Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Honey Bee's

I will be getting a couple of colonies this spring when the nuc's will be ready for pick up. I have never kept bees before and was wondering if any of the fellers on here might have some insights. I have read a lot about it and started making efforts to find someone locally that might let me go with them inspect their hives a couple of times before I get my own. When I was young you would see a lot of people with a few hives on their property, these days you only see hives around farm land.

I've only been keeping them ~20 years or so, I'm sure there are others on here with more experience and hopefully they will respond soon.
It can be a very rewarding and sometimes frustrating hobby. Wish you lots of luck. When it works well you can end up with a LOT of honey to deal with. It certainly has become more difficult as mites, etc. become resistant to treatment.

Recommend getting your site prepared, frames and boxes built now. Assume the hives will get heavy, so a stable base is mandatory. That said, keep it low to the ground as you will potentially be lifting heavy boxes to/from the hive. A lot of folks are going to 8-frame boxes to aid in reducing the weight.

Check around to see if there is a beekeeping club near you. These can be VERY helpful for a novice. Usually they own an extractor or two, host guest lectures, etc.

That longarm guy ^^^^^ just gave some good advice.

One thing is sure, you'll have an easier time getting a hive through the winter in LA than here where it generally gets below 0F every year.

I may give it another go, but as longarm stated, it's been frustrating so far. Third time might be a charm, right?

I grew up in Baton Rouge in the late 60's mid 70's. We kept two hives in our backyard. Had more honey than we could give away. We could talk about this for hours. Looking for a local beekeeper and/or finding a club is a great idea. Be careful of advice from the internet. Everyone knows better than the next guy. Again, finding someone local is a great idea. Someone's opinion or experience that lives in Wisconsin is going to be different than where you live.
Remember bees have been around since biblical times and are capable of taking care of themselvez but benefit from the care we humans can give.
There are parasites and insects that can damage/wipeout a colony.
Check with the Louisiana department of agriculture to see what kind of resources they have. I currently don't have any hives at my house since my wife is severely allergic to bee stings. My stepson has five hives.
A colony of bees do extremely well in an urban setting since people grow flowers and plant gardens, lots of stuff to polinate.
Two of the most well known suppliers for equipment are; Mann Lake and Dadant. The have free catalogs you can order on their websites.
As far as ordering bees in a nuc box that is a good idea. The varroa mites seem to be the main danger to the colonies. You can read about them online. A company here in Texas sells " mite proof " bees.
There are several ways to save some money in this endeavor. I'll go for now and hooefully this will help you get started. I am no expert but do have some experience with beekeeping. It's a great and rewarding hobby. My best friend from high school lives in San Antonio and has ten hives. Keep me updated on what you find out locally. I would be interested to know how this works out for you. Have a good evening. OlCajun.

Yes, good advice from longarm. Definitely a lot easier to get them through the winter down south. Buy the best kits you can afford and the boxes will last longer before you have to replace them.

Very good advice here! Join your local beekeeper's club. Most clubs have someone offering beginning beekeeping classes. Classes are well worth the time for beginners. Buy a good beekeeper's suit and good gloves. Don't ask me why I recommend this!

Good advice all around guys. I already have my boxes, some 10 frame's but I plan on getting some spacers and only placing 9 in them. They say they build their comb a little better with that little extra room, along with some extra deep brood and honey supers to have on stand by. Already have a place cleaned up for the hives but did not put them out there yet. The bees I ordered are supposedly VSH hybrids - Italian/corniolan mix that are supposed to have a higher resistance Varroa mites. Looks good on paper but experiance will tell the tale. From what I hear I will likely lose one or both of them my first year due to my inexperience.

Harvest all your honey from the honey supers and the hives. Here in Mn, the bees are gonna die in the winter anyway. I’ve winterized my hives every year at great expense and effort only to lose 80% of my hives in mid-winter. Even this year with the mild winter and a severe, long cold snap I’ve already lost all 3 of my hives. The heck with winterizing, I’m taking all their winter honey stores and buying new packages in the spring. I can’t crack the code to keeping them through the winter.

We let a fella keep bees on our place...

Don't think he really makes any money at it, but he does love doing it... and that is good enough for us.

Bees are a good thing for sure.

Been warm here for the last few days and the bees were flying, so I pulled the lids on my four hives. They still have lots of honey and seem to be coming throught the winter just fine. I did not go through any of the hives looking brood, just checked food supply. My main problem with them here are small hive beetles and wax moths. Mites are easily kept in check using Oxalic acid. Box weight is getting to be a real problem, as I have a bad back and Arithiritis. I need a young person to help me, but don't. Other than a week of really cold, we have had a mild winter.
I had greens (turnip, mustard, rape, ect blooming until after Christmas. All frozen back now.
miles

Good advice already. A local club or beekeeper to mentor is great. Beekeeping for Dummies is a good reference as are YouTube videos.

This will be my 4th year. I went into last year with 5 hives and came out with 2. This year I went in with 4 and they looked good 2 wks ago. In your location you should be good.

Its a fun hobby but can be frustrating. I find myself telling people my bees didn't read the same books I did because they're not following what I've read. Look for used equipment that's in decent condition to get started. Used frames should be put in freezer for 24hrs or more to ensure you kill any undesirables. If you have a small workshop you can also make your own pretty cheaply. Tractor supply hive boxes that you put together are pretty good.

As a side note, surplus honey can be made into mead. I'm trying that this year.

Be careful if you find a good deal on boxes and frames. Check and measure to make sure they are compatible with what you have. Different manufacturers use different dimensions.
Good idea to use 9 frames per super as you mentioned.
I switched to shallow depth supers for the honey supers to save my back from the weight of medium depth ones.
Some people don't use a queen excluder between brood and honey but I always did and had no problems.

Yep. I was instructed to not winter the bees from a long time beekeeper in Benedict, MN. Start with fresh nucs in the spring, and wait to be reminded that your new bee season will be different from any prior season. The bulk of our honey production is over with by the end of July. It's a different deal everywhere.

Lot's of good advice, so far.

Treat for mites. Treat for mites. TREAT FOR MITES.

When I was in Oregon I used to say that there were three things you needed to pay attention too. Meals, Moisture, and Mites. Make sure that those things were okay and you could get them through winter.

Here in the high desert (my first year) I worry about the wind and cold. However opened my one hive (see below) and it was booming. Made sure it had lot's of food going into winter.

I like to frequent beesource.com. A lot of good advice there from some of the prominent keepers. Pay attention to what the commercial guys do. You can do more as you're a backyarder, but the commercial guys have to keep their hives as healthy as possible. Lot's to learn from them.

It's good that you're getting a couple nucs. Having another hive to compare and pull resources from is good. I violated this rule this year as I didn't have as much gear as I needed to put together more than one hive. Gave my hives to my DiL before we moved. Will be splitting my hive into 2 or 3 this Spring. I live on the edge of africanized bee range so I'll probably buy queens. Also not sure how well the queen would get mated in my area.

I always try to have another hive's plus worth of woodenware available. That way you have it when you need it. An easy to catch swarm is useless if you don't have something to put them into.

Be careful if you get used equipment. You don't want to get American Foul Brood in your apiary. If you do you'll get to have a huge bonfire.

Good luck. It's a fun hobby!

I see a lot when it warms up

Should mention that using nine frames is good as they end up fatter and easier to de-cap. But if you only have foundation and not drawn comb, best to start them in ten frames (assuming ten frame equipment). That way they're less likely to be drawn out wonky. After you have drawn comb you can go nine frames in a ten frame super. There are spacers you can get to set the spacing correctly. Avoids cross combing.

Don't do it in brood boxes.

As for weight I have all 8 frame equipment.

Good advice has been given. I’ve been playing with them a few years in Nebraska. Don’t get in thinking you’ll make some money. In the Midwest it is a big challenge to keep them alive through winter. There’s a very good reason guys haul them south for the winter. I’m told before the mites came along it wasn’t that hard to winter them.

I inquired about loading my hives onto a truck heading south, and found out quickly that the commercial operators did not want my bees mixed with their bees. Why take a chance of something from my hives getting into their hives. I figured it was worth the time to ask the question.

I kept bees for about ten years. I really enjoyed having them around, but I needed the space where the hives were set up. I miss it.

Great advice so far. Thank you for all your input. Just doing it for kind of a hobby I guess, I plan on making mead with all my honey, and give away to friends and family what I don't want. And I'm looking forward to having the wax also. I bought all new equipment, after reading horror stories on other places on the world wide web. Like I said, I will use a deep box on bottom and have a shallow honey super on top with an excluder but that probably won't happen until next year. I don't expect to have a honey harvest this year. My boxes are 10 frame boxes but I will get some spacers to make them 9 frame for a deeper comb - this advice was given to me a while back. I have enough material on hand to make 3 complete hives - each with a deep box topped with a shallow honey super on top. I wanted to have at least one complete spare hive ready to go incase the bees, Mother Nature, or the great pumpkin gives me some kind of surprise. The 2 nuc's I ordered will be 6 frame nuc's and I've a lot of good things about that company - the bees will be rearing to go when I go pick them up one night at the end of next month. https://thebfarm.com/collections/bunkie-la.