This BETTER BEE Worth it! | Inspecting My FIRST Bee Hive

[Mandy Onderwater]

What a buzzing and informative video!
What would "bee" your top tips to new bee-keepers?




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[Grandmother Goose]

Seeing as Mark is getting into beekeeping, he might be very interested in looking into Hives for Heroes Australia Inc. They're a beekeeping mentoring network for veterans and emergency service personnel with PTSD. The concept started in the USA, an Aussie veteran in South Australia picked up on it whilst doing some research after his wife got a beehive. A video of an Australian beekeeper and YouTuber called The Bush Bee Man visiting him and talking to him about it all, how they started, what they do, and why, can be seen here:

The video starts out talking about their struggles with recovery from bushfire, then goes into Hives for Heroes in Australia at time marker 3:24. There's links in the video description for contacting them.

I stumbled upon it a few weeks ago as I've been learning as much about beekeeping as I can so I can get a hive for myself next year, and was spam-watching The Bush Bee Man's videos as part of that process. From all I've learned, leaving the bees alone except when needing to do a hive inspection or to collect the honey is best for the bees, so the work load is really just a couple of hours a few times a year, which isn't much extra workload at all. And the bees aren't fussy, if you can't do a hive inspection on the day marked on the calendar because you're having a bad day or it's pouring rain or whatever, that's okay, just as soon as you can is good enough, because it's not like they're not going die of starvation if you don't feed them every day, as they do all the work and look after themselves. The time sensitive worst-case scenario is the bees decide to swarm, but even that's not a total disaster so long as they're not carrying any diseases, as they can usually be found and recaptured easily enough by any beekeeper with sufficient experience.

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

That's amazing @Grandmother Goose , thank you for sharing.

 

[Grandmother Goose]

One of my uncles was an apiarist in Townsville, and he got me interested in bees and beekeeping as a child when my grandmother took me to visit for a few weeks, so I learned quite a bit about it all, but my mother managed to curb my enthusiasm and eventually crush my interest in it by convincing me that it was too much expense, too much work, and like most agricultural things one needed to pretty much be born into it to make it a career because it required a lot of land to keep the bees on... I eventually figured out that Mum was wrong about a lot of things, this was just one of many.

With the invention of the FlowHive, a lot of people that otherwise wouldn't have gotten into beekeeping at all started getting into it because it allowed people to just keep one hive and not need to invest in the large and expensive honey extraction equipment (which is still the best and economical way to go if one is keeping a lot of hives, but for just one or two hives the FlowHive is the most economical way to go unless you know someone that can let you use their honey extraction equipment or you want to go old fashioned and do it by hand which is rather time consuming and messy).

This opened the door for me as well, as I'm not youthful enough to be getting into mass honey production and starting a business with it, I just want one hive so I can have my own honey and share with friends and family, because I haven't liked honey for years and recently found out why. I was able to buy some local honey straight from the hive from a local beekeeper a few months back, and it tasted like I remember honey tasting when I loved it so much as a kid. I have since learned that almost all commercial honey is pasteurised to slow down honey's natural inclination to candy to increase its "shelf-life" (honey never goes off, it can crystalize though, which turns a lot of consumers off as they think it's gone bad when it does that - it just requires some very gentle reheating to melt the crystals back into liquid honey) and being mass produced, it's all blended together from many hives from all over the country.

When straight from an individual hive, the honey tastes unique and different based on the flowers the bees are getting their nectar from, so one hive comb may be full of spring honey, one full of summer honey, one full of autumn honey, etc; and the local flowers in bloom at the time change the taste of it. Spring and summer honey usually look and taste lighter and fresher and there's a lot more of it, autumn and winter honey is often darker and more earthy and usually only available in areas where it remains warm enough for the bees to be active enough to still be going out foraging the flowers that are still blooming at the time.

Not to mention commercial honey fraud has become a thing - authorities are trying to get on top of it, but it's a losing battle sadly. A lot of the commercial honey isn't 100% honey as claimed, because fraudsters add cheaper sugar or corn syrups and flavourings to bulk up their honey supply. The problem is worse from imported honey, but even in Australia there's still a few unscrupulous people in the industry.

So, all that said, I've been learning and re-learning all I could about beekeeping and decided that between the better flavour, the guarantee that I'm eating real honey, my childhood love of bees, and to stick it to my mother even though she's no longer around to get annoyed by her failed attempt to stop be from being her mini-me, I'll be buying myself a FlowHive, and getting a starting colony of bees from a local beekeeper next year, and I'm really excited about that.

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

I'm sorry to hear about those struggles, really.

I'm interested in keeping a hive as well, but found that hives are really expensive to buy. And the hive we had hanging around has died, so I couldn't even try moving those in there anymore either. One day I hope to buy a decent quality one that'll last me for many, many years to come. And I want to learn how to grow flowers. I have some black thumbs when it comes to those it seems.

It truly makes me sad to see people getting away with ripping off the average customer. I understand wanting to make a profit, but at what cost?

I never loved bees. I was stung as a child by one, so that was a firm no from me. But here in Australia you have the native stingless bee, which visits us frequently. I'm hoping to get a hive of those. I mostly want them for pollinating reasons, any honey would just be an added bonus.

I looked into the flowhives too, and they look pretty good! I'd love me one for sure

 

[Grandmother Goose]

I'm sorry to hear about those struggles, really.

I'm interested in keeping a hive as well, but found that hives are really expensive to buy. And the hive we had hanging around has died, so I couldn't even try moving those in there anymore either. One day I hope to buy a decent quality one that'll last me for many, many years to come. And I want to learn how to grow flowers. I have some black thumbs when it comes to those it seems.

It truly makes me sad to see people getting away with ripping off the average customer. I understand wanting to make a profit, but at what cost?

I never loved bees. I was stung as a child by one, so that was a firm no from me. But here in Australia you have the native stingless bee, which visits us frequently. I'm hoping to get a hive of those. I mostly want them for pollinating reasons, any honey would just be an added bonus.

I looked into the flowhives too, and they look pretty good! I'd love me one for sure

I'd love a stingless bee hive, but I'm well out of their habitation zone so even if I could get one here they may not survive very well or create an ecological unbalance. I've been stung by bees and wasps plenty of times, it hurts, the worst I've had is right between my toes, super sensitive spot that one and my gourd it's ouchie to get stung there! I hate getting stung as well, but I'd rather look whimpy in a full bee suit than cop unnecessary stings when I finally get my hive, so I'll be investing in a good one of them. Yes, a flowhive costs a small fortune, as does a full bee suit, but it's worth it to me personally to spend that money. A regular hive like Mark has is a heck of a lot cheaper, and certainly the best option for anyone that wants to get serious about beekeeping, but it is entirely possible for anyone that's a bit crafty with woodworking to build their own beehive.

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

That's very fair.
In my case they already live in my surrounding areas (neighbours before I got here apparantly had many beehives), so I wouldn't cause any imbalance. On top of that I know they can survive here, as they had done so for many years. And every time a certain tree in our yard flowers, it's absolutely buzzing with the native bees.

Flowhives are a small fortune indeed, more than I have available at the moment. But one can dream. And on top of that I'm not sure if it's suitable to native stingless bees anyways, or if it needs honeybees for them.
One thing that makes it look like it's a bit "less" of a fortune is that it will likely last for many years to come. So you're basically just investing into the future. I wonder how many years it can truly last. Only time will tell, as the company is quite young still, but they say their trial-hives are still going strong after 7 odd years.

 

[Grandmother Goose]

One thing I forgot to mention, in order to have a beehive in Australia, you have to register the number of hives one has with the relevant state department of agriculture for your state. This is so that they can, if necessary, do inspections and management and if necessary quarantine or in a worst case scenario order destruction of infected hives due to disease. There are a few diseases beehives can get that if allowed to spread willy nilly can destroy Australia's honey industry very rapidly. NSW failed in their biosecurity (again, why is it always NSW? useless expletives!) and let in one of the worst beehive parasites in the world only a few years ago and NSW beekeepers have had to deal with quarantining, being unable to move hives, having to destroy infected hives, and being very vigilant about checking their hives regularly ever since in an attempt to get it under control before it gets any further. As much as it's annoying to have to register with a govt dept and pay a small fee every few years and keep records of your hives for them, and it's not fail safe because there's always going to be a few cowboys out there wanting to do as they please and not care about our biosecurity, it's a small price to pay to try to keep our honey industry alive. As a reptile keeper I have to hold a licence and report annually to keep my snakes, so it's no big deal to me, but I can understand that it would come as quite a shock for some people to learn they need to do the same sort of thing for beekeeping here.

 

[Grandmother Goose]

That's very fair.
In my case they already live in my surrounding areas (neighbours before I got here apparantly had many beehives), so I wouldn't cause any imbalance. On top of that I know they can survive here, as they had done so for many years. And every time a certain tree in our yard flowers, it's absolutely buzzing with the native bees.

Flowhives are a small fortune indeed, more than I have available at the moment. But one can dream. And on top of that I'm not sure if it's suitable to native stingless bees anyways, or if it needs honeybees for them.
One thing that makes it look like it's a bit "less" of a fortune is that it will likely last for many years to come. So you're basically just investing into the future. I wonder how many years it can truly last. Only time will tell, as the company is quite young still, but they say their trial-hives are still going strong after 7 odd years.

Native stingless bees need a totally different type of hive set up than honeybees do, because they build their honeycombs in a completely different way, so a flowhive wouldn't work at all for them. If my memory serves me correctly, native stingless bees build their honeycomb in a spiral pattern. Honeybees build straight walls of comb, which is why beehives are constructed in a way that allows them to do that.

I suspect the lifespan of any beehive is going to be based more on the weather conditions it has to live in than anything else. In dry areas like mine, or when kept under some sort of shelter, it'll last a lot longer than in a humid environment where it gets rained on regularly. My biggest fear is getting the hive and then ending up with it getting infected with a disease or parasite infestation that forces me to have to burn the hive.

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

Very interesting, I didn't know you needed to report any of that. Frankly, I probably wouldn't have simply because I didn't know before now. I can understand the logistics behind it though.

That's very fair. Yeah my partner really wants one of those flowhives. He believes you just set and forget, and bees will come live in there on their own and you don't need to check on them whatsoever. It always makes me sigh, haha.
I had a gut feeling they wouldn't work for the native stingless bees. I would still love them though, to help pollinate my garden.

 

[Grandmother Goose]

Very interesting, I didn't know you needed to report any of that. Frankly, I probably wouldn't have simply because I didn't know before now. I can understand the logistics behind it though.

That's very fair. Yeah my partner really wants one of those flowhives. He believes you just set and forget, and bees will come live in there on their own and you don't need to check on them whatsoever. It always makes me sigh, haha.
I had a gut feeling they wouldn't work for the native stingless bees. I would still love them though, to help pollinate my garden.

Your partner's hopeful optimism is delightful. It would be awesome if we could just put a hive outside and magically have bees appear! Once in a blue moon someone with an empty hive will have a swarm of bees decide to live in it, it has happened, but a swarm of bees are just as likely to decide a wall cavity, chimney, hollow tree, or storage box is more viable, and swarms aren't as common as people think they are because most beekeepers do all they can to prevent their hive from swarming, and if it does, they go looking for the stray swarm to get it back. An empty hive is more likely to get occupied by spiders, wasps, or something else that you'd probably rather not have around. And although they don't take up much time, work is required to keep a hive. You have to check for diseases and parasites2-4 times a year depending on where you live, top up their water supply daily if you don't have a pond or the like they can drink from so they don't become a neighbourhood pest by drinking out of your neighbour's kid's wading pool or dog's water bowl (they will all go to the nearest water supply to the hive to drink, imagine hundreds of bees all getting a drink at the same time from the same place - it can scare people that aren't bee people, so they need a water bowl somewhere near their hive), make sure they have enough room to expand, split the hive when they look like they're planning to swarm, and of course collect the excess honey.

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

Haha, it sure is. He is a smart man, but with some things...
Thankfully we live with our grandfather(-in-law), who lives rural. We have a small creek running through the backpaddock, so water isn't necessarily an issue (except on rare occasion in drought, but we have cows and a large tub of water when needed).