Installing the bees
 

Yesterday my dad and I finished the fence around our air conditioner and beehive. My dad brought up the bee package with a Weaver SMR queen. 3 pounds of bees.

The installation was pretty uneventful. The bees were pretty calm, but I have to say, even wearing protective equipment (veil and gloves) it was a little unnerving to be in a cloud of bees.

I was bragging to my dad, that I might be the first beekeeper to never be stung. This after we had put the bees into the hive. Later, when we were putting the lock mechanism on the gate, I felt a sharp sting on my left knee. Pain quickly grew to the point you want to rip your pants off and remove the offending creature. It hurts like hell. I grabbed at the area where the bee was, under my jeans, and ran inside to remove my pants. The bad part about grabbing at the bee is that I undoubted squished it, and caused 100% of the venom to be injected into me.

It didn't hurt for too long, and luckily I don't appear to be allergic. But today my left knee is obviously warmer than my right knee.

It will be about a week before I open the hive and take a look. The bottle in front of the hive is sugar water. Helps them get a head start. I took a look today, and only about a third of the sugar water remains. The bees are very active today.
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This is the box of bees sitting on our piano. 3 pounds. The can top is actually an inverted can of syrup. I had to pry this can out. It was covered wth bees. The queen is suspended in a very small cage. The workers feed the queen through the scree in on this cage. THere is an opening to the cage that is plugged with "candy." The workers eat through this candy and release the queen in a couple of days. The purpose is that this period of time allows the workers to accept this queen and not kill her. That's why you can kill the queen in a hive, introduce a new queen in a cage, and then they eat her out.

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This is the package of bees outside. My dad to the left.
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This is the brood box sitting on a hive bottom, which is on top of cinder blocks. To the left is our air conditioner. Inside the brood box are frames with wax foundation. The wax had impression that are in the pattern of honeycomb. This gives the bees a template to start and greatly speeds the process of building comb (necessary to make baby bees and honey).
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Dumping bees out of the package and onto the frames. The queen's cage has already been suspended between two frames.
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Finished hive. Later I will add a second story called a "super". THe bees will store honey in it.
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Another shot of the hive.
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...5290_small.jpg

So, is beekeeping some kind of family tradition?

Also, Are you worried about infiltration of Africanized honeybees? Worried that one day your hive of bees will form a killer swarm and trap you and Farrah in the car and that eventually you'll have to drive your car to the Astrodome so they can turn the airconditioner way down low and freeze all the bees?

My dad was an entomologist originally. But he quit that when I was very young, because it didn't pay the bills. So he has kept various insects for a long time. Bees for the last several years. There is probably a hobbyist type club for beekeepers in your area, that keep them in the city (which is better than the country). People , for example, can keep them on their roofs.

About African bees, not too worried. Over time, you tend to lose your queen. She can die of old age. She can fly off with a swarm. When this happens, the hive creates a new queen by feeding a larva only royal jelly. When the queen emerges, she is not fertile. She has to mate. She will fly into the sky, mate with a random drone bee, and then return to the hive.

So if she mates with an africanized bee, her babies will be mean. So this is why beekeepers will "re-queen" every year or two. I'm hoping to go two years with this current queen. But if the bees get mean, I will know it is time to buy a queen. This is nothing more than ordering through the mail and putting the cage in the hive (making sure I kill the "feral" queen that is already in the hive).

What's the next hobby, Mike? Breeding and training killer Yorkshire Terriers?

When you start collecting enough honey, I will buy a jar or two from you. I love that stuff.

This is the probably the easiest hobby I have ever attempted. Any of you could do this. With minimum investment of time.

FM Coug could have a half-dozen hives on his property easy.

Yeah, I will have to label it was "Mike Waters' Truth Serum". To be used to counteract that bad taste in your mouth after you read a SU post.

Mike, I must grudgingly admit this is a very cool hobby.

I'm deathly allergic to bees. It doesn't sound so cool to me.

Start up your own. Plus you get the environmental angle of "doing my part to save the bees."

Plus you get your own organic honey, and honeycomb (white trash candy).

I'm not exactly out in the country. And my one hobby takes a fair amount of time.

Actually, this is a misconception. Bees do best in the city. That is because people plant flowers, fruit trees etc. that just don't exist in the country. Bees in the city produce MORE honey than bees in the country.

City beekeeping is a popular and fashionable hobby. Many consider it a way to connect to nature.

Here is a blog of a Seattle beekeeper:
http://www.hive-mind.com/bee/blog/

West Sound Beekeepers Association:
http://westsoundbees.org/

Seattle regulations re: beekeeping:
http://www.seattletilth.org/resource...ensregulations

As far as your one hobby, I'm sure you have to come up for a breath once in a while.

I know I'd probably get fired from CBS for saying this, but if your queen becomes Africanized, does she become like Queen Latifah?

Yes. Just like in Set It Off.

Very cool...
 

What does the Queen Bee look like? Is she a little fat blob, or does she actually look like a bee?

That is a horrible, racist thing to say. As a member of the church, you should be ashamed of yourself.
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The queen bee is longer and more slender. She does look like a bee. Drones are sort of just a bigger, stubbier version of a worker. Drones are, like the males in most species, useless for anything but sex.

My queen has a blue spot painted on her thorax. This will help me find her when I open up the hive and check on her health.

What happens if she's not doing so well?
 

Do you just buy a new queen and stick her in, or do you have to start over from scratch?

As long as the worker bees are healthy, you never need to start from scratch.

If for some reason you wanted to replace the queen, you would kill the old queen, and then add a new queen in a cage. The workers will accept the new queen by the time they have freed her.

This is why you can capture a wild swarm, add your own queen, and in a few months, all the bees are descendants of your queen, changing the hive from a feral one to a domesticated one.

What about inbreeding?
 

Does the hive weaken over time from inbreeding?

Like Louisianans and Utahns? No.

The reasons is this. There should be no breeding going on in the hive. The queen I purchased has already mated. She will never mate again.

If she dies, and the hive creates a new queen, the queen will fly into the sky seeking a mate, and then return. It's unlikely she would mate with a drone from the same colony. If she did, I wouldn't mind. Because then I would have the same genetics in the next queen.

But what happens is that the next queen lays eggs that are half-wild, and the bees become mean. Then it is time to replace the queen, if you value docility.

Interesting...
 

How much does a new queen bee cost? How do they ship these things?

I think a new queen costs $20 + shipping. I think they send them express.

The bee is in a little cage that also holds several worker bees. The workers keep the queen alive by feeding her from a sugar plug.

I got my bees from here:
http://www.beeweaver.com/home.php