2 Bees or 50,000 Bees, That is the question?

Having had a fascination with the whole, “man can not exist without bees” thing, I got curious about why. In fact it’s all pollinators that are being spoken about here. Without pollinators the planets plants cannot multiply. This would leave us and other animals without food.

So we associate bees as contributing to the survival of life on our planet. All insects and  many  birds  get stuck in to pollination including  the  common  annoying  fly.  The  diffidence  between  other  insects  that  pollinate and  the  honeybees  is  that  the  bee  builds  a  colony around  the  supply  that  plants  give  them.

Honeybees  are  not  really  in  trouble  because  man  has  worked  to  understand  their  world  and  for  his  own  good  encouraged  them  to  thrive.  However  there are thousands of different bees and its more the non honeybees that are in trouble as their natural environment has  been slowly eroded for  at  least  200  years.

The  bees  we  love  to  see  are  the  great  big  fat  bumble  bees.  The  other  bees  we  see  and   assume  to  be  honey  bees  could  easily  be  solitary bees.  All  of  these  bees  are  so  important  as  they  are  working  to  feed  themselves  and  fertilising plants  at  the  same  time.

I  became  interested  in  beekeeping  after  mounting  solitary  bee  hotels  on  a  sunny  garden  wall  and  being  fascinated  by  their  enthusiasm  for  life.  On  a  sunny  day  I  could  watch  them  for  hours  entering  the  holes  in  the  hotel  to  lay  eggs.  It’s  great  because  there  is  no  beekeeping  involved.  They  do  it  all  themselves.  I  would  recommend for  everyone  to  set  one  up  on  their  balcony,  in  their  courtyard  or  garden.

So  in  September  of  2021  I  decided  I  wanted  to  look  after  Honybees.

I purchased a WBC hive, tools, a bee suit along  with  all  the  paraphernalia  I  would  need.  I  also  ordered  a  nucleus  of  bees  which  would  be  ready  for  collection  in  the  spring. 

I read about 5 books and took 3 online courses.       

I didn’t want to put my bees on a plot of land  in the middle of nowhere and just visit them once or twice a week. I wanted them at home where I could observe them going about their business.

My problem or so I thought was  that I live in a highly populated area. The middle of the Old Town in fact. Based on the fact that when bees leave the hive they have one thing on their mind and that is to forage.  I investigated wether they would be a nuisance to my neighbours.

The bees leave the hive rising at 30 degrease and return at the same trajectory.  The  answer  was  to  put  the  hive  high  up  so  as  they  would  not  come  into  contact  with  anyone.

UP  ON  THE  SHED  ROOF

To  date  only  my  partner  (could  have  been  anybodies  bee) ,  Elmo  the  dog  (he  stood  on  one  and  limped  about  feeling  sorry  for  himself  for  a  couple  of  hours)  and  I  have  been  stung  once  and  that  was  through  inexperience. My  neighbours have  not  been  troubled.

  My  plan  with  this  site  is  to  share  the experience  of  a  new  beekeeper  as  I  develope  my  skills  and  knowledge  so  as  others  might  become  interested.  If  all  goes  well  there should  be  some   honey  available  at  some  stage  but  we  will  have  to  see  how  successful  my  hobby  becomes.  I  would  also  point  out  that  this  is  purely  a  hobby  and  on  this  scale  there  is  no  opportunity to  create  an  income.

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