We have just set up a Community Farm and Garden in Manchester and decided to keep bees.
In researching it we found a bewildering, sometimes overwhelming and contradictory amount of advice, so this is designed for those that are in the same position as us and to watch our progress, mistakes and disasters (hopefully few and far between) and for all the old lags to offer their advice, someone to laugh at, someone to tut tut at or just plain old entertainment value.
If the moderators feel this is inappropriate then please feel free to delete it, but we hope it will genuinely help other people in a similar situation to learn from our mistakes and watch the progress of the bees, apairy and knowledge.
Getting Started
Well it seemed like a good idea at the time, but we had no experience of beekeeping, no knowledge other than they sting and give honey. We had and very much still have the fear and apprehension of getting stung.
So we thought we better get some idea before jumping into the deep end, so we went on a beekeeping theory course and like most people learnt a lot, forgot a bit more and got confused about some things. However we all found it fascinating and were sure we had made the right decision on keeping bees.
Choices, Choices, Choices.
This has probably been said a thousand times before but why the hell are there so many choices, all with their pro's and con's matter of personal preference etc. (thats a big help when you haven't a clue what your preference might be). You could go on forever deciding what clothing, tools and hives to get and still wonder whether you made the right decision or not. We neither had the time or inclination to do this so we made our minds up very quickly.
Clothing
Personal preference would of been a suit of armour, but a bit impractical, so we went full beesuits from a well known company.
In addition we bought:-
2 Smokers
Knives
Hive Tools - 3 different types as we wanted to have a choice get a feel for each tool
Brush
Decapping forks
Hives
Well this is where it gets interesting, type, material, configuration my head hurts thinking about it.
As National as most popular in this area and thats what most of the Nucs come on we decided on Nationals, that was the easy bit. The configuration was another debate in itself, Normal Brood Box, 14 x 12, Brood & half, Double Brood, how many Supers, what kind of Floor, Queen Excluder, Roof, Cover Board, the list seemed endless. The material was another Hardwood, Softwood, Plywood or Poly, then Flat Pack or Assembled and 1st Grade or 2nd's.
The final decision was made on a number of factors that most starters won't necessarily take into account. We needed to be flexible in our approach to beekeeping , so no real heavy lifting, the Hives also needed to be pleasing to the eye. We also bought these with a grant from Big Lottery so money was not such an issue as a personal start up, although we needed a good price and show good value for money, for good quality equipment.
We spoke to a fair few suppliers, some nice some not so nice and in the end we were recommended one by another supplier who was packing up, so we ended up picking that supplier who is well known on this forum.
In the end we went for:-
Cedar
Double Brood
Wire Mesh Floor
3 Supers
Framed Queen Excluder
Gabled Roof (aesthetic reasons)
Which Bees?
This was worse than the hive, Normal Nuc, Overwintered Nuc, what breed, who from etc.,etc. My personal preference would of been for bees without stings, surely with GM everything its not beyond the wit of man to do this, alas not to be.
The first decision was the easy one around what type of Nuc, as we needed something early as we needed to get something on site, strong and more prone to put up with our mistakes and still survive (hopefully) we decided on overwintered Nucs. The breed was a different proposition, we wanted the best chance of a quiet bee that would do well given our site has public access aswell, so after a lot of questions and looking around the internet we decided on Buckfast as the general consensus seems to be that we had a better chance with these.
Thats enough for the 1st post as people are probably already bored will put up pictures of gear next post.
In researching it we found a bewildering, sometimes overwhelming and contradictory amount of advice, so this is designed for those that are in the same position as us and to watch our progress, mistakes and disasters (hopefully few and far between) and for all the old lags to offer their advice, someone to laugh at, someone to tut tut at or just plain old entertainment value.
If the moderators feel this is inappropriate then please feel free to delete it, but we hope it will genuinely help other people in a similar situation to learn from our mistakes and watch the progress of the bees, apairy and knowledge.
Getting Started
Well it seemed like a good idea at the time, but we had no experience of beekeeping, no knowledge other than they sting and give honey. We had and very much still have the fear and apprehension of getting stung.
So we thought we better get some idea before jumping into the deep end, so we went on a beekeeping theory course and like most people learnt a lot, forgot a bit more and got confused about some things. However we all found it fascinating and were sure we had made the right decision on keeping bees.
Choices, Choices, Choices.
This has probably been said a thousand times before but why the hell are there so many choices, all with their pro's and con's matter of personal preference etc. (thats a big help when you haven't a clue what your preference might be). You could go on forever deciding what clothing, tools and hives to get and still wonder whether you made the right decision or not. We neither had the time or inclination to do this so we made our minds up very quickly.
Clothing
Personal preference would of been a suit of armour, but a bit impractical, so we went full beesuits from a well known company.
In addition we bought:-
2 Smokers
Knives
Hive Tools - 3 different types as we wanted to have a choice get a feel for each tool
Brush
Decapping forks
Hives
Well this is where it gets interesting, type, material, configuration my head hurts thinking about it.
As National as most popular in this area and thats what most of the Nucs come on we decided on Nationals, that was the easy bit. The configuration was another debate in itself, Normal Brood Box, 14 x 12, Brood & half, Double Brood, how many Supers, what kind of Floor, Queen Excluder, Roof, Cover Board, the list seemed endless. The material was another Hardwood, Softwood, Plywood or Poly, then Flat Pack or Assembled and 1st Grade or 2nd's.
The final decision was made on a number of factors that most starters won't necessarily take into account. We needed to be flexible in our approach to beekeeping , so no real heavy lifting, the Hives also needed to be pleasing to the eye. We also bought these with a grant from Big Lottery so money was not such an issue as a personal start up, although we needed a good price and show good value for money, for good quality equipment.
We spoke to a fair few suppliers, some nice some not so nice and in the end we were recommended one by another supplier who was packing up, so we ended up picking that supplier who is well known on this forum.
In the end we went for:-
Cedar
Double Brood
Wire Mesh Floor
3 Supers
Framed Queen Excluder
Gabled Roof (aesthetic reasons)
Which Bees?
This was worse than the hive, Normal Nuc, Overwintered Nuc, what breed, who from etc.,etc. My personal preference would of been for bees without stings, surely with GM everything its not beyond the wit of man to do this, alas not to be.
The first decision was the easy one around what type of Nuc, as we needed something early as we needed to get something on site, strong and more prone to put up with our mistakes and still survive (hopefully) we decided on overwintered Nucs. The breed was a different proposition, we wanted the best chance of a quiet bee that would do well given our site has public access aswell, so after a lot of questions and looking around the internet we decided on Buckfast as the general consensus seems to be that we had a better chance with these.
Thats enough for the 1st post as people are probably already bored will put up pictures of gear next post.
