This sounds like a great horror film - but it's probably been made, hasn't it?
A little girl said monsters were in her bedroom. It was 60,000 bees - BBC News
This sounds like a great horror film - but it's probably been made, hasn't it?
A little girl said monsters were in her bedroom. It was 60,000 bees - BBC News
I've always been fascinated by honey bees. One day, I'd love to have a couple of hives.
Until then, I follow this guy on YouTube. He digs them out of just about anything you can imagine.
I keep bees.
Movies have given people an irrational fear of them. Although I wholeheartedly approve of them stinging McCauley Culkin to death in My Girl.
Wasps and hornets are complete shiny happy people but bees are quite pleasant to have around.
I've even knocked over a hive by accident and put it back together with just my veil and jacket. No full suit, no smoker, no gloves and no stings.
In reply to ShawnG :
I wouldn't mind keeping bees. I don't even particularly want the honey; I just want to make a good safe home for a batch of pollinators. Maybe when I retire.
How much upkeep is it if you're basically just providing a bee house?
In reply to Duke :
Spring and summer you're inspecting the hive regularly. Once a week or so when you're learning. I only do it once a month or so now. It's better to not disturb them.
You may need to treat for mites in the spring and fall.
Late summer is when you harvest honey, you can get pretty busy then.
Winter. Rest, learn about bees, build and fix equipment.
I'd say I spend an hour a month per hive doing bee stuff.
Some people are more involved than I like to be. I've found that if you leave nature alone, it does a pretty good job taking care of itself.
The book "beekeeping for dummies" is pretty good if you want to learn.
More un-bee-leivable developments:
Bee invasion delay forces Diamondbacks to scratch Jordan Montgomery vs. Dodgers (yahoo.com)
Beehives are surprisingly fragile. My beekeeper friends are always dealing with things like mites and diseases. Then there's thieves. One of them had a hive poached the other day.
Duke said:In reply to ShawnG :
I wouldn't mind keeping bees. I don't even particularly want the honey; I just want to make a good safe home for a batch of pollinators. Maybe when I retire.
How much upkeep is it if you're basically just providing a bee house?
Start now. Today.
You don't even need the hive. Go around your yard and identify every plant there. If any of them are invasive or non-native to your area, lose em.
Now buy as many native local plants as you can and fill your yard with them.
Give it a season, your yard will be filled with bees, butterflies and songbirds.
AClockworkGarage said:
Go around your yard and identify every plant there. If any of them are invasive or non-native to your area, lose em.
It sometimes seems like everything is invasive these days...I was just reading the other day about hammerhead flatworms. They can grow up to three feet long and if you cut them into little pieces, every piece grows back into a complete new worm. And to top it off they're creepy and gross looking.
In reply to AClockworkGarage :
Oh, I don't have any non-native plants planted. I don't treat my grass with anything so it's full of dandelions and violets and buttercups, even honeysuckle. I have a whole hedge of rose-of-sharon that flowers every summer.
The university out here is experimenting with native bumblebees for crop pollination. There's a field I drive by that's full of these little blue huts they put of the ground bees nests (the university places the huts, not the bees).
Keep an eye out for bumblebee nests around your property, they'll be in piles of plant debris, holes in the ground, etc. Make sure you don't mow them or disturb them and you'll be all good. I like watching the bumblebees stumble around in the garden, they can be pretty entertaining.
In reply to Datsun240ZGuy :
IIRC, that's a hummingbird moth. We get them around the house as well as hummingbirds.
I've got a couple of hives, plus at least two colonies of local bees. I'm very hands-off (really too hands-off) with my hives, I'm more of a bee landlord than a bee keeper and we don't harvest much honey. I enjoy watching them buzz around the hive. The garden loves them and the constant buzz makes it feel alive.
One of the wild colonies are metallic green sweat bees. Not sure what the other one is other than it's in the woodpile that we don't use :)
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