[AlexInLincs]

Hi
My family would love to keep some bees on our small holding both for the honey and to protect the bee population.  We know very little about keeping them (everyone has to start somewhere!) so could someone provide an honest assessment of the following:

1. How much time do you need to dedicate to maintaining the hive?

2. How much space do you need to site the hive?

3. What sort of factors do you need to consider when siting the hive?

[ruives]

Hi, I have kept bee's for a couple of years now and have found them one of the easiest things on our smallholding to keep.

I found that the first few years I was very eager to get into the hive and see what was going on.  Which was time consuming but each year I try to go in less and less, I work on the theory that if I open up the hive some of the bee's will sting me and thus die!!  Not what you are wanting if your trying to build up a hive.

It took a while to realise but as long as you go into the hive every 7 to 10 days during the May to August to check the hive is not swarming the only other major job to do is taking off the surplus honey at the end of June (rapeseed) or August (heather).  This can take a couple of hours for comb honey and jar honey takes a lot longer, you have to strain the honey and if it is rape, it needs to set and then heated slowly and beaten to put air into it to stop the honey setting too quickly once jarred off.

Siting the hive, the only advice I really had was not under any trees where dripping water onto the hive can aggravate the bee's.  I have mine all south facing and I protect them during the winter with wind proofing to reduce the cold air getting into them.  I also have a friend who has some bee's in his back garden.

Something I was told is that bee's hate horses and Billy goats, think  it is the smell.  I have kept my bee's away from my livestock just in case.  I have also heard about hens tapping on the bee hives can agitate the bee's enough so that they came out and stung the hens to death!!

Bee's also hate lawnmowers and strimmers, it's not been the first time I've cut the back grass with vale and gloves on

Like I said at the start, beekeeping to me has been the least time consuming out of all my hobbies, however, I would like to stress that I am a beekeeper before I am a honey producer, you cannot get honey without bee's!!

I have also found that the local club has been a great source of information and somewhere you might be able to get secondhand equipment from (it is surprising how much smokers, vales, hives, etc cost!!)

Hope this has helped your decision?

[AlexInLincs]

Thanks very much for taking your time to reply- that's all really useful information. From what you say it sounds like we can keep bees! Now where to site that hive......

[Greenerlife]

I am also in my second season of beekeeping and find it mesmerising!  I went to a local beekeeping society to learn, and they did a Learner package where you can run a small hive for a year in their apiary and then take it away for the following year if you wanted.  I think it teaches you how much responsibility to feel! 

This year, I am helping a friend who has 20 years experience beekeping but also has just had a major operation on a torn shoulder muscle so cannot lift anything!  It has felt like a baptism of fire.  I have learnt more in the last 4 weeks than I felt I could in a couple of years practising myself.  I have taken swarms (he is on the local council list) rehomed them.  Had three swarms of my own to cope with (careless)  taken queen cells and reared them independently and rehoused them with other colonies - great stuff!

I put one hive in my back garden (you don't need much space but remember you will have to have space next to the hive - preferably flat - which is clear to place hive parts as you disassemble to do inspections.  Don't do what I did and put it on an area of bark chips!  It sticks to everything!  I think there is a lot of hoo ha about the placement of hives and which direction they should face.  My bee society say that it is a good idea to have them face into a hedge as that way they go up when they come out.  I went with what looked pretty and sensisble!    In my field, I have just put another hive up - it is quite exposed, but I am going to put a fence in front of it for shelter.  It is south facing but under shade of trees behind.

In terms of how much time is required I think it depends on what you want out of it.  The honey production takes quite a while, but inspections take about half an hour for my home hives.  The other ones are taking up about 3 hours a week but that is probably because they are large colonies and there are a lot of them!

In Austria they apparently get tax reductions if they plant hanging baskets outside their houses which encourages prettyness, so I think we should campaign to get something similar here for beekeepers!  After all, we are trying to save the planet one bee at a time aren't we?  (And, actually it isn't a cheap hobby either if you start with new stuff)

Go for it!