Hello Eudaimonia,
Very cool. And tasty.
I just read a recent study that claimed that the free market and bee keepers, without government intervention, were replenishing the population of honeybees. Good for you.
Respectfully,
O.A.

I guess I am but that was not my incentive.
Once again, Adam Smith is correct.

The deer, oh yes I think they are a problem everywhere!

Legally the state (in utah) is to provide permits to hunt and kill them when they get above 30 head in a farming area. My next door neighbor grows a lot of field corn for animal feed. It has to have the moisture in it below a certain point before you can harvest it or it molds.

Well the deer were eating everything and he filed for the permit to kill them in early October. Within a few days he received notice that he would get his permits for up to 20 head. There were about 80 eating his crop.

He received the permits, good for the calendar year on the 31st of december at about 4pm in the mail. The permit required a 24 hour notice ot the fish and game department before you could shoot anything. Government at its finest.

are you also helping with the reduction in honeybee population, Rick?
aren't they declining in numbers to the point that it's a threat to the
harvests in the u.s.??? -- j
.

I used to live in northeast Wyoming. I miss the sweet smell of the prairie.

lol! I loved Mars Attacks!

And fun! The hubs and I had a ball extracting the honey and the wax. I still have some of the candles.

Back in the People's Republic of Connecticut, I grew corn in my back yard. I'm sure my little plot was nothing compared to your farm.

We had two dogs. I had them on separate dog runs. The dog runs bordered my plot on two sides, the house bordered the plot on a third.

We never had a problem with critters in the corn, and in the PRC, the big problem is deer. I'm pretty certain it was because the critters smelled the dogs.

This is probably not a feasible solution for you, but it works on smaller plot.

That's an interesting way to sell bee product.
Nice.

Well worth it, especially if you have a farm.

I'm convinced that the only thing keeping most people from working with bees is a fear of getting stung. Yes, it is inevitable, but happens far far less than most people would expect.

Skunks and Racoons have been a problem with my corn crops. For Honey the tack idea would likely work well.

I sit at the edge of the sweet corn each year on a Friday and Saturday night with a shotgun. You kill one and one gets away and the word seems to spread pretty quickly.

I have no idea how they communicate but if I do that when the corn first starts to produce. Usually two weekends back to back on a Friday and Saturday night. I loose very little to them for the year. If I do not do it then and they learn to take my corn and eat it. I can kill one racoon a week for a month and still they will return. Early enforcement seems to work much better.

I might try some of the black weed blocker that you can put down with some nails in it next year for the half ache I plant in corn. It would be interesting if it worked. Likely more expensive but still interesting to know.

Something I have been thinking about adding to my own farm. Very cool your first year turn out.

Thanks for the laugh.
It's tempting, but I'm afraid it's against what I believe in, on many levels.

Start an indiegogo campaign: "Herb's pay me to get up in the morning" campaign.

Goofy stuff like that goes viral and makes people a lot of money. I'd kick in a few bucks.

Bees are such fascinating little creatures, and so useful to nature and to man.
A former work buddy of my hubby was a beekeeper. Instead of selling us the finished product, he would sell us the screens and let us harvest the honey and wax ourselves, then return the frames to him. I miss that.
I'd keep bees too if I weren't allergic to bee venom.

Who'd pay me to wake up?

I also have Italian Honeybees, which are "domesticated". They have the reputation of being the gentlest variety of honeybee.

I would expect that a feral variety would be more aggressive.

I believe I am acquiring a bee allergy, so I will have to be pretty careful (swelling, not shortness of breath). I admire the trust relationship, though.

The bees in my barn were aggressive at first - I could no longer tack up the horse in front of the house, for example. Over time, they have become milder towards me, though they are still aggressive towards strangers.

Guard bees.

Jan

I have a small herb and vegetable garden which is by the hive. The garden is almost a complete loss due to the really weird spring we had in WY. Regardless, I water it every morning.

I also stand by the hive occasionally so the bees come to regard me as a non-threatening presence.

So, yes, the bees have become accustomed to me.

I also do not wear a suit when working with them. I wear a veil because I don't want a curious bee crawling in my ear or up my nose. I wear a long sleeved turtleneck and I tuck my pants into my socks so a curious bee doesn't crawl under my clothes. (Learned this the hard way on my first day with the bees. One crawled up my pants leg. I had to drop trou in the backyard to get it out. I did. No sting). I also wear latex gloves because the most likely place I'll get stung is on my hand, and if I do get stung, I can just pull on the latex and the stinger will pull right out of my skin. (This strategy was proved last week as I got my first sting. It was on the thumb webbing of my left palm. I accidentally squeezed a bee when I went to pick up a frame. I consider this sting completely my fault and not due to any aggression of the bee.).

My wife doesn't even do this much. She wears a veil, but with short sleeve and pants. She also doesn't inspect the hives directly. She's there with the smoker when needed.

Like Wm, I have a hive in my house; unlike him, I have not done anything about it yet. I live in a barn, and the very tiptop apex overhang acquired a hive several years ago. I could theoretically access the hive by cutting through from the backside, from inside the attic - which I intend to do. Someday. By and by.

The honey from Wm's bees was great. The aspect of a 4 or 5 to 1 ratio of effort in making wax vs making honey is a huge argument in favor of the flow hive.

It is wonderful that other people are interested in bees. Their genetics is also fascinating: drones do not exist genetically - they are just bio-envelopes in which one queen sends genetic packages to another queen (kinda like the detachable tentacles of some of the cephalopods).

Not as much to worry about in wintering over in CA. (Everything else, yes; wintering over of bees - not so much.)

Are your bees accustomed to you yet? I have seen veteran apiests handle bees without even a bee suit. That is a bit scary.

Jan

Find a write-up about the Central Texas Bee Rescue on my blog here:
http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/20...
and their honey here
http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/20...
and its use in another local product (Austin Gelato Company) here:
http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/20...

Yes... And I don't eat carbs or sugars during the week.
Urrrgg.

You should seriously consider going pro with that hobby.

What a unique hobby.
However, at my age, waking up every morning has become my hobby.

Sweet!