Saturday, February 7, 2015

to bee a good bee



I Am a Full Fledge Certified Beekeeper Now


carving i did just off 12th and perry

Today I attended a beekeeping class held by the Stark County Beekeepers Association held at the Sippo Lake Exploration Gateway. It was a  6 hr. class designed to teach you the basics of handling bees. They covered all topics in regards to taking care of a backyard apiary, whether you are doing it to increase pollination of crops ,for the honey, or for just having a hobby that is interesting and good for the environment. Whatever the reason, today was the time and place to get instruction in how to do beekeeping.
    It isn’t too late yet to get into beekeeping this year and one must keep in mind that the further you go along in the summer season it is harder to have a beehive survive over the winter, but it is still possible though, I would say up until the first of September. You would have to feed a lot of sugar water to your hive to keep them over the winter, but I would say it is possible to keep a hive going.
    Right now is the prime time and bee packages can be bought and hives made or bought, to house the bees through the summer. April 11th is when the last of the bee packages would be available for our area. That isn’t saying you couldn’t order and have them over-nighted to you   after that date. Swarms could be captured for free later in the season and transferred to your new hive for free , but this is something I wouldn’t suggest for a beginner and if you are not able to get a swarm then you will be one more year away from getting honey, for me it was a risk I didn’t want to take.


 flock of turkeys i encountered on way into beekeeping class at sippo lake gateway center drive

    I already have hives and experience placing bees in my hives and had a pretty good honey supply heading into the winter months, but recent cold weather has hampered me from getting into the hives to see how my bees have done. Hopefully they will have made it through the winter. I have four books on bee production now and will gladly lend anyone one if you would like to get bees of your own. Lend being the word I will emphasize, as deciding to keep my book may be something I wouldn’t advise. Waking up to a house full of bees or the sound of chainsaw chewing on your bed may be some of the remedies I might use to get my book back if you didn’t return it.


why did the turkey cross the road? 


      It doesn’t have to be real expensive and if store bought hive and a 3 lb. package of bee is the way you go , you could or should be able to buy a hive and bees for around 150.00. This would include the minimum of equipment one would need to start. It is exciting to finally have bees working for you and to be able to peer into the hive as they go about the act of processing honey and making comb. To know you are doing something good for the environment as bees are in decline as well as beekeepers. This alone should be motivation, let alone sweet golden goodness of your own honey produced by bees you had a hand in helping raise, is even more gratifying.  

 10 deer  here i believe , and i saw 2 down the lane just today on farm 

      

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