• Protip: Profile posts are public! Use Conversations to message other members privately. Everyone can see the content of a profile post.

beekeeping - cover me, i'm going in...

I’ve been looking at your pictures of the frames, wishing I could smell the wax. While woodworking I frequently use beeswax and I’m always taking a whiff. Beeswax is one of the most pleasant of smells and mingles very well with the scent of freshly planed wood.
Man, it sounds like the hives are yielding a lot of honey. It looks like more than just an interesting hobby; it looks like a serious business, or it least it could be. So have you begun selling on the side of the road yet? You could set up between the watermelon guy and the peach lady.

As an aside, a Freddy Mercury movie is in the works (as if you don’t know):

http://www.deadline.com/2010/09/exc...play-queen-singer-freddie-mercury-in-gk-film/
 
queenlives said:
a bit of a season finale harvest update:

it's been a pretty healthy and productive season w/bees and honey in our local area. a professional beek i know (keeps 11 hives @ his home) harvested 168.7 gallons of filtered honey, jarred in quart jars. man, that's a lotta work.

otoh, our 2.5 hives (3, actually, but the 3rd one was created late in the season by combining 3 small swarms) have produced ~ 15 gallons of honey. (rather than capping/extracting the honey, i scrape the comb/honey, then filter it... this means each time i scrape, the bees have to regenerate and rebuild the comb. generally speaking, scraping (vs capping/extracting) is my approach to regulating the amount of hive wooden ware / honey / work i have to deal with. (the bees are the workers, not me)

anyway, on friday i harvested / filtered / jarred 3 gallons of honey... i expect this to be the final harvest of this year and hope to harvest honey in late dec / jan when eucalyptus trees are flowing and the bees begin storing again.

here's a pic of our latest harvest, labeled "2010 Season Finale". If you're interested, click the pic to enlarge it and you can see the difference in honey coloring... we've got a nice variety of light, medium and dark... each with a slightly different viscosity and flavor. the differences in honey are attributed to source of nectar gathered, comb nectar was stored in (freshly drawn or older or "brood box" comb, and age / moisture content. i tested each batch with a calibrated honey refractometer and found moisture content to be 16.25%... a nice, "dry" honey, if you will :)
Click to expand...

Now I know you're going to think this is really weird, but it's true. I guess you could call it a strange coincidence. Now I know you're going to come up tomorrow and we're going to have lunch. Well, just this weekend, the Board of Governors at my condo had their monthly meeting. One item on the agenda was non-residents parking in the garage. Well, now this is really a strange coincidence, but they voted that non-residents can't park in the garage UNLESS they have a jar of honey as a contribution. Is that weird or what? See ya tomorrow.:biggrin:

P.S. You know it's almost impossible to park on the street and the meter maids are cruel.
 
Last edited:
Dtrigg said:
Now I know you're going to think this is really weird, but it's true. I guess you could call it a strange coincidence. Now I know you're going to come up tomorrow and we're going to have lunch. Well, just this weekend, the Board of Governors at my condo had their monthly meeting. One item on the agenda was non-residents parking in the garage. Well, now this is really a strange coincidence, but they voted that non-residents can't park in the garage UNLESS they have a jar of honey as a contribution. Is that weird or what? See ya tomorrow.:biggrin:

P.S. You know it's almost impossible to park on the street and the meter maids are cruel.
Click to expand...
what an UH-mazing coincidence - i was going to bring a jar of honey to feed the, er, "gods".
 
gdae said:
I’ve been looking at your pictures of the frames, wishing I could smell the wax. While woodworking I frequently use beeswax and I’m always taking a whiff. Beeswax is one of the most pleasant of smells and mingles very well with the scent of freshly planed wood.
Man, it sounds like the hives are yielding a lot of honey. It looks like more than just an interesting hobby; it looks like a serious business, or it least it could be. So have you begun selling on the side of the road yet? You could set up between the watermelon guy and the peach lady.

As an aside, a Freddy Mercury movie is in the works (as if you don’t know):

http://www.deadline.com/2010/09/exc...play-queen-singer-freddie-mercury-in-gk-film/
Click to expand...
fresh beeswax does have a nice scent to it, especially how i prepare mine: melt it down with a bit of honey / water in it... it retains a nice honey fragrance; left outside, the bees are immediately drawn to it.

our hives have done reasonably well this year... actually, most beeks in the area who have retained their colonies have had a good harvest year... lots of flowering plants appear to have had their nectar seasons extended by the cooler / weather wetter than normal.

as for taking it past the hobby, nope, i'm not keen on selling it; if / when my friends ask about it, i'm happy to give them some relative to the amount i have in my pantry / time to next harvest, etc... "donations" are always welcome to pay for jars, wooden ware, etc, but never solicited.

except chops and doug: they pay through the nose!

(edit: i forgot to address your sasha / freddie note: yep, been listening to that rumor for the past year or so and thought it interesting when brian confirmed it recently. i'm not a sasha fan, but have to say he could be the guy to do justice to the role of freddie. when i told my wife about it, she said: "he damned well better do a good job". we take queen / fred pretty seriously around here ;)
 
Last edited:
it appears as though a new colony has swarmed to my empty hive this morning... for those interested, i've posted a bit of text / vid @ our family / friends blog.

heads-up to any of you who may be considering keeping bees: there's a wonderful new book entitled, "Honeybee Democracy", that i heartily recommend you read before you begin to keep bees. lots and *lots* of very interesting details about how a honeybee colony decides where to live.
 
I didn't read this whole thread, so if this was discussed, I apologize. I've been hearing a lot of ads for bee pollen lately. Any benefits?
 
Yeah, Doug already tried this. It turned black and fell off.
 
Do you have any thoughts on Raw Organic Manuka Honey? I know a good number of credible people that swear this stuff is the second coming due to some of it's health benefits (topically and when injested).
 
nsxtasy said:
I KNEW you had some other reason for your username! I absolutely refused to believe that anyone could actually like that dreadful rock band, and now it turns out I was right! :biggrin:
Click to expand...
hahahahahaha, my use of queenlives on the internet preceded my learning to keep bees by 14 years but - HEY, WAIT - WHAT BAND ARE YOU CALLING DREADFUL???!!!

as freddie said, "i'm just a musical prostitute, my dear." :eek:

speaking of beekeeping, here in the US and much of the world, it is now "bee season" ... which doesn't mean we need to get a license to hunt them, but rather now is when then hives are in serious population explosion mode. weather permitting, we should see some pretty serious swarming over the next month or two, which also means that those in the know will get some free bees ... and some will also have their hives swarm.

sigh. sometimes, the same person will experience both of these things.

(and let's not forget that during this same period of time the bees are bringing in lots of nectar / honey for their colony and keepers.)

QueenLives!
 
Sig said:
Do you have any thoughts on Raw Organic Manuka Honey? I know a good number of credible people that swear this stuff is the second coming due to some of it's health benefits (topically and when injested).
Click to expand...
sig,

i'm unfamiliar with manuka honey (or any other specific type of honey) but will say that when i have a "normal" cut on my limbs i will often put a bit of either antibacterial creme or honey on it to minimize infection ... the honey seems to work pretty well, though i don't have any scientific basis for my thinking.

your ? got me thinking so i checked out wikipedia on manuka honey ... interesting information posted, though i don't necessarily consider wikipedia a source of credible information.

i rarely ate honey before becoming a hobbyist beek; now i have at least a teaspoon every day in my coffee, during the summer our iced tea is sweetened with our honey and we'll also make several cases of our jams'n'jellies (w/fruit from our trees). raw honey typically has a great flavor (though i've got ~1 gallon of VERY DARK - think STOUT beer - honey from the final '10 harvest) and i appreciate that it came from our own hives.

remember: do NOT feed raw honey to a child of < 1 year of age!
 
Sig said:
After I heard a 4th unrelated person speak highly of raw manuka honey, I decided to look into the stuff a bit. Some folks definitely found religion with this stuff... and the prices back it up;)
Here is an amazon link to what seems like one of the more popular brands, take a look at the customer reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/Wedderspoon-Organic-Manuka-Active-17-6-Ounce/dp/B000VK08OC/ref=pd_sim_hpc_1
Click to expand...
enthusiastic internet endorsements aside, i'd love to read the results from a quality scientific study on this stuff. nothing like religious fervor to jack prices up.

you can buy our local honey (not mine, i don't sell) that will clean the air in your house and give you a woody that you'll need to buff with a shoe shine kit :eek: and our local beeks only charge $15 a qt.

of course, it won't cure cancer :tongue:
 
queenlives said:
enthusiastic internet endorsements aside, i'd love to read the results from a quality scientific study on this stuff. nothing like religious fervor to jack prices up.

you can buy our local honey (not mine, i don't sell) that will clean the air in your house and give you a woody that you'll need to buff with a shoe shine kit :eek: and our local beeks only charge $15 a qt.

of course, it won't cure cancer :tongue:
Click to expand...

Really....... Do you know where someone out of state might be able to buy some? It's for a friend......
 
White92 said:
... It's for a friend......
Click to expand...
uh, sure ... i can have it shipped to your house (just so HE's not embarrassed) in a plain brown paper bag.

want me to throw in an extra shoe shine kit, too, "just in case"? :redface:
 
my beek mentor (and bee guild swarm list participant) called me on saturday morning and said he'd gotten a small swarm, would i like it? yep, bring it on over. about a half hour later, a modest little swarm (including queen) was installed in a freshly rebuilt single box hive.

a couple of hours later he was on our doorstep saying he had yet another swarm - this time a large one - would I like it? sure, c'mon in! i took a few minutes to set that hive (two deep broods) and soon after had that hive (including queen) installed.

early this morning he called and said he had yet another swarm to capture, would I like to come out and play? yep, I'm ready - let's go! so we headed down the street about a half mile from my house and recovered another modest little swarm (including queen), brought them home and placed them in a second story brood on the single box hive (remembering to put a layer of newspaper between the two colonies so they can familiarize themselves into becoming one colony).

so there you have it: we're back to three hives that will, hopefully, settle in nicely and take care of the neighborhood trees and plants and provide us with honey in a few months. i love it when a plan comes together!

cover me, i'm going in :)
 
i did a quick inspection of my hives about a week ago and decided to harvest the capped honey as soon as the weather warmed up.

today it warmed up so i headed out, pulled 14 frames of capped honey from 2 medium boxes, then replaced the boxes as appropriate. i put the frames in my large igloo cooler w/wheels and brought it in to the kitchen to scrape the frames. that only took ~1 hr, so i put the cleaned frames back in the cooler, went outside, suited up and replaced the frames in their boxes and the boxes on the hive, leaving the cooler (and the ~1/2" of honey in the bottom) in the closed position; in the morning @ early light, i'll open up the cooler and let the bees reclaim their honey. in the meantime, tonight they'll be cleaning up the just-harvested frames and placing *that* loose honey (reminds me of a girl i dated while i was a GI ;) in the cells that need filling. since the replacement honey was already capped, it's @ the right moisture content to cap immediately. by the end of tomorrow, they should have cleaned the honey out of the cooler so i'll wash that and put it away for next time.

now, where was i ... oh yeah, right now the harvested honey is straining through a couple of heavy fruit strainers and later tonight i'll jar maybe 3-4 gallons of fresh, spring honey. mmmmmmmmmmm

suh-weet hobby :biggrin:
 
Last edited:
queenlives said:
i did a quick inspection of my hives about a week ago and decided to harvest the capped honey as soon as the weather warmed up.

today it warmed up so i headed out, pulled 14 frames of capped honey from 2 medium boxes, then replaced the boxes as appropriate. i put the frames in my large igloo cooler w/wheels and brought it in to the kitchen to scrape the frames. that only took ~1 hr, so i put the cleaned frames back in the cooler, went outside, suited up and replaced the frames in their boxes and the boxes on the hive, leaving the cooler (and the ~1/2" of honey in the bottom) in the closed position; in the morning @ early light, i'll open up the cooler and let the bees reclaim their honey. in the meantime, tonight they'll be cleaning up the just-harvested frames and placing *that* loose honey (reminds me of a girl i dated while i was a GI ;) in the cells that need filling. since the replacement honey was already capped, it's @ the right moisture content to cap immediately. by the end of tomorrow, they should have cleaned the honey out of the cooler so i'll wash that and put it away for next time.

now, where was i ... oh yeah, right now the harvested honey is straining through a couple of heavy fruit strainers and later tonight i'll jar maybe 3-4 gallons of fresh, spring honey. mmmmmmmmmmm

suh-weet hobby :biggrin:
Click to expand...

....................... and local, for those allergies! :biggrin:
 
passline said:
....................... and local, for those allergies! :biggrin:
Click to expand...

Yep ... When people find out I keep bees, they all want to buy my honey for that purpose. Friend of mine will sell 200+ gals @ $80 gal - most for allergy folks.
 
Any beekeepers still active here? One of my best friends in PGH is pretty heavily involved with beekeeping now. After trying the honey he cultivates I threw away the tasteless pasteurized poison I had in my kitchen. :) I noticed queenlives avatar and it piqued my curiosity about beekeeping action here on Prime.
 
Yinzer said:
Any beekeepers still active here? One of my best friends in PGH is pretty heavily involved with beekeeping now. After trying the honey he cultivates I threw away the tasteless pasteurized poison I had in my kitchen. :) I noticed queenlives avatar and it piqued my curiosity about beekeeping action here on Prime.
Click to expand...
greetings,

i don't spend much time on prime these days, but i'm still a very active beekeeper ... i'm unaware of any other primers who are beeks, though they may just be staying in the hive ;)

3 weeks ago i harvested 11.5 gallons of very nice honey from my 3 (small) hives. as you have discovered, store-bought or pasteurized honey bears little resemblance to local, lightly/unfiltered honey. (keep in mind there are seasonal and hive / bee breed variations of honey).

the best book i know of for a beginning beek is "beekeeping for dummies" and the best online forum is beemaster.com, though it follows typical forum behavior in that when you ask a question you'll get differing / opposing feedback.

you're welcome to post more ?'s here if you like and i'll check back / respond as appropriate.

best,
hal
 
Hal, Thanks for the reply. I'm not a beekeeper, my buddy is. I'm honey eater though. I really asked just out of pure curiosity since I saw your avatar. Maybe I'll bring my buddy out to road trip home if I find my eventual NSX in CA. :)

I'd encourage any Prime member reading this though to buy your or any natural/pure honey and kindly feed any pasteurized store bought honey to your trash. I was never a big honey fan until trying his!

Here's some stuff that he's been involved in this summer, really interesting stuff.

Video link here: bees swarm the wing of a Delta plane a few weeks ago:

http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2012/08/02/bees-delay-flight-at-pittsburgh-international-airport/

Upcoming documentary. Someone in Pittsburgh who had bees removed from his home decided to make a movie.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sellington/portrait-of-an-urban-beekeeper

<iframe frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sellington/portrait-of-an-urban-beekeeper/widget/video.html" width="480"></iframe>

More cool preview videos of the documentary project here:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sellington/portrait-of-an-urban-beekeeper/posts/249427

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sellington/portrait-of-an-urban-beekeeper/posts/251604
 

Similar threads

kevie_p
99 MCB "Reimagined"
2 3
Replies
70
Views
6K
Honcho
Honcho
MotorMouth93
High Compression 3.2L Engine Build
2 3
Replies
59
Views
8K
MotorMouth93
MotorMouth93
91rednsx
BEWARE: 2017 ACURA NSX @ MOTORCARS OF JACKSON Located In Mississippi
2 3
Replies
56
Views
18K
Droptopp
Droptopp
S
Need to find a great NSX mechanic in South Florida . . . . .
Replies
2
Views
898
NSamX
NSamX
MotorMouth93
NA1 MLS Head Gasket Conversion Thread
Replies
0
Views
1K
MotorMouth93
MotorMouth93
Back
Top