Hi all, Just a quick note to say hi and to introduce myself to the forum. I am a new this year beekeeper and liked this forum so I thought I would stop lurking and jump in with both feet. My grand father introduced me to bees a long time ago and it has taken this long to get to the place where I could dedicate some time to becoming a tender to bees. I have chickens and grow a fairly large garden so I like to keep things natural. Last season I was sitting on the edge of my garden and noticed that I didn't see any bees in the garden. I sat for a long time and not one bee did I see. I got to reading and found that most beekeepers say that the bees are having trouble. I did some research on this subject and found that beekeeping had changed drastically since my grandfathers days.
I decided to get and keep a colony of bees but on further study I learned that I should have at least 2 hives. Well not being one that does anything half way I now have on order 4 nukes of bees from my local supplier. In stead of buying my hives I downloaded plans from the internet for building my wooden ware and am currently building all the parts that I will need. Excluding the frames. They looked kind of tricky to make so at a 1.75 a frame I chose to buy them for now till I figure them out. We just got another 18 inches of snow on Thursday so spring looks a long way away, but I must keep at building all the stuff I need to make sure I am ready for my girls when they arrive. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
I decided to get and keep a colony of bees but on further study I learned that I should have at least 2 hives. Well not being one that does anything half way I now have on order 4 nukes of bees from my local supplier. In stead of buying my hives I downloaded plans from the internet for building my wooden ware and am currently building all the parts that I will need. Excluding the frames. They looked kind of tricky to make so at a 1.75 a frame I chose to buy them for now till I figure them out. We just got another 18 inches of snow on Thursday so spring looks a long way away, but I must keep at building all the stuff I need to make sure I am ready for my girls when they arrive. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.