Thread: Beekeeping

I've been keeping bees for the last 8 years. It is wonderful. Last year I made a mead (my second go at it) and it turned out excellent. My small apiary is in my backyard in a residential neighborhood.
Word of advice; don't tell your neighbors.
Paul

Originally Posted by Paulbuck

I've been keeping bees for the last 8 years. It is wonderful. Last year I made a mead (my second go at it) and it turned out excellent. My small apiary is in my backyard in a residential neighborhood.
Word of advice; don't tell your neighbors.
Paul

I,m waiting till the honey gets going, but I've bought my supplies for mead, if you got any good recipes pm me. Thanks. Tc

Originally Posted by tcrideshd

I,m waiting till the honey gets going, but I've bought my supplies for mead, if you got any good recipes pm me. Thanks. Tc

If you have a good recipe share it here! LOL

Originally Posted by 32t

If you have a good recipe share it here! LOL

I shared this with Tom and thought I post it for the forum here:
I have a tale to two meads:
The first batch I used a Cote D' Rhone yeast and I was shooting for a semi-dry mead (dry, semi-dry and wet, wet is cloying to me. Semi-dry is like a nice white wine). It had a peppermint after taste that was a bit medicinal for me but it was a beautiful, clear mead that was around 12 % alc. I was really happy with how it came out despite the slight medicinal taste.
The second batch I used an early spring harvest honey and a generic mead yeast. We got a little lit during the brewing and messed up the ratio a bit. The mead taste amazing but the alc. was only about 7 %. It never cleared up like the first one so a bit cloudy looking.
I do a 5 gallon batch and use about 12 pounds of honey. Water, yeast, honey. After it ferments see if you can crash the temperature to help with the clarity.
Are you sourcing your honey from elsewhere? Make sure it is not star thistle honey; great tasting honey but supposedly makes the mead taste like wet socks. See if you can get a nice light honey from a spring harvest.

I live in the city and it isn't worth the trouble in my opinion to keep bees at home. $75 initial permit fee and $28 yearly renewal.
75% of your neighbors within a certain distance have to sign a release. And then you have the following that is to much to type....
https://www.stpaul.gov/sites/default...egulations.pdf
My wife and next door neighbor are allergic to them also.

I have plenty of friends that are closer but I think that my best option is some camping land that I own that is 60 miles away. I am not going to drive that far for 1 hive so I was thinking 3. And then to buy Carolina or Italian bees. From what I understand the Carolinian are calmer but the Italians make more honey. I couldn't make up my mind so I decided to try 2 of each. I hope to get my two sons interested so if they go camping for the weekend they can check and do what is needed and save a trip for me.

My goal this year is to have them alive at this time next year. If you read about all the mites diseases and pesticides etc. that can go wrong it could easily scare you that that might not happen. A coworker that is into bees kills off most of his hives every fall. The $138 for a new batch of bees is cheaper than the honey it takes to winter them. That is more of a business point of view and I don't see myself doing at this time that but I was raised on a farm and for example butchered many milk cows that weren't economical anymore so I can understand. Also I will not name my bees because then you can get to attached to them.

It is going to cost me about $500 a hive to get them going so it isn't a cheap thing. I am not going top of the line either. That first quart of honey is going to be pretty expensive!

Enough typing for me for now. I have much to learn and relearn about bees.

Tim