Hi from sunny Brisbane down under

[CB]

Hi,
Just signed up a few days ago because I have been visiting the forum a lot and it seems that the traditional friendly and sharing beekeeper is alive and well here!
Also lots of Ozzies to bounce some ideas off.
Hopefully I can help other in time.

Cheers

[GSF]

Welcome, and make yourself at home. Door's always open and a biscuit's on the table

[beemaster]

Every nice intro CB and thank you very much for the kind words.

Family and friends is a huge party of Beemaster. We wanted a community of people with interest in beekeeping, but hoped that as members we can interact like no other forum - I think we set the standards for some sites which have came online since our debute as a forum nearly 11 years ago. And nearly 5 years before that, Beemaster was an instructional site where I talckle teaching new beekeepers and kept a daily log back in 2000 - so After 15+ years, it has been a wonderful time.

Many of he people that have met through the forum, then gone to our annual beekeeping gathering - this year is the 7th gathering. From around the globe they have come, and they come back. When now together doing amazing hands-on things like queen grafting, swarm removal from buildings - and (this is fun) shooting swarms down from tree branch - 30ft-40ft+ high. Ain't east taking out a tree branch with a .22. Give me a shotgun and one ounce slug and I'll shake most down :)

The only real point I wanted to add was something you mentioned. PEOPLE WHO JUST VISIT - there are a lot of them - likely on a daily basis we have as many or more visitors whom join, but are HERE every day. A group on their own and I'm not sure, but they could be as large as the forum population itself. I know we get data on such things - but I never charted it. Already this year we have had over 350 thousand page views and 17 million page view annually - all that is really cool. And not one of those views had to scroll through ads - the fact our membership donates enough money to cover our costs is inspiring to me. Our two big costs are monthly data usage (members going in and out of the forum) all data flow - it's always adding up like a taxi meter.

And two - the size of our data base and keeping a second mirrored data base back up, so that we never loose more than a day's posts. All the other costs add up to be the kid brother to the first two, but still a healthy eater.

Just mentioned that because it is good to know we have such a helpful community. Again welcome, and feel free to look around good - some great topics here whether a Beekeeper with no interest beyond beekeeping and doesn''t wander beyond GENERAL BEEKEEPING - or (as many members do) live "in and around" the COFFEE HOUSE forum where they'll spend MUCH of their time. I like our community theme - I belong to many forums on several subjects - honestly, and as unbiased as I can get, don't have a community feel like we do. And I'm not patting myself or the staff here, we built a place and members came - like in the movie Field of Dreams, but without the baseball - lol. Peace.

[thewhiterhino]

Welcome to the forum CB from Southern Colorado USA

[tefer2]

Welcome to the group.

[BeeMaster2]

Welcome to Beemaster CB. Feel free to ask all of the questions that you want. At this time of year, if it weren't for you guys down under, this site would get awful quiet and we definitely do not want that.

Jim