# SO you think you would like to be a bee keeper!!!



## alleyyooper (Oct 23, 2004)

Biggest question you need to ask your self is are you alergic to bee stings. I don't mean do you swell up and itch like crazy the day after. That is a normal reaction to many people. I'm talking about your tongue swelling up, getting cold sweats, and passing out. If the answer is yes to the last statement then you do not want to keep honey bees. No matter how careful you are you will get stung.
Next question is do you have the money for the first start up cost. First start up cost is going to be between $500.00 and $800.00 which depends on if you buy all your hive equipment from a supplier or build your own. For example one boughten hive body is $18.25 plus shipping and I recomment you have 4. I buy 1x12x8 boards at Lowes for $8.25 one board will make one hive body and the frame for a top cover and a nice bit left over for an inter cover too.
I recommend you start with two colonies so you can compare them and even pull brood from one strong one to perk up a weak one. I recomment you do not by a starter kit from the suppliers as it only has half of what you need for one year of keeping one colony and some stuff you just don't need.
Buy a book, I recommend Bee Keeping for Dummies, you can find it or order it at most book stores. 
After you get some bees I recommend ABC XYZ of beekeeping. A new edition is now out and selling for $40.00. I recommend you look on www.bookfinder.com for a used copy for many dollars less. One from the 80's will have things about the Vorra mites.
Now time for you to digest the above.

And yes it is we, Kare is not just a wife who goes to bee meetings with me.
She is even the sole owner of her very own colony she won with raffle tickets she bought at the 2005 bee comferance.

One of the most important things is join a club so you have some one with experience near by to help if you experience a problem and can't find the answer in a book.
We belong to the state club Michigan bee keepers, the regional club SEMBA and 3 local clubs within 40 miles of our home.
I am still a bee keeper because of our local club,two members bailed us out when our package bees were sick and had to be killed.
I would have quit rather than buy any more bees.


 Al


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## alleyyooper (Oct 23, 2004)

There are two ways to buy bees for your first colonies.
One is a nucules or nuc as they are called. It consist of 4 or 5 frames with brood, a queen and about 10,000 workers and some drones. The cost runs about $75.00 to $95.00 depending on the seller and if they refund some when the nuc box is returned.

I strongly recomend buying local bees in a nuc myself.
Late winter is when you start shopping for them,

You just open the nuc up and place the frames with the bees in the big 10 frame brood hive with new frames and foundation to make up what the nuc doesn't have. Any bee remaining in the nuc box will fly to the new hive because of the queens scent.

Another way to get your first bees is in a package. Packages are sold in 2 pound and 3 pounds, 3 pounds is the most common. They come from the southeren states mostly Ga. Being one of the biggest supplies states. Many have asked how many bees are in a 3 pound package. The answers range from 3500 to 10000. I think it depends on how many are flying when the package is on the scales.
Cost this year are running about $70.00 on advrage. But you will normally not get any honey to harvest the first year as they have to draw and fill 20 frames with honey for them selves.Southern states are different.

 Al


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## alleyyooper (Oct 23, 2004)

A third way to get bees is to catch a swarm.










Get your name on a list with the local police, fire dept, animal control, county extention office and local USDA, some exterminters also want bee keepers to get swarms now.

Getting a swarm cna be a easy endevor.

 Al


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## Live Oak (Dec 22, 2003)

Great info. Al! We got started bee keeping this season with a deluxe beginner's kit from Mannlake. They seem to have the best prices we have been able to find so far. 

http://www.mannlakeltd.com/catalog/page1.html

We decided later in the season after we lost our queen in the first hive to add a 2nd hive so we ordered another deluxe beginner's kit with a few modifications such as the top feeder and wood framed queen excluder. 

I recently ordered some hive body kits that require assembly to try out doing more of he labor to save on cost. 

What do you use, to cut the dove tail joints in the hive bodies? I can get wood cheap and it would be great to be able to make our own hive bodys 100%.


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## alleyyooper (Oct 23, 2004)

A way to get more bees if you already have hives is to feed them pollen patties in Febuary here in the north. Then in March when they start flying feed them 1:1 ratio of sugar syrup. By May your colony should look like this when you remove the cover.



















In May the night time temps here normally run 45F or better.
We will do what is called a split.
we place a double screen board with an entrance between the to hive bodies. The entrance in the screen board is 180 degrees off from the lower entrance. In a week you know which hive has the queen in it as there will be eggs in the cells where she is.

Once you know where the queen is you then place a boughten queen in the hive with out a queen, normally the top. You have to becareful doing this because if there are drones the hive will more than likely swarm. It is just to crouded. Also if you really watch you can raise your own queen if there are drones present.

You can also take a hives like this and make 4 or 5 frame nucs for sale with new queens you bought.

New queen prices fro 2008 start at $15.00 and go up to $25.00. These are single queen open mated prices. A brood queen sells for about $200.00.

 Al


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## alleyyooper (Oct 23, 2004)

Some equipment that you need. Pictures from Mann Lake catolog. I also deal with W.T. Kelleys.

Standard hive set up for the northern states for one year of bee keeping. From bottom board to top cover. Of course the bottom board is on the bottom, next is 2 deep brood hives (9 5/8 deep 16 1/4 wide and 19 7/9 long. then there are two honey (Illinois supers) hives (6 5/8 deep and same width and length. inter cover not showen then the outer cover. 










A deep with a frame showing. The deep brood hive holds 10 frames some bee keepers use 9 frames for reasons I never did under stand. The frame holds a sheet of pure bees wax with the inprint of a cell on it for a cell starter. Or you can use plastiac foundation. Like I said ya want to hear Kare cuss just say plastiac foundation. You can buy the cell inprint in different sizes. Most common is 5.2 but a lot of hobbie bee keepers are going withthe smaller 4.9 size. Now I have to reread my book on what that size really is. I think so many cells per inch.










A honey super. it also holds 10 frames but most bee keepers run 9 or 8 frames. The less frames means deeper cells so the caps cut off the comb better with the hot capping knife. I show the hot capping knife when I get to the harvest section.
Some bee keepers also use 3 of these for brood hives because full of honey they weight 65 pound, where the deeps weigh 90 pounds.










Then there are shallow honey supers which weigh about 50 pounds full.
They are 5 1/4 inches deep. We have a mix of both but as we replace them we are going with the shallows to save our backs.


I assemble my own frames from parts but you can get them already built. I use a double crown staple on the top bar.









I do not recommend Mann Lake frames unless you buy them assembled. They are a very hard wood.
I like the W. T. Kelley ones.


 Al


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## alleyyooper (Oct 23, 2004)

This is a normal bottom board with an entrance reducer. The bottom board is made so the hive bodies set on them square. The entrance reducer has 2 notches, it is 16 1/4 long 3/4 x3/4. It is used to close the entrance up totaly, a small entrance when you have a new weak hive and the girls need a small opening to defend and a large opening to allow more air flow during hot weather and when the hive is strong and can guard the bigger entrance. I personally only know one bee keeper that uses these any more, he runs 500 colonies.

















This is our screened bottom board. It is sort of like a 2x4 frame a hive sets on that has 1/8 inch hard wear cloth on top. it has a 3/4 square lip the hive sets on and only one size entrance. I have plugs I make to reduce the entrance. To gain more ventalation I slid out the flashing made from flashing that is below the screen.
See a picture at the build your own screen bottom board thread.

This is an intercover. The hole allows for air flow to ventilate the hive. I cut my holes the short way across rather than the long way. I can look thru the hole and see between more frames. 










Then the outer cover. Yes I make them too. I cover them with galvinized flashing. You can have fancy ones for your yard and they do look rather nice.


















All the above hive pictures are from Mann Lake LTD.

 Al


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## alleyyooper (Oct 23, 2004)

When you use wax foundationyou need to support it with this wire. I use two strands only in the deeps as they just get handled by us. I use two strands in the honey franes because they are under a lot of stress from the extractor.









Use this spur embedder to embed the wire in the wax.I use a home made jig to install the wire and embed it.









This is a queen excluder, which keeps the queen from going up in the honey supers to lay eggs. I onlu use one when a queen has laisd eggs inmy honey supers. For us happens once in every 100 honey supers.










 Al


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## alleyyooper (Oct 23, 2004)

Some must have tools 
Hive tool. 



















A bee brush. I've wore one out last year. I use them to brush powder sugar between the frames for mite control. Brush the workers off the honey frames when robbing the honey.









A frame grip, not needed but really nice when you have one.









A frame perch a very handy item. I made my own.









A smoker. I'll talk about them more latter. It is a must have. 









 Al


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## alleyyooper (Oct 23, 2004)

Some people think they need a bees suit but I don't. If it would make you more confortiable then by all means get one. Just keep in mind they are hot to work in.
We wear long sleeve dress shirts we bought used at goodwill. We have some really thin ones for really hot days and some thicker ones for days not so hot.
Plus when you have belly like mine you get that area dirty quick.
A pair of heavy jeans and leather shoes.
Kare & I wear gloves,I don't like getting bee glue (proplis) on my hands.Kare dosen't like getting stung there. I also wear a pair of arm gauntlets, because the bees like to get in the cuff of my gloves where they get pinched so they sting my wrist.
Kare and I both had the plastiac helmits .









We both found them to hot in the summer so we now have the mesh ones.









We both wear veils Kares is like the bottom left Mine is a sheer black one not showen.









I think that should get every one started in the new 

 Al


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## alleyyooper (Oct 23, 2004)

Touching on this one again. 
One other thing JOIN A CLUB. By joining a club you meet people with the same intrest as you and are willing to help newbees. Just keep in mind that if you ask 12 beekeepers a question about bees you will probably get 15 or more answers . There is always at least 3 that change their mind or can't make up their mind.

We belong to the state club, MBA. Has district reps that cover the whole state of Michigan even DA UP.
http://michiganbees.org/
http://cyberbee.msu

The region club, SEMBA. SEMBA has bee school in the spring.
http://www.sembabees.org/

And 3 local clubs with in 50 miles of us
SchoolCraft beekeepers.
Oakland beekeepers
Seven Ponds beekeepers

Before we joined a club we didn't know a beekeeper lived a half mile away from us. 
Working our bees before we joined a club was like stumbling around in a strange dark house at night looking for a bathroom.
Ya found it but had a lot of bumps and bruses.


 Al


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## alleyyooper (Oct 23, 2004)

Smokers, lots of different styles and looks. They all work the same fuel is lit and smolders making smoke. You keep the smoldering going by pumping the bellows.
I have a small one that I started out with, I have a bigger one because a beekeeping friend passed away and left his to me.









There is a huge list of fuels that can be used.
Burlap, old cloth, dried cow patties, dried horse balls, rotten wood, fungi, coragated cardboard, semi dry grass, pine nettles, saw dust, wood chips, and sumac. Then you can buy wood chips, corn, smoker fuel, and wood pellets.
I have use pine nettles but my source made them hard to get any quanity that was not full of other stuff. 
I tried straight saw dust and had a hard time keeping it going. I use sumac, those berries smolder real well after they are dried. The smoke also has an effect on the mites I have read in American Bee Journal. I also like to use Cedar wood chips I recycle from the dogs houses. I mix some saw dust in from my wood working.


 Al


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## alleyyooper (Oct 23, 2004)

So we have gotten our equipment, our bees and have them installed in hives.
We feed 1:1 syrup since it is spring to stumilate them to build comb and get the queen laying at a rate 1000 to 1500 eggs a day.
We keep feeding the syrup till they won't take it any more. That happens about the time the spring plants start blooming. One of the earliest is the Maple trees and Korean Box Woods. Didn't know they had flower type blooms till I had bees.

Red Maple tree blooms. At ANR week last year we got to sample some maple honey. Yes has nearly the same taste of maple syrup.

 Al


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## alleyyooper (Oct 23, 2004)

Some Honey Bee facts.

Honey has antibacterial properties which combats infections and speeds the healing process.
Honey is used in burn units at hospitals.
I use honey on cuts rather than ontiments.

Honey bees are responcible for the pollination of 80% of all fruit, vegetables and seed crops in the U.S.


Honeybee colonies have unique oders that members use to identfy other bees at the hive entrance so the guard bees can recognize the entering bees.

A good place to talk about the rolls of the worker bees.
Upon hatching a worker bees is asigned the job of cleaning cells so the queen can lay eggs in them or honey/pollen can be stored in them. Last about a week. Then she goes to the nurseing job for about a week, a guard at the entrance for a week, removing dead bees from the hive and then she gets to forage for about 3 weeks. During the summer honey bees
live 6 to 8 weeks. Their wings wear out from forageing.

A honey bee can fly approximatly 15MPH. 
Doesn't do you much good to run so might just as well stand still and remain calm.

Honeybees have to travel over 55,000 miles and visit approximently 2 million flowers to make one pound of honey.
Honey is sold by the pound measure.
Know why?


 Al


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## alleyyooper (Oct 23, 2004)

I think swarm season is over here.

 Al


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## alleyyooper (Oct 23, 2004)

I think thwe swarm season is over and in the afternoon I get a call to get one.

27 for the season.

 Al


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## alleyyooper (Oct 23, 2004)

Really late swarm this year. I had some drawn comb that came in handy the morning of Sept 1st.

 Al


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