I’ve been asking and asking if we could get bees. I understand that Vince has a job and he comes home tired but really . . a few bee hives? A couple of people we know here have bees and they have jobs! I think I’ve been a bit more diplomatic in my attempts to persuade Vince to get bees. I even said “They can be MY bees and I’ll take care of them!” He knows how that goes. If you know what you’re doing (and I do not!), I don’t think bees are a terrible amount of trouble if all goes well. They aren’t like chickens in that you have to let them out every morning, put them up every night, gather eggs, give them water every day . . well, the water stuff I’m not so sure about. Bees will have to have some source of water since it hardly ever rains here . . I think . . don’t take my word for it. I really don’t know if you have to give them water or not. Our friends will tell us and Vince will read everything he can find about bees. And I’m sure he will tell me everything he’s read . . when he’s not talking about budgets and all that other retirement stuff.
Vince and the Bees
In Missouri, we had bees. But look . . we had green grass and wildflowers and, as Vince would say . . we had state income tax so never shall we be able to return to Missouri to live. I would go for the green grass . . that’s more important to me than income tax and then . . there’s a little girl . .
Sweet Girl!
She was making brownies . . with her long, dangling earrings on.
Addie
So expertly cracking that egg! She loves to cook. Oh, how I miss them.
Back to the story . . I want to live in Missouri! No . . that’s not where I was going . . bees.
We had bees in Missouri but that was in 2010 when we got them and then we left in 2011 so we never learned a whole lot about them and never got any honey from our own bees.
We need bees in the orchard and in the garden. We all need bees. And, I need honey!
Vince agreed to get bees. I think he’s thinking they may be fun or maybe he’s thinking it would be nice if he stuck a hive or two of bees in the yard and maybe the wife would stop nagging him about getting bees.
I thought we could put the hives inside the orchard but the chickens run loose inside the orchard and our bee expert friend said . . no. The bees are “bugs” to the chickens and chickens eat bugs and chickens will try to eat the bees and the bees will sting the chickens inside their beaks/throat and the chickens may die.
So, we’ll put the bees somewhere else. The friend said we need to put them where they get morning sun but afternoon shade but need to get more sun in the winter. Hmm . . that’s going to require some thinking but I’m sure we’ll find a spot. We think we have a good spot but we have to look at the sun and shade and see. We don’t have to decide today.
I think the plan is (or as of last night), we’ll order the housing (I don’t know what it’s all called) and the supplies and get it all painted and set up and ready. One of our bee friends here may capture a hive and bring it to us or we’ll order bees. They’re not easy to find this time of year but I think Vince found some. We’ll probably keep an empty setup and then if we find more, we can adopt them and hopefully some day our hives will grow and divide but . . all I want is one or two hives.
I hope this doesn’t turn out like the chickens. I just wanted a few . .
Dotti says
Good to see “the girl”. She is sweet. I was concerned about them and all the flooding. Hope they are safe.
Sherrill Pecere says
Maybe that could be V’s retirement ‘hobby’ and he could sell the honey to supplement the retirement!! LOL My niece keeps saying she wants bees and they have a bee class at the library (it’s an actual group of beekeepers) but she hasn’t been able to make a class yet. I really think she’s too busy for bees! HA
DonnainKS says
Our pastor’s wife has bees. Has since before they moved here. They both have full time jobs, but still have time for beekeeping! She/they wanted something that was also an ecological benefit. She spoke to the Women’s evening group; I almost didn’t attend. It turned out to be one of the most interesting and educational meetings we’ve had! I wish you well with this undertaking and look forward to your telling the story.
Judy Laquidara says
Yes! Even if we don’t get a lot of honey, we need them for the garden and orchard and the world needs more bees! They are so interesting and the more we read about them, the more interesting we find them to be.
smassena2014 says
Bees can be trouble. No mine didn’t sting the chickens and the chickens and dogs learned to give the bees their room. But the last two years the yellow jackets have invaded. Yellow jackets are REAL trouble and I’ve never seen them this bad. this year, I’ll skip bees, except for the mason bees for the orchard fruits.
Judy Laquidara says
Most everything worth having is some amount of work and risk. It’s like trying to garden here and never knowing when we’ll have an invasion of grasshoppers. If we don’t take some chances and put forth some effort, we’ll miss out on the joy of a successful crop, or harvest so we continue to persevere.
justquiltin says
My older brother has bees and supplies me with the most delicious honey – totally different tasting than store bought honey since his bees have a huge clover field next door to where he keeps his hives so the honey is clover flavored. He did loose his bees a winter or two ago and had to replace them – they died from a severe cold snap that lasted a couple weeks – but I don’t think you have to worry about that.
Judy Laquidara says
We are planting clover in the fields near where the bees will be. Not sure it will ever grow well because of lack of rain but we’ll try. I wish I could get lavender to grow here. I’d love to have honey from bees who collected lavender pollen!
Doug Riggins says
We have ? bees. Got the hive and ? ? just showed up one year. We also had them in the eves of the house. We had someone come capture them and put them in a hive. Still have them. Delicious honey. They are pretty self sufficient, but with the water situation we put hummingbird feeders out for them to try and keep them out of the yard. They are already very active right now.
Believe it or not we now have another wild hive living under our bridge. We can’t move them so we just leave them be.
Rosalie says
We have wild bees that have been eating the chickens cracked corn for the past month. My chickens have ignored the bees.
Rebecca in SoCal says
Maybe Missouri’s tax is especially large, but if you limit yourself to states without income taxes, it looks like Texas for you!
Susan says
Grow and divide? This already sounds like a growing proposition! LOL
Nancy says
Yes the bees will need a water source. My dad kept a bird bath. It was a gentle slope for the bees to walk down to the edge of the water. You just have to make she to keep in clean.