Good Books and Information

[Amelie the Bee Keeper]

Hello! I am getting my hive this week and I was wondering if you guys have any tips and/or books that you recommend for beekeeping then that would be great. I love to read before I buy

 

[WILLIFORD]

I had responded to one of your previous post on goats earlier. I didn't realize there was a beekeeping forum as well. As I stated previously I have been keeping bees for the last 2 years. One of the best books I found was the beekeeping for dummies books. I am generally not a fan of the for dummies books, but it has turned out to be my go to book. I will make on observation here. This is really the wrong time of year to be starting an apiary. Hopefully you are getting and established hive from someone in your area. Additionally they need to have left some honey and pollen stores in the hive to help the bees make it through winter. A couple of things you need to address immediately and they are not very hard. First I would make a candy board for them and put a pollen patty on top of the candy board. This will help them make it through winter stronger. Secondly Build a quilt box to go on top of the hive. This will prevent condensation and provide additional warmth through winter. Depending on your area it is not uncommon to lose 1/3 of your bees to cold and/or starvation over the winter. By doing these two things you have a better chance of the hive coming into spring as strong as possible which means, healthy bees and more honey. There are tutorials on youtube on how to build both of these items and they are very simple. There are a lot of videos on youtube to help you. But I would read the book front to back. I know its a little late, but is the hive you are receiving from a similar climate as the one you live in. This was a major problem for me starting out.

 

[Amelie the Bee Keeper]

I had responded to one of your previous post on goats earlier. I didn't realize there was a beekeeping forum as well. As I stated previously I have been keeping bees for the last 2 years. One of the best books I found was the beekeeping for dummies books. I am generally not a fan of the for dummies books, but it has turned out to be my go to book. I will make on observation here. This is really the wrong time of year to be starting an apiary. Hopefully you are getting and established hive from someone in your area. Additionally they need to have left some honey and pollen stores in the hive to help the bees make it through winter. A couple of things you need to address immediately and they are not very hard. First I would make a candy board for them and put a pollen patty on top of the candy board. This will help them make it through winter stronger. Secondly Build a quilt box to go on top of the hive. This will prevent condensation and provide additional warmth through winter. Depending on your area it is not uncommon to lose 1/3 of your bees to cold and/or starvation over the winter. By doing these two things you have a better chance of the hive coming into spring as strong as possible which means, healthy bees and more honey. There are tutorials on youtube on how to build both of these items and they are very simple. There are a lot of videos on youtube to help you. But I would read the book front to back. I know its a little late, but is the hive you are receiving from a similar climate as the one you live in. This was a major problem for me starting out.

I am getting the hive now and getting the bees in the spring

 

[WILLIFORD]

That's good to hear. I just want to help anyone I can, avoid the mistakes I made my first year. The mindset that I finally adopted, which helped me calm down, enjoy the bees and not be to stressed out my first year was this; You don't have to know how to deal with everything that may come up, you just need to know where to find the information to deal with everything that may come up. Basically what I figured out is unlike other livestock, if an issue comes up with your hive its highly unlikely they're going to perish if not dealt with immediately. You will have time to do your research and find out what's wrong and how to deal with. Obviously you want to address problems as promptly as possible, but it's not like a goat that's kidding which requires your assistance right now. One other thing I would encourage you to consider, which I didn't initially and it caused me to struggle. That is this, it is better to start with two hives rather than one. Being new you wont be able to determine if what's taking place in your hive is normal or not, if you have nothing to compare it to. Just relax and enjoy it.