New Beekeeper in 2024!

[theodoreaallen]

Hi all!

After doing a beekeeping experience earlier this Summer at Albury Vineyard and a few days spent with a beekeeping friend of mine, I have decided to take up the hobby myself in 2024!

I have got my hives (2 Abelo Nationals), all the equipment on order, and located a out apiary (the local fishing club is letting me put my hives next to one of their private fishing lakes).

Really excited to get going!

 

[Erichalfbee]

Welcome. Time to join your local BKA too.
Do you have nucleus colonies on order too? They get snapped up pretty quickly

 

[ericbeaumont]

join your local BKA

Yes, PLI via BBKA membership will demonstrate to the fishing club that you will act responsibly; also sign up now for a full training course, to fill in the gap between your current limited experience and the reality of running colonies.

Make sure that the hive site is hidden and secure from public access, yet accessible to your vehicle and sunshine: avoiding damp locations might be tricky near a lake.

Get hold of a Haynes Bee Manual (£13 online) and let it guide you for the next few years; you will be seduced by YouTube, but stick to Black Mountain Honey, Norfolk Honey Company and Dave Cushman's A-Z beekeeping website.

 

[enrico]

 

[Curly green finger's]

Welcome from me also, I agree with Dani and Eric get your nucs ordered.
Do you have a mentor ?always handy to have one or two to talk to when your not quite sure what to do .

 

[madasafish]

Agree with Haynes Bee Manual. Best book for beginners.

 

[Newbeeneil]

Hi all!

After doing a beekeeping experience earlier this Summer at Albury Vineyard and a few days spent with a beekeeping friend of mine, I have decided to take up the hobby myself in 2024!

I have got my hives (2 Abelo Nationals), all the equipment on order, and located a out apiary (the local fishing club is letting me put my hives next to one of their private fishing lakes).

Really excited to get going!

Good luck with the bees and I hope you will be joining Guildford BKA and getting the benefits of Public liability insurance as suggested by Eric.

If you have a beekeeping friend I'm sure he will be sorting out your bees but if not I know I will have a few nucs available early next year and I'm not a million miles away.

 

[rdartington]

Yes, PLI via BBKA membership will demonstrate to the fishing club that you will act responsibly; also sign up now for a full training course, to fill in the gap between your current limited experience and the reality of running colonies.

Make sure that the hive site is hidden and secure from public access, yet accessible to your vehicle and sunshine: avoiding damp locations might be tricky near a lake.

I know I am prejudiced against BBKA training courses that are run in winter with no contact with bees. But my advice would be to find a beekeeper who would enjoy company and go with him/her at every inspection for at least one year, chatting and asking questions untill all is clear - or perhaps clear that whatever we do, bees continue to do what they do, never-the-less.
When positioning your hives, yes, make sure access to your car is easy as that is where you keep all the extra bits beekeeping today seems to need - at least, according to the suppliers with their huge catalogues. It can be easier to keep an extra box or dustbin near the hives to keep your veil, gloves, and the water spray (no need for a smoker that scares the bees with suggestion of an oncoming forest fire) and water bottle and spare frames - then you can come by bike! A spare box can be padlocked, as can your hives, so perhaps safer than a dustbin but more work making it up. Whatever suits your own life-style.
As to a lakeside location, can anyone on this forum comment on bees flying over water? I read long ago, that bees navigate using polarised light, to which their centre eye is attuned - this enables them to navigate by the sun when under clouds. OK, but here I get forgetful - something like the sun light reflected off water is polarised and this can cause bees to fly upside down over water … and crash.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

no need for a smoker that scares the bees with suggestion of an oncoming forest fire

Not that old fairy tale again, you'll be saying next that they gorge themselves on honey at the first whiff of smoke

can anyone on this forum comment on bees flying over water? I read long ago, that bees navigate using polarised light, to which their centre eye is attuned - this enables them to navigate by the sun when under clouds. OK, but here I get forgetful - something like the sun light reflected off water is polarised and this can cause bees to fly upside down over water … and crash.

Another one for the book of beekeeping myths, magic and bullshine I'm afraid.
Robert Pickard has spoken in depth about the fact that bees orientate to the ground/gravity each morning on leaving the hive, and in all my time working (not as some of my junior crew have hinted,actually walking ) on water I have never experienced there being a difference in gravity on open stretches of water. I've often when fishing from a boat on lakes/reservoirs seen honeybees, bumble bees, dragon and damsel flies, as well as countless other insects fly past me - never once have I witnessed one flying upsidedown

 

[Antipodes]

I know I am prejudiced against BBKA training courses that are run in winter with no contact with bees. But my advice would be to find a beekeeper who would enjoy company and go with him/her at every inspection for at least one year, chatting and asking questions untill all is clear - or perhaps clear that whatever we do, bees continue to do what they do, never-the-less.
When positioning your hives, yes, make sure access to your car is easy as that is where you keep all the extra bits beekeeping today seems to need - at least, according to the suppliers with their huge catalogues. It can be easier to keep an extra box or dustbin near the hives to keep your veil, gloves, and the water spray (no need for a smoker that scares the bees with suggestion of an oncoming forest fire) and water bottle and spare frames - then you can come by bike! A spare box can be padlocked, as can your hives, so perhaps safer than a dustbin but more work making it up. Whatever suits your own life-style.
As to a lakeside location, can anyone on this forum comment on bees flying over water? I read long ago, that bees navigate using polarised light, to which their centre eye is attuned - this enables them to navigate by the sun when under clouds. OK, but here I get forgetful - something like the sun light reflected off water is polarised and this can cause bees to fly upside down over water … and crash.

Interesting about the water. I've seen lots of dead honeybees washed up on a beach. Here are some photos of a section of the beach with the bees. Hundreds of them, perhaps thousands all up...extending for hundreds of metres. Presumably, as they are on the high water mark, they have flown or fallen/flown into the water rather than crawled across the land and over the soft sand, down to the firmer sand.... to then drown themselves in the water.

 

[Antipodes]

Not that old fairy tale again, you'll be saying next that they gorge themselves on honey at the first whiff of smoke

Another one for the book of beekeeping myths, magic and bullshine I'm afraid.
Robert Pickard has spoken in depth about the fact that bees orientate to the ground/gravity each morning on leaving the hive, and in all my time working (not as some of my junior crew have hinted,actually walking ) on water I have never experienced there being a difference in gravity on open stretches of water. I've often when fishing from a boat on lakes/reservoirs seen honeybees, bumble bees, dragon and damsel flies, as well as countless other insects fly past me - never once have I witnessed one flying upsidedown

https://www.tasfish.com/articles/181-trout-fishing/272-bountiful-beetles He says "..beetles can often be seen flying about and falling onto the water..." and further
"I have seen falls so big that huge rafts many beetles thick and tens of metres long have formed in the wind lanes and along exposed shores".
I've also seen bucket loads of them on the shores too. Doesn't make the fishing any easier though!

 

[Pembroke]

Not that old fairy tale again, you'll be saying next that they gorge themselves on honey at the first whiff of smoke

Another one for the book of beekeeping myths, magic and bullshine I'm afraid.
Robert Pickard has spoken in depth about the fact that bees orientate to the ground/gravity each morning on leaving the hive, and in all my time working (not as some of my junior crew have hinted,actually walking ) on water I have never experienced there being a difference in gravity on open stretches of water. I've often when fishing from a boat on lakes/reservoirs seen honeybees, bumble bees, dragon and damsel flies, as well as countless other insects fly past me - never once have I witnessed one flying upsidedown

The only reason a bee wouldn't fly over water is what's the point? Unless they know there's decent forage on the other side why waste the effort flying over just to see? I suppose scout bees might do so?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

The only reason a bee wouldn't fly over water is what's the point

a bee wouldn't fly around an expanse of water or any obstacle they can get over once it knows there's forage the other side would it? I have worked on quite a few large expanses of water around the country (Portsmouth Harbour, Poole Harbour Southampton waters for example) where I have noticed honeybees flying over the water knowing that the only place they could have come from is the opposite shore.

 

[rdartington]

Not that old fairy tale again, you'll be saying next that they gorge themselves on honey at the first whiff of smoke

Yes, that’s right.
The natural reaction to smoke which naturally could only mean a nearby forest fire.
If you take our a frame after smoking you can see the bees with heads into all the open honey cells, yes?

 

[Curly green finger's]

Yes, that’s right.
The natural reaction to smoke which naturally could only mean a nearby forest fire.
If you take our a frame after smoking you can see the bees with heads into all the open honey cells, yes?

As soon as you open a colony up they will have heads down in the frames no smoke needed .

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

If you take our a frame after smoking you can see the bees with heads into all the open honey cells, yes?

you see exactly the same thing if you use no smoke at all.
As usual it's just a fairy tale built on supposition and scanty information
bees stick their heads in cells for a variety of reasons, a bit like customs rummagers on seeing an empty cabin - after checking it, it's a handy place for a nap.

 

[JamezF]

The claim is, I believe, that the smoke causes the bees to fill up on food so they have resources available to abscond to a place of safety in the event that a fire approaches their existing home. But as far as I'm aware there's no evidence that such a thing happens in the wild. Wild colonies are as likely to hunker down and hope for the best (and quite possibly die) in the event of a fire. And, if there is a forest fire, how would an animal such as a bee select a place of safety anyhow? It's not as though another hole in a nearby tree would be likely to be safe.

I suspect that to have genuinely developed such a behaviour would have required forest fires to be so common that building a permanent nest of wax wouldn't be a development that evolution would reward.

[Edit: another point, whilst I remember... Laying queens don't fly very well and there's not much point leaving if they can't take the queen with them.]

James

 

[JamezF]

a bee wouldn't fly around an expanse of water or any obstacle they can get over once it knows there's forage the other side would it? I have worked on quite a few large expanses of water around the country (Portsmouth Harbour, Poole Harbour Southampton waters for example) where I have noticed honeybees flying over the water knowing that the only place they could have come from is the opposite shore.

That's an interesting observation. There's apparently good experimental evidence to suggest that bees "measure" distance using "optic flow" -- the rate at which features pass through their field of view. The suggestion is that bees fail to fly over water reliably because the lack of features means they have no way to judge distance. I guess it's a bit more nuanced than that. (Which probably makes sense, otherwise they'd never manage to get from one side of a large pasture to the other.)

James

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

as far as I'm aware there's no evidence that such a thing happens in the wild.

nor in a man made hive

I suspect that to have genuinely developed such a behaviour would have required forest fires to be so common that building a permanent nest of wax wouldn't be a development that evolution would reward.

unfortunately some cohorts of beekeeping haven't evolved since they dodged the meteor

 

[Antipodes]

That's an interesting observation. There's apparently good experimental evidence to suggest that bees "measure" distance using "optic flow" -- the rate at which features pass through their field of view. The suggestion is that bees fail to fly over water reliably because the lack of features means they have no way to judge distance. I guess it's a bit more nuanced than that. (Which probably makes sense, otherwise they'd never manage to get from one side of a large pasture to the other.)

James

I'd never thought about bees and water until I saw all the dead ones....then the post on here about the vision and it got me wondering about it. Tassie has around 3000 lakes and tarns, and the leatherwood forests surround some enormous ones. Hopefully not too many bees end up flying into the water!
https://www.ourtasmania.com.au/natural-tas-lakes.html