Least favorite part of beekeeping?

[Leather Jim]

Getting stung on the top of the ear. :(

[Hossman]

The least favorite part of beekeeping for me is getting burnt by the smoker. Dosent happen often but when it does OUCH!

[JP]

I hate it when they beg you for a new queen, I mean, make your own darn queen already!


...JP

[WarPonyFarms]

Watching the sparrows pick off my returning queens.... Loosing almost 35% on their mating flights.

"Eat the Drones! There's lots of them!"

Upgraded the kids pellet guns and gave them a bounty on the dumb birds. 

[JackM]

Not sure if tie between not being able to see well thru the veil or selling the honey or jacket in hot weather.

[Better.to.Bee.than.not]

scraping propolis off the hives/frames/etc. I just find it annoying, and if it isn't done it's a pita, and this year there has been a lot of propolis. and not just in my caucasian hives. maybe they are cross breeding the worse traits, but it seems other have used a lot of propolis this year also. Though I have to admit, I was a idiot and when I stapled some frames together the staple shot out the side of the frame and I didn't catch it, so it created a small gap that shouldn't of been there, that was my fault of course.

[skatesailor]

Keeping the smoker lit. It always seems to work best when I DON'T need it.

[BeeMaster2]

Keeping the smoker lit. It always seems to work best when I DON'T need it.

The tighter you pack the smoker, the better it stays lit. After an hour of burn time, pack it down again.
Jim

[Better.to.Bee.than.not]

ya the thing with the smoker is you just want a good base of embers, and then you can pack it tight. but if you only have a few hives, then by time you get it going you really don't need it that much. The mentality that gets me through using the smoker is I remember when I was like 5 years old, my parents were talking to my neighbor whose house burned down about the fact that he emptied his fireplace into a steel can, but his wife evidently put grocery bags (back then they just had paper really, I think.) in the can 5 days later, and that is what caused the fire...... embers that are going good and are insulated from a fire place can stay hot and lit for 5 days.... so that is what I always thought about when using the smoker..... keep em insulated and a good ember from the start and you'll be golden, it'll never go out, and can be stoked with air to come back to life strong quickly.

[Michael Bush]

>scraping propolis off the hives/frames/etc. I just find it annoying

That's why I never do...

www.bushfarms.com/beeslazy.htm#stopscrapingpropolis

[10framer]

scraping propolis off the hives/frames/etc. I just find it annoying, and if it isn't done it's a pita, and this year there has been a lot of propolis. and not just in my caucasian hives. maybe they are cross breeding the worse traits, but it seems other have used a lot of propolis this year also. Though I have to admit, I was a idiot and when I stapled some frames together the staple shot out the side of the frame and I didn't catch it, so it created a small gap that shouldn't of been there, that was my fault of course.

i'm trying to breed it into my bees.  less hiding places for beetles.

[RHBee]

I quit removing propolis ever since I found out that this is the way the bees make the hive clean. For a bee this stuff is like caulking. I only scrape burr comb and then only when it makes it difficult to close up the hives. They're just gonna build it again.

[asprince]

I hate working my bees when the temperature and humidity are high. I take better care of them in cooler weather.

Steve

[sterling]

scraping propolis is off the hives/frames/etc. I just find it annoying, and if it isn't done it's a pita, and this year there has been a lot of propolis is. and not just in my caucasian hives. maybe they are cross breeding the worse traits, but it seems other have used a lot of propolis is this year also. Though I have to admit, I was a idiot and when I stapled some frames together the staple shot out the side of the frame and I didn't catch it, so it created a small gap that shouldn't of been there, that was my fault of course.

Scrapping propolis and burr comb is a waste of time and energy. They will just put it back cause they want it there for a reason. I will just remove what is necessary to remove frames and put them back.

[Georgia Boy]

The first year when you are just starting out as a beek and you only have a few hives, knowing that a loss rate of 25% or more is normal and not having the ability to build up enough hives to compensate for the loss kinda sucks. I know if you have 10 or 15 hives you could still lose all of them but the chances are slim that would happen. Just don't want to lose my 4 hives and have to start from scratch again next year.

Then there is this robbing thing. Really HATE that.. :)

[RHBee]

David, look up robbing screen they work.

[Better.to.Bee.than.not]

>scraping propolis off the hives/frames/etc. I just find it annoying

That's why I never do...

www.bushfarms.com/beeslazy.htm#stopscrapingpropolis

what, when you take your frames out or boxes and store them you leave them dirty and sticky? I take full frames out for whatever reasons or boxes, replace them with clean ones and clean up the others for storage until I need them again. The worse part to me is scraping the propolis off them, but I'm not going to leave it on there. just how I roll I guess.

[Michael Bush]

>what, when you take your frames out or boxes and store them you leave them dirty and sticky?

I only scrape them if the propolis is in my way.  The bees are only going to have to gather more propolis to replace what you take.

"Propolis rarely creates problems for a beekeeper. Certainly any effort to keep a hive free of it by systematic and frequent scraping, is time wasted." --The How-To-Do-It book of Beekeeping, Richard Taylor

[Beeboy01]

Miss matched equipment gets on my nerves, the bees load up the spaces with burr comb or just stick everything together. Culling out old frames is a pain also, can't decide on just how bad a frame has to be before tossing in the melter. Cleanup after an extraction when you are hot, tired, sticky and still have to melt down the cappings and move the boxes back to the bee yard for finial cleanup. It's a heck of a hobby, standing out in the heat wearing a bee suit blowing smoke out of a silly little contraption while trying not to get stung by a couple thousand bugs. Don't know how you commercial guys do it but still Gotta love it :-D

[danno]

I have to second or maybe third or even forth the heat in a jacket.   All the rest seems easy