messing with the bees it’s not really needed.
I want to start up some hives after my next trip overseas...my neighbor used to but after his wife passed he stopped...used to buy the honey from him..lot of bees on my property, I have lots of flowers, herbs and a 25 ft long huge lavender hedge they love.
We only got one hive this year. It has an extra hive body that we will put on top of the original hive body once the first is filled with comb, otherwise the bees may feel confined and create another queen, resulting in potentially the hive splitting and swarming to go elsewhere. So we will add the extra hive box but that's it for this year. I suspect we will get several more next year, but unless we sell/trade the honey that can be a money suck. However, we we sell the honey we should be able to make at $1000-1600 per hive. But that could be a lot of work. Otherwise, we can make our own mead, and gift it to friends and family. But I'm not actually a huge mead fan myself. Regardless, they are fun to watch, good for the world and will make sweet sweet nectar very soon.
Growing up that's one of the few things we didn't have. I suppose that somewhere on the 125 acre dairy farm my gramps had bees but I don't recall that. Got any place for pear trees? Homemade pear butter is one of my favorite things.
dang that sounds good. No, we live in the North Bay SF, so an apartment with a small private backyard is all we can afford at the moment. We do have a horse but we board it about 20 blocks away. My wife really wants a couple chickens, but I would like to wait till we move to a larger place. At this point in time I work full time and am in graduate school full time, then I try and drive Uber/Lyft anther 10-20h/week. Not to mention the Wife, Blazers, life, family, and doing a lot of wine events (work and fun). I'm always tired but very happy that I'm trying to improve. Bees are surprisingly calming for me. Today I sat about 10 feet away, read a school book and drank a bit of rosé as the 90 degree day wore down.
If you live near a very large field of clover, I'd love to buy some of your honey. There's nothing, and I mean nothing, better than clover honey. I love it in my hot tea.
How about hard cider and mead? OMG, don't tell hobbes or he'll be over there lickety split pounding on your front door. Actually, I might do the same.
How about Asian pears? My wife loves Asian pears. Koreans serve them as snacks with toothpicks in segments for guests or as an after dinner dessert item. Pear them with a little cheese, some apple and some fine brandy and wow, just wow.
There was a guy over in the OLive Blazers forum called FunkyCold(something or other) who wrote appealing posts who said he was insanely wealthy and owned a grove of Asian pear trees. I asked him where he lived and he said he lived in Sandy Oregon on a large farm. My wife and I and my wife's Korean girlfriend went over there to gather some Korean pears. He actually lived in a small dump of a house that was pretty dirty and unkempt on a small parcell of land with two Asian pear trees. The trees had small fruits that were mostly on the ground protected by a bunch of yellow jackets or hornets. Mr. Funky was stoned out of his mind as well as drunk. He passed out while I was talking to him. Apparently, Mr. Funky turned out to be a ward of the state. Kind of sad. Haven't heard from him since that day about ten years ago. Nice kid and I intensely wish the best for him.
