Home & Garden Gardening for Honeybees

I was gardening for bees before I knew I was gardening for bees! We plant marigolds because they are easy to grow for the kids; we have a redbud tree and numerous apple trees as well as sunflowers planted as accents around a silo. Although we live in a fairly rural area, we have LOTS of bees of all sorts - mostly honeybees, but also bumble bees and paper wasps. I wonder now if they are wild or if there are beekeepers nearby; in this area I'd imagine one is as likely as the other.

And I had no idea about trucking bees all over the country to pollinate until I heard a program on NPR a few years ago. I guess I was naive, but I had always assumed that bees were just natural and not, essentially, farmed. That people make a living trucking their bees around the country as pollinators was mind-boggling. It also seems very dangerous in that if/when those kept colonies have issues (like now with the colony collapse), if we don't have wild bees we have a very dangerous situation for humans and for every other living thing. In that regard, I think amateur beekeepers are essential.

How complicated is it to have beehives? What sort of maintenance and upkeep do they require?

Thats great HM.

Yes, the trucking the bees, thats really scary. Especially if there is an accident :cry: They are social creatures and the ones that get left behind when the trucks take off...well, anyway, you can imagine that it is not the best situation for the bees.

You probably have a local beekeepers group, or maybe classes through ag extension or community college in your area. Googling around gives a pretty good idea of the amateur beekeeper life, if you are still interested after reading up on it, I would definitely suggest seeing if there is a class or beekeepers group to contact.

Many beekeepers will mentor a potential new beekeeper----its in everybody's benefit to make sure people are really interested and knowledgable. Nobody wants to make the situation worse, KWIM...I am planning on doing this with a beekeeper locally.

Generally, the beekeepers here (zone 10) check their hives a couple of times a week for basic maintenance. And everyone has beetle traps (oil/screen traps on the bottom of the hives to trap the invasive beetles). Those need to be checked and refilled. Eventually you have to make sure you have a healthy queen, maybe split the hive, stuff like that...but its not hard, its just something new to learn..

I dont know what your winters are like but overwintering is the main effort in some parts of the US.

Like anything, there are tons of groups and forums on the web, but the best is to see what local beekeepers are doing and find one you like to work with you.
 
Oh, I've GOT bees, lemme tell'ya. I got 'em by the boatload. I have to be careful around certain bushes there's so many of them.

There's a big tree I pass when I go for walks that literally hums from several feet away. I have no idea how many are in there. I've never actually seen them, so I'm not sure if they're honey bees or wasps.
 
probably bees. wasps done pollinate, at least not on purpose.

thats great you have a lot. we used to but they are gone now. :cry:

You live in Southern California? California has some of the strictest law on pesticides.
Therefore if there are no bees where you live, they must be gone because of natural predators.
I watched a documentary a while back on the extinction of bees. It was pretty scary actually.
My relative/beekeeper has a crazy theory. He is convinced it has to do with Monsanto. (we are French:lol:)
I am not sure what to believe myself but I must say that there were more bees before.
 
You live in Southern California? California has some of the strictest law on pesticides.
Therefore if there are no bees where you live, they must be gone because of natural predators.
I watched a documentary a while back on the extinction of bees. It was pretty scary actually.
My relative/beekeeper has a crazy theory. He is convinced it has to do with Monsanto. (we are French:lol:)
I am not sure what to believe myself but I must say that there were more bees before.


Your uncle is not crazy. Your country has banned Monsanto's genetically modified crops (GMOs) until 2013, and stands with many EU countries in this, as well as China and India and others. Lots of problems with these crops and particularly the herbicide ready GMOs, which are designed to allow herbicides to be sprayed freely, including at harvest time to help drydown the fields.

The loss of the bees in the last 6 years, some estimates are 30-80% of the bees in the northern hemisphere alone, is called Colony Collapse Disorder, and while there are indeed predators like the small hive beetle and the mites and other things (that leave evidence in the hive), the bees are also simply disappearing....going out to forage and not returning, leaving the queen and brood in the hives uncared -- ultimately, they die.

This is not due to predators, scientists believe many factors have come into play to create this perfect storm but if it is not stopped, a 15 billion dollar food industry in the US alone will suffer.

One third of our food is directly linked to crops pollinated by bees.

The "domestic" honeybee has been bred to 1.be docile, and 2.produce honey. Where I live (not california) beekeepers are looking at their bees now to see if they are aggressive with the small hive beetle, and if they are proficient "groomers" which helps dislodge the mites. I am sure all beekeepers are doing this, and from these hives they manipulate the environment in order to breed more queens to pass on these good traits and replace hives/colonies that have been lost. My beekeeper mentor has been doing this for a long time and he has lovely hives with few beetles and mites, and yet his bees are still docile and you dont need to even smoke them!

Anyway, you are so lucky to have a beekeeper in the family, and believe me, he is not crazy. There are groups all over the world standing up against giants like Monsanto, Bayer, BASF, ConAgra, and others.

Hopefully France will renew its opposition after 2013, but BigFood is strong and its lobbyists are in powerful positions in many governments around the world.
 
^^
I doubt France is going to let anyone mess with our food supply. There is a strong lobby against Big Agro.
We are still very partial to old school agriculture and it is a big part of the economy as well.
Yes, food is more expensive there however it is also better quality as well.
It is like eating organic everyday.
Unfortunately, the crop gets contaminated especially corn. Thus the national outrage against Monsanto.
Even rice cultivated in a small region in France has been shown to have mixed strains.
My older relatives kid that at least the grapes are still intact.

In any case, his theory is that there is an enzyme that the bees are not able to digest and that it destruct them.
A few years back, there were a few case of Africanized bees as well but it is now over, at least in that region.
 
Great thread. I live in South Florida and have lots and lots of bees year round. Frankly, we have a problem with bee hives built under tables in terrace, even under chairs, all over eaves at times, just about anywhere. We have lots of plants they love but have to keep these plants away from front porch and back terrace. Does anyone have any tips on how to prevent hives from being buit in unwanted places? Hate to call my exterminator but we want to be able to sit and enjoy our terrace without a bite in the beehind....lol
 
Agreed, call a beekeeper! Or a local bee group who will help you find someone to come and get them. The bees wont actually follow the hive but the beekeeper can move them safely with minimal loss. They can also tell you if they are Africanized.

Many exterminators leave the hive for you to clean up and its a toxic sticky mess and a complete waste of millions of miles of bee travel and hard work! :sad:

The beekeeper will remove the hive and the bees, and most good ones will do it either early in the morning before the bees go out to forage and make sure to get ALL of them. The worst is when the bees return from their 3-5 mile forage run to find all of their sisters dead or their hive gone! Besides being a horrible scenario, it also makes them panic and sting.

There is a lot of publicity in your state about Africanized bees and illegal bee removals, etc. There are companies that remove beehives and scare you into thinking there is no other safe way to do it besides use their service. I encourage you to speak with a beekeeper before making a decision, and ask lots of questions. It they are outside your home, it is not a difficult removal, compared with one that is, for example, in the wall.

I am not sure what time of year the bees visit your yard to scout for location, but when it happened to me (apparently there had been a beehive in my old home and the bees returned one year to rebuild it...) as soon as I found the first scouts, I lit mosquito coils and it discouraged them, they found a new home and did not return.

A beekeeper in your area can help with that, too!

Great thread. I live in South Florida and have lots and lots of bees year round. Frankly, we have a problem with bee hives built under tables in terrace, even under chairs, all over eaves at times, just about anywhere. We have lots of plants they love but have to keep these plants away from front porch and back terrace. Does anyone have any tips on how to prevent hives from being buit in unwanted places? Hate to call my exterminator but we want to be able to sit and enjoy our terrace without a bite in the beehind....lol

Don't call an exterminator.

Call a beekeeper or someone else who can move the hive. The bees will follow.
 
Last night we learned about the "waggle dance"

I always heard and knew that the foraging bee communicates where the food is when she returns to the hive, but I never learned how that happens. Its pretty amazing.

When the forager returns, she gives her sisters (all the foragers are female) a sample of the nectar she got. Then she begins a little dance.

Her dance tells the rest of the foraging bees how far away the food is and in what direction, expressed as an angle in relation to the top of the hive; the top of the hive represents the location of the sun. The distance to the food is expressed by the duration of the waggle part of the dance. Its amazing, particularly considering this is all done in the darkness of the hive! The forager will also adjust the angle to compensate for the changing position of the sun. She also translates distance into time...which is pretty incredible.

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Here is a really short video



:P

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