# Newby - Ordered THIS Equipment - Now I Need Bees From Where???



## Rollochrome (Apr 9, 2012)

Well I am jumping right in whether I totally know what I am doing or not.... :facepalm:

I've tried to get a fix on a good set of equipment that would be an investment in starting with good stuff rather than having a starter set of equipment that gets replaced after I know what I am doing later (like I did with my chickens)..

I bought the following from Dadant for a cool grand..

3x - C52301P Expanding Apiary Kit
3x - M00826 Boardman Entrance Feeders
3x - Plastic Queen Excluders
3x - Smoker fuel
1x - Smoker 4x7 stainless steel
1x - 9" Economy hive tool
1x - Bee Brush

I didn't get a suit due to a new one coming out in a week...

NOW I NEED TO ORDER BEES.....

I am told I need to order THREE COMPLETE hives...not nucs..

Where would you suggest I go to buy in North Texas?? Beeweaver is nearly sold out and does not have anything in my area until June...


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## TxGypsy (Nov 23, 2006)

You are out of luck for finding bees locally. To my knowledge there aren't any. Everyone has been pre-ordered and sold out since New Years. 

Whoever advised you on what to purchase did you no favors either. Don't use the entrance feeders....you'll only promote robbing and loose hives faster. See if you can return the smoker fuel and get yourself some dry pine needles instead. Maybe you can use the queen excluders when you are more advanced. Put them somewhere safe that you aren't likely to find them for a few years.

You might contact your local beekeepers club and see if anyone there has any bees for sale and see if you can find a mentor. If you don't know where your local club is you can find it here: http://texasbeekeepers.org/clubs/


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## TxRPLS (Jan 27, 2014)

I found bees on Craigslist last weekend. My sister-in-law got a hive last year off craigslist from a bee removal guy who brought her a swarm hive. Of course you have to consider the hazards of dealing on craigslist.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

You do not need hives and who ever told you tat they were wanting money from you lots of money. Nucs 3 of them and/or 3 pound packages. Check with Dadant they used to sell 3 pound packages. Also quickly check at Wal Mart for a Bee Culture magazine and there are lots of adds in there for packages and nucs.
Join a bee club and you may find some bees thru that source.

A lot of the bee equipment suppliers sell packages. 

 Al


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## Rollochrome (Apr 9, 2012)

I was looking for immediate honey production.

We have a large family and use almost exclusively raw honey as a sweetener. We try to let it replace sugar in nearly everything. Therefore we go thru A LOT of honey.....about a gallon every ten days to two weeks. At $58 a gallon. So shelling out the extra cash for a ready-to-produce hive is not just a luxury.. It's an immediate savings off our grocery bill.. 

I went ahead and ordered three complete hives from Beeweaver to be picked up in June. Its a way off....but that will give me time to get up to speed on my knowledgebase. 

The Texas Beekeepers website "clubs" tab does not work for me....so the only bee keeper organization that I am aware of in my area is in Granbury which is not what I would call "close" but it might be my only option....


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## TxGypsy (Nov 23, 2006)

I hate to keep pointing out negatives, but your expectations are not realistic. You will likely not achieve immediate honey production. You will be getting your hives at the wrong time of the year. There must be a honey flow going in order for your bees to store honey. Likely the only honey your bees will make this year will be this fall and they will need those stores themselves to make it through the winter.

To produce the amount of honey your are aiming for you will likely need more hives depending on the plants within a 3 mile radius from where your hives are located. Do you have lots of wildflowers? Miles of cultivated ground? Brushy scrub? Subdivisions? Is there a lot of spraying in your area? There are so many variables that affect honey production and indeed honey bee survival that there is no way that you can say that X number of hives will produce X number of gallons of honey....or even that they will survive until next year.

Since you are getting hives from Beeweaver I suggest you educate yourself about africanized bees as it is not unusual to get 'hot' bees from that apiary. You will NEED a good beesuit in your area in case your hives become africanized. 

You are making a large investment. I suggest at least calling the bee club in Granbury and asking if they know of any beekeepers in your area that might be willing to work with you. There can be a very steep learning curve when you first start keeping bees.


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## Rollochrome (Apr 9, 2012)

TxMex said:


> Since you are getting hives from Beeweaver I suggest you educate yourself about africanized bees as it is not unusual to get 'hot' bees from that apiary. You will NEED a good beesuit in your area in case your hives become africanized. .


Oh my... I cant have that... Even though this will be on the back of 12 acres...I cannot risk getting hot bees.

I think I might cancel my order if that is the case.


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## Rollochrome (Apr 9, 2012)

TxMex said:


> I hate to keep pointing out negatives, but your expectations are not realistic. You will likely not achieve immediate honey production. You will be getting your hives at the wrong time of the year. There must be a honey flow going in order for your bees to store honey. Likely the only honey your bees will make this year will be this fall and they will need those stores themselves to make it through the winter.
> 
> To produce the amount of honey your are aiming for you will likely need more hives depending on the plants within a 3 mile radius from where your hives are located. Do you have lots of wildflowers? Miles of cultivated ground? Brushy scrub? Subdivisions? Is there a lot of spraying in your area? There are so many variables that affect honey production and indeed honey bee survival that there is no way that you can say that X number of hives will produce X number of gallons of honey....or even that they will survive until next year.
> 
> ...


No worries on point out negatives. I am very very new to this and just want to go all out with a good start. I don't believe in spending a penny to go half way into anything.... Unfortunately as a result my mistakes are usually spendy. Successes are big too however..

Ok...so I won't have honey this year. I can get them established and expect a good result next perhaps..

Wildflowers are here and there. Lots of flowering weeds like broomweed. There are 200 acres of undeveloped land behind my 12 acres and 7 acres undeveloped to my side. I do not believe that there is any spraying in my area. I have seen the hay that came out of the 200 acres behind me and it was full of weeds so I don't think they do any spraying back there. Also, there are woods between my property and the hay fields, so drifting of any spray if it did exist would be minimal.

Yes. Large investment indeed. $1000 in supplies and $1000 in bees. I may retract the bee order now that I hear about the Africanized threat...but we'll see. 

I am in contact with a few of the guys in the Granbury club. They are EXTREMELY helpful and very friendly!!!! Its quite a drive to Granbury from here but I think it would be worth it to attend.


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## TxGypsy (Nov 23, 2006)

Oh good. You never know how folks will react when you give advice. I'd really like to see you succeed!

Beeweaver is known for producing hot bees. However, I am not saying that all of their bees are hot. I'm sure they do their best to prevent that, but it does happen. If you get a hive that is hot they will usually send you a new queen...which will hopefully not be hot. However it will take several weeks for all of the africanized bees to die out and for your hive to become gentle again. Something to be aware of is that a feral africanized swarm can come in and take over a hive. Also if for some reason your bees supercede your existing queen and the virgin mates with an africanized drone your hive will be hot. I'm not trying to scare you....just make you aware. You should wear a beesuit whenever working your hives in case this has happened and you are unaware of it. 

If having gentle bees is a must for you, I suggest ordering a package from somewhere out of state. Have them mark the queen so that you know when she is superceded and it will also help you to spot her since you are not accustomed to looking for her. Many beekeepers recommend not marking the queen, but those beekeepers are not in africanized bee areas either.

Please don't let all the talk of africanized bees scare you. They are not that hard to handle and simply need requeening if your hive gets hot. The bigger concern is varroa and possibly small hive beetles. You have to learn how to manage your hives to minimize the impact of these pests.

I'm glad to hear that you have already found some beeks(beekeepers) in your area!

Good luck!


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## Earthling (Mar 6, 2014)

The Internet and beekeepers are your friend. Beesource.com is the most populated forum around and you can get many answers and info there. A word of caution: Ask ten beekeepers the same question and you will get eleven different answers. 

Looking at your list, there are some things there that you really don't need IMO:

Bee brush - when you want the bees off the frame, shake it hard in front of the hive, the bees will be back in the hive in less than thirty seconds. If you are examining the frame for brood, eggs, etc. blow lightly on the bees and they will move away.

Smoker fuel - a burlap bag is all you need. That and some small pieces of kindling split from an old 2x4 you have laying around. 

Queen excluders - a lot of beekeeper use them but most professionals do not. The queen will not usually lay above the brood nest if there is a "ceiling" of honey and pollen in the top part of the broodnest frames. Oftentimes, the excluder forms a barrier which the worker bees see as the top end of their hive and won't use the supers to store honey. This is one of those areas where beekeepers will chime in and disagree (actually, everything I am talking about  ).

Boardman feeders. Unless you like going out there everyday and filling those things up, it's easier to use a top feeder. There are a few different kinds. I am a lazy beekeeper and I feed by putting raw sugar on a board above the deeps that has a hole in it and is covered by an empty super. It's easy to dump the sugar in and they will take it raw. In fact, they will take it in any concentration at all and refine it to their liking before consuming. This is referred to as the Mountaincamp feeding method. 

For the suit, I'd get a light nylon jacket w/hood and gloves. It gets hot in bee suits quick. I've been keeping bees for 10 years and have only been stung once. 

For buying bees, it sure ain't too late to do that here in CA. I can't imagine it's too late in Texas either. The good thing about nucs is that the queen is already accepted and has been laying already. If you are getting your hives later in the year, that is not a bad thing.

I have a webpage on beekeeping if you are interested. It's not much but hey, the pics are nice.  http://www.goldfinch-acres.com/Beekeeping.html


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## TxGypsy (Nov 23, 2006)

Get one of these suits if you can afford one. You will bless me in August if you do :grin:

http://www.dadant.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=34_64&products_id=1485


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

No such thing as immediate honey. Unless you were to buy a complete colony of bees in the original hive during a flow or after.

Those bees have to build comb on the foundation first so the queen can lay eggs to keep the colony going. A worker bee only lives about 6 weeks during a spring flow and during the summer when they are gathering.

So to start you need the frames with brood and eggs going strong in the hive and still you have to wait for a surplus to harvest any honey.

Ask 10 bee keepers and you will get closer to 20 answers as once they give a answer they think and change their mind.

 Al


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Hot bees are only a little problem. You have to go in the hive and find the queen and kill the queen once you find her. You need to buy a new queen to replace her of knowen stock. It then takes a little time for the new queens brood to hatch and replace the hot bees.

Most of the area or states that sell package bees are in AFB areas so there is always a chance.


 Al


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## sleeps723 (Sep 10, 2006)

Pick up swarms.


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## DW (May 10, 2002)

I would call someone in a bee club and talk to them. They will probably know someone close to you. We are new w/bees...this will be our 3rd summer. We are now members of two clubs and have met many helpful people.. My husband is off to an advanced class today. We need to split our hive this year. Best of luck!
P.S. just thought of something else...we took a webinar f/Bushy Mtn Beekeeping supplies and it was really good.


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## Rollochrome (Apr 9, 2012)

TxMex said:


> Get one of these suits if you can afford one. You will bless me in August if you do :grin:
> 
> http://www.dadant.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=34_64&products_id=1485


I just ordered their NEW vented suit! Thanks for all the tips!


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## TxGypsy (Nov 23, 2006)

Mine arrived day before yesterday! This thing is really neat. I was going to order the more expensive version, but all they had available was the economy. I'm quite happy with it. It should be a delight to work bees in this when it gets to be summer. I'll be trying mine out this weekend.


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## toyachell (May 22, 2014)

TxMex said:


> I hate to keep pointing out negatives, but your expectations are not realistic. You will likely not achieve immediate honey production. You will be getting your hives at the wrong time of the year. There must be a honey flow going in order for your bees to store honey. Likely the only honey your bees will make this year will be this fall and they will need those stores themselves to make it through the winter.
> 
> To produce the amount of honey your are aiming for you will likely need more hives depending on the plants within a 3 mile radius from where your hives are located. Do you have lots of wildflowers? Miles of cultivated ground? Brushy scrub? Subdivisions? Is there a lot of spraying in your area? There are so many variables that affect honey production and indeed honey bee survival that there is no way that you can say that X number of hives will produce X number of gallons of honey....or even that they will survive until next year.
> 
> ...


This is off topic but I live in granbury and am wanting to possibly start beekeeping but I had No idea there was a club! How would I find it? Do they have a website?


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Since you haven't even posted the state you live in I can only tell you to do a search of your states bee keeping club.
Example Michiganbeekeepingclub.

 Al


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## toyachell (May 22, 2014)

alleyyooper said:


> Since you haven't even posted the state you live in I can only tell you to do a search of your states bee keeping club.
> Example Michiganbeekeepingclub.
> 
> Al


Haha Im in Texas. they had just mentioned granbury so I thought they could tell me more. I'm gonna research and see if I can find anything. Thanks!


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