Hi y'all,
I am fixign to build up some beehives this year and need to find out where i want to go with it. Is there a market here in the area for locally produced honey?
I was thinking i'll have several thngs i can do with this.
I can produce honey of course, sell it by the pound/quart/gallon
Beeswax for candlemaking soapmaking, cosmetics
propalis for medical industry
bee therapy for arthrits patients
bees for new hives
pollination services for folks growing alfalfa, veggies, ect....
I was wondering if the area would support a local grower of honey.
Thanks
As you can tell from other posts around the forum; the majority of people in this county/area are VERY supportive of all local businesses. Local businesses who support other local businesses are even better. You've got a great grocery store who is willing to sell local grocery items, as well as provide you with supplies you may need. You've got a local pharmacy that supplies most of the surrounding 2+ counties with pharmacy items. You've got a local soap-maker who might be interested in using some of your products to make hers. Buy local, sell local. Become involved in local programs, groups, etc, to get your name and business information out even more.
Steve, I don't think you can go wrong raising bees. They're vitally important and these days of even greater value. I would certainly buy locally produced honey if it were readily available. If Julie would be willing to carry it, even better!
This sure brings back memories; my dad used to keep bees. The entire family was involved in that project from start to finish. I helped my dad gather up a swarming hive one time; we did it with no protection since it was newly settled swarm and still full from the mother hive. When they get ready to swarm they gorge with honey and cannot bend over to sting. Kind of like us after the Thanksgiving feast. We also used to help with the honey extraction. First we sterilized everything that would touch the honey, covered our hair and hung sheets at the doorways to help keep the mess confined to one room. We extracted two frames at a time into a barrel by uncapping the frames on both sides and sliding them into a frame that was somewhat like an ice cream dasher. One person would turn the handle until tired, and believe me those full frames of honey could be heavy. Honey got airborn in the process, and everything had a fine coat of the sticky stuff. The hair on our arms was standing up straight by the time we finished. Hard work but worth it. Dad always tried to put a hive at a field of milkweed for the family. There was not so much honey but it was milky white and not strong at all the way alfalfa and some clovers can be. I could eat a bunch right now on top of mamas' biscuits, yum!
Ulee's Gold might just be waiting to hit Elk County.
I have heard that eating locally grown honey helps with allergies...That might be a good selling point! :D
:) well i am going for it. I have bees on order! Yes local honey does help with allergen, but bee pollen is best for local allergens. That is not hard to obtain either but one thing at a time. :)
I haven't seen that with milkweed before sixdogs, I might have to try that sometime :) I used to get exclusively Sourwood honey when i lived in georgia and it was the best honey you could get :)
Might have to look at making honey butter too
Quote from: W. Gray on January 31, 2009, 03:35:28 PM
Ulee's Gold might just be waiting to hit Elk County.
Never saw that movie. :) Thanks, i'll rent that one :)
By the way, SDM, I have always heard that milkweed is good at removing warts...Guess there's something in there that works. Nice to know that it also helps produce good honey! :-)
Ulee's Gold has a dark side not connected to honey, but the scenes of getting the honey, processing it, and packing it are quite interesting.
Sweet memories of the days my Grandfather harvested honey. Fresh honey with honeycomb on warm toast or biscuits or just plain bread and butter. I always preferred the honey with a big chunk of comb in the jar. Grandma Edwards always had a ball of beeswax in her sewing basket. I have one in mine right now and use it when I repair Lucy's toys she chews a hole in. Grandma used her's when she was sewing a sole back on or repairing a torn seam in our shoes.
I'm kind of dense and clueless, Flo, but how do you use beeswax for sewing and repairs? How does it help your job?
you run your thread or string thru the beeswax ball and it strengthens it
Thanks--I had no idea................................
Beeswax is used in the stitching thread that you use for leather tack as well as the fishing line on a flyrod. :)
Helps make the line float on top of the water
I use waxed thread to make my dreamcatchers, the wax grabs ahold and makes my knots tighter and stronger. For the leather bags I make too.
Have you read the Jan. 29, 09 issue of the Prairie Star. It might answer some of your questions about the bee venture.
Ms Bear
Quote from: Ms Bear on February 05, 2009, 08:04:30 PM
Have you read the Jan. 29, 09 issue of the Prairie Star. It might answer some of your questions about the bee venture.
Ms Bear
:) I just saw it. :) I have already ordered my bees for spring. Here's hoping for a good year. :)
Hope you have a smoker coming also. ;D
Quote from: W. Gray on February 07, 2009, 09:38:54 AM
Hope you have a smoker coming also. ;D
LOL yeah but i rarely use a smoker unless their upset over something. :) But i keep one handy in case. :)
Most of the time using a smoker aggrevates the hive and pushes the bees back.
Keep us up to speed on the Bee's Steve and when and where we can buy the honey. My daughter loves honey. Eats it on all breads and even puts it in her sweet corn?? Don't ask me!!!
Quote from: DanCookson on February 11, 2009, 09:25:47 AM
Keep us up to speed on the Bee's Steve and when and where we can buy the honey. My daughter loves honey. Eats it on all breads and even puts it in her sweet corn?? Don't ask me!!!
I've ordered 4 nucs already, I'll get them in april. We need a lot of prayers for some decent rainfall this spring. Not too much and definately not too little! :)
Thought you'd find this interesting, Steve:
How Bee Colony Collapse Disorder works
It sounds like something out of a Science Fiction novel, but in this case we are talking about reality. For some reason, honeybees are vanishing from their hives at an alarming rate. One beekeeper lost 2,000 of his 3,000 hives this spring, and the problem has spread to 24 different states in the United States The problem is called Colony Collapse Disorder, and right now no one knows what is happening.
Here's what we do know. A typical commercial beehive is a wooden cube measuring about 20 inches by 20 inches square. Inside the hive you find a single queen bee who lays all the eggs, and perhaps 50,000 worker bees. In a healthy hive, most of those workers fly around all day collecting nectar and pollen and bringing it back to the hive. Other workers stay in the hive to take care of the queen and help raise new bees from the queen's eggs.
Once a hive is afflicted with Colony Collapse Disorder, nearly all of the worker bees fly off and die in the field. The queen and a handful of workers are left behind. Except for the remarkable lack of worker bees, the hive looks fine. There are no dead bees lying around, there is plenty of honey and pollen in the hive, and there is also plenty of brood (baby bees in different stages of development). But without workers to maintain the hive and feed the babies, the queen and the baby bees cannot survive. The hive collapses.
If you make your living as a beekeeper, Colony Collapse Disorder is obviously a huge problem. You can, in theory, go from "successful beekeeper" to "bankrupt" in just a few weeks, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it right now. That's bad enough, but the reality is that CCD may also become a big problem for the rest of us as well. IF CCD were to kill off all the bees, there are a number of fruits and vegetables that would disappear from grocery store shelves. Almonds, for example, are a $2.5 billion industry in California, and almond growers depend on honeybees to pollinate the crop. No honeybees means no almonds. Many berries (blackberries, strawberries, etc.) need bees, as do vegetables like cucumbers and squash. And don't forget tree crops like apples, oranges and peaches. Watermelon and cantaloupes depend on bees. And cotton ... As you can see, many different crops need the bees.
So why, all of a sudden, is this happening? No one is sure, although lots of scientists are looking at the problem very intensely right now. One theory is that a new breed of nicotine-based insecticides may have something to do with it. These insecticides are systemic, meaning that the plant absorbs the insecticide through the roots and spreads it to every part of the plant. Another possibility that has been suggested is genetically modified crops. These plants have a bacteria gene inserted into the genome that produces a natural insecticide in every part of the plant. Another possibility that has been suggested is cell phone radiation. The problem with all three of these possibilities is that CCD started abruptly in the fall of 2006, and all of these things have been around for some time. Cell phones, for example, have been in use since the 1980s, and they have been widespread for a decade.
The other possibility is that some new kind of disease, mite or fungus is to blame. One of the very odd things about CCD is the condition of the bees left in the hive. They usually are infected with several different viruses and fungi. It looks as though the immune system of the bees is failing. If so, it might be something like AIDS in human beings, where a collapse of the human immune system leaves a person unprotected from a host of diseases. It might also be that a new bee fungus has appeared. One of the very strange things about CCD hives is that other bees leave them alone. In a normal situation, bees from other hives will fly in and rob all of the honey out of a weak hive. In CCD hives, that does not immediately happen.
As you can see, Colony Collapse Disorder is a complete mystery right now. It is a mystery that could, potentially, have a multi-billion dollar affect on many different crops if we don't figure it out soon.
Yeah i know. Thats a big problem now days. I am hoping that the way i am going to raise them will make a difference in their abilities to fight it off. I have a suspicion that its genetics involved. You never see
feral bees with mite problems or collapse disorders. I hope to get a few feral bees to add to my hives.
If i do, i want to breed their genetics.
You know? I don't see hardly any honey bees anymore. As kids we used to have them thick in our yard ( always stepping on them with our bare feet and getting stung) but you hardly see them at all anymore. When I do, I always think it is good sign..
Quote from: Teresa on February 23, 2009, 01:16:41 PM
You know? I don't see hardly any honey bees anymore. As kids we used to have them thick in our yard ( always stepping on them with our bare feet and getting stung) but you hardly see them at all anymore. When I do, I always think it is good sign..
Most of the bees are killed off by folks spraying pesticides. When chemlawn and other companies came into business they started killing off bees with their spray on the yards.
I don't allow any chemicals on my place. I would rather have weeds than have a chemically produced yard.
Not only that with what chemlawn uses on your yard, it can cause cancers and other ailments in your pets and family members.
We have had both hive collapse and throat mite problems here. My one girlfriend finally gave up her hives but a neighbor near here is trying again. I had honey bees on my flowers last summer for the first time in a long time.
Quote from: Diane Amberg on February 23, 2009, 02:37:13 PM
We have had both hive collapse and throat mite problems here. My one girlfriend finally gave up her hives but a neighbor near here is trying again. I had honey bees on my flowers last summer for the first time in a long time.
Diane, i ran 10 hives back in Georgia and at first i had problems iwth tracheal and varroa mites and used
the apistan and all that chemical stuff and lost them anyway. SOoo I just cleaned my hives, ran a torch over the woodenware to kill off any chemical and pests and started over naturally. I let bees build their own comb and used powder sugar to dust off mites and a mite trap near the entrance.
I was successful with that. I haven't had to deal with CCD though
I wish you good luck.There is always room for more good honey. yum!
I have seen one report that says the so called "killer bees" from Africa [at least their acestors were] are in Oklahoma and in one case a couple counties from the southern Kansas border.
Another report shows those bees are not yet out of Texas.
What are your thoughts on these guys?
My thoughts on the African killer bees? They can all go back to Africa.
Quote from: W. Gray on February 24, 2009, 03:16:05 PM
I have seen one report that says the so called "killer bees" from Africa [at least their acestors were] are in Oklahoma and in one case a couple counties from the southern Kansas border.
Another report shows those bees are not yet out of Texas.
What are your thoughts on these guys?
Well first of all the term killer bees is a very inaccurate title for them. Their no more killer than any other bee.
What they are is protective of their hives. While italians or carnolians will ignore you while you work with the hive, the AHB will defend its hive. These type of bees are ones you must work with in suits and veils. Their very hardy and produce honey like you wouldn't believe. The truth is it might be AHB's that save us in all reality if they don't get a handle on CCD. BUT you can control them. Its not hard. Essentially you just requeen every year and they can't breed so your hives aren't AHB hives.
The defense against AHB's, as with any hive that is on defensive is to walk away. You have to go farther with the AHBS than you have to with any other but getting out of their defense zone will get them off of you.
They are working with them to try and breed out some of the agressivness. Eventually that dominant gene can be weeded out. But your looking at many years of research down the road.
What you have to watch are the feral bees. They will breed with the AHBs when the queens superscede and make virgin queens. The virgin queens then take off on their maiden flight and they breed with the AHB drones. That is how they grow and spread. By killing off the queen and killing off queen cells out of your hive or AI'ing your virgin queens you can eliminate that happenign since queens only breed once.
You are really "up" on bees.
I would imagine if there were not a local market for honey before you started this thread, you have already made a market from the folks here on the forum.
Quote from: W. Gray on February 24, 2009, 07:06:17 PM
You are really "up" on bees.
I would imagine if there were not a local market for honey before you started this thread, you have already made a market from the folks here on the forum.
Hi :)
I can assure you and everyone else, that You can never know enough about bees. :) I am ALWAYS learning something new about them.
DId yall know that bees Dance?? :)
And bees communicate by dancing?? They fly up to 3 mile radius of the hive. One thing i have been studying is saturation levels for areas i will put my hives. You can oversaturate the area and your bee population will start to decline.
I Love watching bees and have spent hours at a time just watching a hive before. When you walk up to a very busy hive, you can stand to the side of the entrance and look outwards. You will see bees flying in and landing and taking off. It looks like a busy airport! I love to walk out in the glide path for the bees. ITs kool to feel them whizzing by and all, and they don't hit you either. Their awesome pilots lol.
When you walk up to a hive entrance theres a platform they land on. You can put your finger on the platform and several Guard bees will run out and check your finger out. They sniff it and once satisfied that its not another bee from another colony or a yellow jacket or other enemy they will return to their guard positions inside the entrance.
I work without veils and bee suits, and most of the time in a pair of shorts and t-shirt when i go into the hives. They get to know the keeper and they don't worry about the people that work with them.
No i am no expert on bees trust me but I love working with them and They teach me all the time new things.
One thing i hope to get into this year is catching swarms. IF folks have a swarm on their place i'll come get them. :)
I bought 4 nucs of bees, 1 nuc (nucleus) of bees contains about 9-10,000 bees in it plus a queen and 3 combs of larvae and 1 of drone and pollen and 1 of honey. That will give me 40,000 bees to start with and 4 queens.
Theres 43,208 cells to a frame and the queen lays 2000 eggs a day if i remember right. So those 3 frames per hive will produce 129624 bees if every one live. you can get a really strong hive quick. It takes 21 days for the bee to hatch out of the cell.
Its really interesting. Lots of things that you learn as you go on with them. One little trivia bit is that worker bees lay out the comb in the frame. They don't fully extract the comb. They only give like about 4 mm i think of the cell and move on. The queen comes along when its ready and lays a egg, then checks to see if it is positioned correctly in the center of the cell then moves on to the next cell. The worker bees then come along and start filling the cell with food and extracting the comb out further along. I think its final size is usually around 1/2" or so and then they cap it off. the brood feeds on the food and then when its ready in 21 days hatch out.
wow..... That is so interesting. I love hearing you tell about them .. Almost like I am there with you. :)
Thanks...