@ld1970

hmonkey

i would like to know about beekeeping.

hmonkey

what is the basic cost of equipment?

what kind of city/state regulation do you have to deal with?

do the neighbors know? have any of them hassled you about it?

how big is your frame?

how much honey/wax do you yield each year?

is this for fun or profit?

VarunaTT

Hmo, I've got a friend who does bees in his backyard.  I sent your questions to him.

PMeg819

Hmo:




Varuna, can you please ask him how you train the bees to do your bidding? I want to command a bee army to attack at times, like when my neighbors smoke outside and throw their cigarette butts in my yard.

VarunaTT

I don't think he can do that b/c he complains bitterly about their attitudes.

Funny sidenote:  When I was first getting to know this person and had just friended him on FB, he had this FB post:

"Apparently the Caucasians don't like me very much, they keep attacking me while the Italians just sit around and don't do anything."

My face was all :O, until I realized he was talking about his bees.  They seems to be named after nationalities for their types.

Heffalump

I have wanted to have a beehive for a long time. 

::waits patiently for answers::

In the meantime, Hmo, Beekeeping for Dummies is informative, and a quick read.

hmonkey

heffalump, i do not appreciate you calling me a dummy.

you have been reported.

VarunaTT

what is the basic cost of equipment?

Bees - $200, Hive body - $200, Gloves, suit, smoker, tools -
$300  You are better off starting with
two hives, but I didn't.  $700 to $1100

 

what kind of city/state regulation do you have to deal with?

None in [where we live].

 

do the neighbors know? have any of them hassled you about
it?

Yes, my neighbors know, but they are a long way away from my
hives.  The woman that sits for J
occasionally has had two in town for years though.

 

how big is your frame?

The Langstrom hive is a standard dimension.  I wouldn't recommend anything else for a
beginner.  I'd have to look it up.

 

how much honey/wax do you yield each year?

It takes two years to start getting honey.  depending on how your hives go, you might get
a liter to a gallon.  My hive gave about
a liter, but they had swarmed and the replacement queen was not good.  As a result, I lost both hives.  That happens a lot.  Hive loss is about 20% most years.

 

is this for fun or profit?

Fun and curiosity.  If
you stick with it for a long time, you might start going positive, but the
people that make money have 20 or more hives. 
My uncle has 180, and that's not a large operation.

LD1970

Sorry, was driving home from work & running errands.  Now I have time while we wait for pizza delivery.

what is the basic cost of equipment?

We bought our stuff from Hudson Valley Beekeepers because it's the nearest to us and we could just drive up there rather than wait for our stuff or deal with shipping.  Costs are obviously somewhat variable depending on your supplier & what you want.

For each hive, we got: three deeps (hive boxes - Langstroth style), one screened bottom board, one entrance reducer, one shim, one feeding bucket, outer cover, inner cover, and two medium supers for honey harvesting.  Our deeps and mediums are 10-frame (some people use 8-frame), and we bought all the woodenware in parts and assembled it ourselves.  It was a bit of a pain in the ass, but only required a hammer & the brads they supplied.  For the frames, we got wax foundation (some people prefer plastic foundation).

Because we put it together ourselves, it was slightly less expensive, approximately $183/hive.

We also got one smoker, one large hive tool, one small hive tool, a bee brush, and a frame rest, which totaled about $72.

I got a jacket, a veil that zips to the jacket ('cause I'm chicken), and elbow-length gloves.  H got a veil and regular work gloves, so the bee-specific clothes were $176.

Then there's the consumables, like the pollen patties, honey-b-healthy (a supplement that goes in the sugar water during the summer), sugar, and fondant.  That's pretty nominal.

We got our nucs for $135 each last year, this year's is $155.  A nuc, if it comes from a reputable apiary, should be 5 full frames of drawn honeycomb, 3-4 of which should be full of brood in all stages (eggs/larvae/pupae), capped honey, pollen, a well-mated laying queen, a slew of workers, and some drones.  You can also get a package (a box of bees) and get a queen separately and queen the colony yourself.  It's less expensive, but a bit more risky because the bees have to take to the queen & not kill her.

what kind of city/state regulation do you have to deal with?

My town & state are very bee friendly.  It mostly depends on local ordinances, but a lot more places are bee friendly than you'd think, even urban areas.  There are beekeepers in Manhattan.

do the neighbors know? have any of them hassled you about it?

No one's hassled us.  I know at least two neighbors know.  Our mayor knows, and is all for it, and I'm on the town's Environmental Commission, so I've actually got a lot of support, but no one's even tried to bitch.  Most people I know in town are actually really excited about it and either want to get into it themselves or are waiting with bated breath to come check out ours and/or buy honey.

how big is your frame?

Each hive is two deeps (plus one more for the feeding bucket in the summer) high, standing on a base two cinderblocks high & a couple big paving stones.

how much honey/wax do you yield each year?

Unless we set up our hives a little differently, we won't get much wax.  All you really get are the caps off the honey frames unless you set it up for the bees to have more room to build extra drone comb.  A good, strong hive can yield 100-200 lbs of honey each year.  I don't expect quite that much.

is this for fun or profit?

Both, hopefully.  It started with a way for H to get over a childhood fear of bees because that's how he handles fear - running into it headfirst & immersing himself.  I got hooked the first time I saw two brand new bees emerge from their cells.  I've grown to find them cute instead of terrifying, and we love the science of it all - the way the whole thing works.  Plus, there's the whole environmental aspect - our pollinator populations are getting decimated, so the more beekeepers the better.  And on top of all that, we have the hives right next to our veggie gardens, so the pollination aspect is great.

We're hoping for a ton of honey, of course, for ourselves and to sell, but at this point, we'll be happy with enough honey for the hobby to pay for itself - we want to be able to continue to pay for more hives, the extractor, etc.  We'd like 3 hives in our yard & then maybe start keeping more in other people's hives.  There are actually a lot of people in the area who want hives but don't want to care for them.

LD1970

VarunaTT said:

I don't think he can do that b/c he complains bitterly about their attitudes.

Funny sidenote:  When I was first getting to know this person and had just friended him on FB, he had this FB post:

"Apparently the Caucasians don't like me very much, they keep attacking me while the Italians just sit around and don't do anything."

My face was all :O, until I realized he was talking about his bees.  They seems to be named after nationalities for their types.

And this made me crack up.  I know exactly what he means, but holy crap when you step back, that sounds terrible.

LD1970

By the way, if anyone's up or wants to record it, CNN has a Morgan Spurlock:  Inside Man about beekeeping at midnight tonight.

Heffalump

hmonkey said:

heffalump, i do not appreciate you calling me a dummy.

you have been reported.

Back atcha, bully.

hmonkey

LD1970 said:

a well-mated laying queen

HEE X 4EVA