Homestead Handbook Beginning with Honeybees

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What are some common beekeeping problems?
Pesticides. A lot of people lose bees because farmers or gardeners spray the flowers of crops that bees work. Educate your neighbors to spray only in the late afternoon (or not use pesticides on any blooms): What's good for your flying pollinators is good for the crops. (Sevin is a common bee killer; BT is safe.)

Diseases. There are a few honeybee ailments, the worst of which is American foulbrood. (Your bees have got this larval fungus if the hive smells foul and a matchstick poked into a brood cell comes out gooey, as if there were gum on it, instead of clean.) You have to destroy infested colonies — it's the law — to keep the disease from infecting other hives. To avoid the problem, buy only inspected, clean bees and equipment. There are some antibiotic preventives available, but don't use them unless you've had a prior foulbrood problem.

Winterkills. A good number of colonies starve each winter, primarily because their owners didn't leave enough honey in the hive to last until the following spring flows (not just until the end of winter: Lots of colonies starve each March). So don't get too greedy. Always leave plenty of honey — 30 to 90 pounds, depending on the length of your winter — for the bees. You'll save yourself a lot of sorrow or, at the least, time and hassle syrup-feeding your bees.

Allergy. Most people develop an immunity to bee venom after repeated periodic "exposure." (The sting itself still smarts.) A few go the other way and develop serious nonlocal reactions. If you become highly allergic to bee venom, you may be risking your life the next time you're stung. See an allergist for immunotherapy (it costs, but it works) or give up beekeeping.

So Long!

That's all the information and opinions I can cram into one article. If you're game, get ahold of some of the listed resources, work a hive with somebody who knows how, buy a colony or two, and get cracking: Spring is the time to start!

I don't think you'll regret it. There's nothing like walking out to the yard on a late May afternoon and watching the bees on a bottom board (those on one side facing out, on the other facing in) fervently fanning air through the hive to drive the water out of their fresh, uncured honey. You stick your nose down near the exit side (the bees don't care), smell the unmatched aroma of honey in the making, and grin with tickled contentment . . . because, at last, the goods are in the woods.

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