I went tonight to the club meeting. Met some knowledgable people.
I found out that beekeeping is a lot like tanning. You gotta figure out what works for you and do that. There is not a particular formula for success that works for everybody. I talked a little about microecosystems and got them talking about "bee sanctuaries" and field plots left to wildflowers. It was a pretty interesting conversation.
Some folks swear by excluders and others act like it's a cuss-word. Some prefer plastic frames and others wouldn't take them from you for free.
The whole affair was a bit formal for me, with all the motions and votes and club-stuff that clubs do. It was like a foreign language lol.
The club program was about creating nucs and catching swarms, so that was really informative, since I have a nuc on order and am on a list for swarms.
Tuesdays class was about colony habit and organization and the things that cause them to swarm.
I measured one of the plastic frame/foundation things and I'm going to buy one or two to see if I can make a cast, into which I can pour wax to make my own foundation. The plastic ones are the right size for the frames in my first box... whodathunkit? I bounced the idea around with a few of the members and they said go for it.
It's expensive to get into. Hopefully it'll be something the kids take an interest in too, although my daughter isn't really a bug person lol. I think she'll enjoy the wax projects, and I'm sure she'll enjoy the honey! The boys have been wanting to go to the classes, but they are held too late on a school night. both of them like woodwork so they'll at least enjoy that aspect for sure.
Some of the members said they lost a lot of hives this year. One guy lost 15! No apparent reason. No viruses or other baddies (except mites). The bee deaths are still a mystery and are continuing to grow in both occurrence and percentage. It was said that 30% loss is expected, but some folks there lost 50%. That's kinda hard to take when you have thousands of dollars invested. I see a relationship, tho, of # of hives to # of mysterious losses.. It's kinda like people. The more you have in one area the more likely a disease or affliction is to spread rapidly. Bees are not something you disturb on a daily basis (tho I'll be checking mine frequently), so say you check this week and they show no signs of disease, you might not check for another week and by then the damage is done.
All I can do is try my best at it and take whatever comes of it. If I fail, it won't bee beecause I didn't try!
I went to a bee yard yesterday, to ask the fella if he had a smoker he'd sell me. I was wearing a buckskin of course, and the bees didn't attack me. The teacher at the classes keeps telling me that buckskin isn't the best thing to wear in beekeeping. I told him I was going to find out, since he didn't know firsthand Well, I was surrounded by bees.. the buzzing was louder than my truck idling, and not once did I get stung while wearing buckskin. It's logical to me that a deer isn't a natural predator of bees, and even if it was, buckskin is a light color and smells nothing like animal anymore. Mine smells like smoke and soap.
Anyhow, I didn't get killed by the bees, so there went that theory.
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