New beekeeping with AZDuffman

Quote: AZDuffman

MINI UPDATE

I should have started feeding earlier. Three ponds of sugar gone in less than a week, just put five more in. Have to start buying, sadly missed a local sale. By spring I need 50-75lbs in stock.

With still a month or so of fair weather, I am hoping still enough time to get honey production up. Next year I will feed longer in spring. I really do not see a lot of nectar flow nearby, so feeding I think will be key. Live and learn.

Would you mind coming over and collecting some of these? http://www.havasunews.com/news/former-havasu-resident-dies-after-bee-attack-in-valle-vista/article_c97c3a18-1b9c-11e5-8e41-ef52062735b5.html

On the 19th this month: http://www.havasunews.com/news/minor-injuries-in-aggressive-bee-attack/article_70708146-2754-11e4-8b6c-0019bb2963f4.html

You can just have these, gratis. I'm allergic to the bastards. I lately have saved many of them that end up in the pool, but looking at them they seem littler than the ones that I used to catch in a jar and would sting a guy occasionally as a kid. Are the Africanized bees smaller than the European mild mannered ones?

I assume you know the liability on a hive in town. What happens if a neighbor starts getting stung and blames you?

Quote: AZDuffman

MINI UPDATE

I should have started feeding earlier. Three ponds of sugar gone in less than a week, just put five more in. Have to start buying, sadly missed a local sale. By spring I need 50-75lbs in stock.

With still a month or so of fair weather, I am hoping still enough time to get honey production up. Next year I will feed longer in spring. I really do not see a lot of nectar flow nearby, so feeding I think will be key. Live and learn.

How big a field or orchard would be required to support a hive your size without supplementing with sugar? Could you park the hive near a field, then pick it up a few days later?

Quote: Ayecarumba

How big a field or orchard would be required to support a hive your size without supplementing with sugar? Could you park the hive near a field, then pick it up a few days later?

People do rent them out like this. Maybe one day I get up to 15 or so hives and do it myself. But no matter what, end of season nectar flows slow.

Quote: petroglyph

You can just have these, gratis. I'm allergic to the bastards. I lately have saved many of them that end up in the pool, but looking at them they seem littler than the ones that I used to catch in a jar and would sting a guy occasionally as a kid. Are the Africanized bees smaller than the European mild mannered ones?

I assume you know the liability on a hive in town. What happens if a neighbor starts getting stung and blames you?

I was never good on insect identification, and remember I was a PCO! I do not think there is much liability. Maybe if they swarm. Bit they do not leave the hive and charge people to get stung except in cartoons. No way to prove it was my bees for a random sting. No houses on 2/3 of the lots that neighbor mine either, so I have a buffer.

FALL FEEDING

I started feeding again recently. These girls are taking a pound of sugar a day! The feeder I am using is a slight hassle to use so I looked at "hive-top" models. Found only one for sale online and it looks like something I can easily make. So we will see a combo of this thread and "Do it Yourself!"

Hard part will be finding the material for the bottom, I need something thin that does not hold heat or cold. I get to wander THD and look!

Quote:

Michael Smith estimates he was stung about 200 times during his 2012 honeybee study. His conclusion: The three most painful places to get stung are the nostril, the upper lip and the male sex organ.

“A sting to the nostril is so painful it’s like a whole body experience,” he said.

http://krqe.com/2015/09/19/bee-stings-research-that-makes-you-go-huh-win-ig-nobels/

Quote: rxwine

http://krqe.com/2015/09/19/bee-stings-research-that-makes-you-go-huh-win-ig-nobels/

Need a study for the last part?

Quote: AZDuffman

Need a study for the last part?

Well, these are awards for questionable studies.

Not noble, Ignoble.

Actually its Ig Nobel, after Ignatius Nobel, the younger brother of Alfred Nobel whose explosive fortune funded the more famous prize.

when general electric won for something involving lime jello, their corporate jet showed up with tons of the stuff.

One Heisenberg Certainty lecturer thought he had thirty minutes but as is required he got the hook after thirty seconds.

the other Boston scientific celebration to note is the Good Reverend Bayes and his various festivals with music from the Bawdy Ballads Songbook, midnight meetings in cemeteries, toast towards whichever direction a bunch of drunk nerds decides approximates that of Islington, menus that include fried grasshoppers with or without chocolate and other memorable events in the world of the overly educated and over sexed youth of science.

Honey for not dummies.

Neat article and the kind that will get a person with the complex I have wishing he could get 10 acres and make a custom blend honey farm. Tupelo trees don't grow in my area so fugheddabat that one. But I can see how this stuff grows from a simple hobby.