Hello from Tennessee

Started by HornesBee, December 12, 2010, 11:35:10 AM

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HornesBee

December 12, 2010, 11:35:10 AM
Hello All,

I am a newbee to beekeeping. I have been reading about beekeeping on and off for a couple years and am starting with 3 colonies in spring.

It is my plan to use no chemicals and no artificial feeding.
My wife and I will have a small organic farm and need the bees for pollination, and the honey too!

Also plan to go foundation less. Using home made Warre' type hives and maybe a modified KTB hive.

I guess the key word is "plan" ?

Beeing new, I have so much to learn. And have been lurking in the background here absorbing some of the great wealth that is here by so many.

Thank You for a great source of information!!

Keith
 

iddee

#1
December 12, 2010, 12:18:01 PM
>>>It is my plan to use no chemicals and no artificial feeding.
My wife and I will have a small organic farm and need the bees for pollination, and the honey too!<<<

Unless you have a source for especially resistant bees, be ready to replace them yearly. One of the first things you will find when researching "no treatment" beekeeping, is that you will lose the majority of your hives until resistance is bred in.

Welcome, and good luck.
"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me . . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be"

*Shel Silverstein*

Jim134

#2
December 12, 2010, 01:22:38 PM
Quote from: HornesBee on December 12, 2010, 11:35:10 AM


I am a newbee to beekeeping. I have been reading about beekeeping on and off for a couple years and am starting with 3 colonies in spring.

It is my plan to use no chemicals and no artificial feeding.
Also plan to go foundation less. Using home made Warre' type hives and maybe a modified KTB hive.

Keith
 


If   you starting packages, swarm, cutout or nuc IMHO you will need to FEED.Welcome, and good luck on you'r Beekeeping.

BEE HAPPY Jim 134  :)
"Tell me and I'll forget,show me and I may  remember,involve me and I'll understand"
        Chinese Proverb

"The farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything at retail, sells everything at wholesale, and pays the freight both ways."
John F. Kennedy
Franklin County Beekeepers Association MA. http://www.franklinmabeekeepers.org/

HornesBee

#3
December 12, 2010, 01:28:01 PM
>> One of the first things you will find when researching "no treatment" beekeeping, is that you will lose the majority of your hives until resistance is bred in. <<
Yes I have read this may happen.

I live in the country and am going to try to capture a swarm or two to hopefully give me a head start, and realize it may be a swarm from another beekeeper (hope not!), however there are not to many beekeepers in my area. I had to join a beekeeping club in the next county over from the one I live in.
I am hoping to catch wild bees (feral?) bees.

I have thoughts about bees that are left alone as much as possible being able to generate a more tolerant offspring, little by little getting "back" to the healthy bees that were abundant before we began to "help" them with chemically treating them, and feeding them sugar syrup.

Also have read about the larger bees that we have generated by using foundation with larger cells for them to pull comb from that may have created concerns about allowing more Varroa infestations.

I expect problems, but hope I can overcome the need for chemicals, and realize a smaller honey crop due to allowing enough honey stores for the bees to feed naturally, and hope to have enough harvested and saved honey to feed back to them should their stores get low.

If nothing else I will learn a lot about Bees, and hopefully have some fun in doing so. I look forward to learning from the many knowledgeable people at this forum.

Thank you all for the information given here,

Keith
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