My wife set up two Beehives yesterday

The queens this year are somehow bred to be more mite resistant.

When you buy a small colony it is referred to as a nucleus or nuke.

Its always relaxing to get two nukes in the backyard.

Join your local county beekeeper's association as a newbie- wanna-be. Most of the good ones have a mentorship program where an experienced beek will mentor you for a year in exchange for you helping with all the labor on their hives. Try to find one with lots of hives who could use an extra hand.

Then after you have helped them harvest their spring honey flow and bottle it up, don't ask for honey, ask them if they will split two of their hives in early-mid august and give you a couple of starts so you will have time to get them fed up and grown to a viable overwintering size before cold weather hits. This is why you find a mentor with lots of hives. If someone only has 3-4 hives, they aren't going to give you 2 splits, and you need at least 2 in case one doesn't make it through the winter, which is becoming increasingly common (unfortunately).

Note: You will have to regularly feed these starter hives ALL through the fall and winter, because they wont have had time to lay in enough supplies and/or there won't be anything blooming for them to eat on. Some places have a smaller fall blooming period honey flow, but it wont be enough to take them through the winter. And if it gets real cold where you live for a long, long winter, you will need to insulate the hives and give them a candy board inside the top of the feeder, instead of sugar syrup, which they won't be able to get to outside the hive. They can't break cluster to go outside in the cold to try to forage and will starve to death.

Damn

Embassy under attack in Iraq

Speaking of nukes.

; (

Apparently our hive was full of comb and no honey and no bees so they must have needed additional feeding although there was tons of honey before fall.

Poor bees, now I feel guilty for not feeding them.

:(

Could have been something else. For instance if they didn't have enough room and swarmed in the fall, that would have been bad news for that hive. Or mites, or if you live somewhere that gets early fall hurricane flooding action, like we did last year, the govt sometimes does mass spraying for mosquitoes and if you haven't registered you hive location with the local State Dept of Ag's no spraying program, then they might have been poisoned. Even if you don't get hurricanes/flooding, register anyway if you live close (like within 2 miles) to agricultural zones.

And you can't just assume there is enough honey for them to make it through the winter. You have to check on them periodically, but don't open the hive, even for a minute, unless it is at least in the high 50's temp-wise. The other way to check is weight. If you try to lift up back of the hive off the hive stand and it is not heavy, you need to feed those bees ASAP.

Also, now that you have an empty hive with lots of drawn comb, first check to see if the wax moths have ruined it all yet, and if not, bait that thing and see if you can attract a swarm to come take up residence! A tiny little bit of lemongrass oil on a cotton ball, placed in the back of the hive will draw them, if there are any scouts in the area looking for a new home. Refresh it every week.

Beehives
Queen barriers to keep the queen in a specific area of the hive
Bee suit
Bee proof gloves
Bee waterer to feed sugar water
If you make your own hives you could get started for a couple hundred.

However based on that higher nuke price mentioned not sure about all areas.

There are on-going expenses like having to re-queen.

Then people still have frustrating die offs and bees leaving for unknown reasons.

Bees do move around and set up new hives.

If a group of bees is SWARMING out on a tree limb that could be free bees for you.

Get a hive ready to go and get on the local list for a swarm.

Squared away local beekeepers could come by and solve this problem.
To your benefit.

My nephew had several hives, for around 5 years. This year the bees swarmed and left for parts unknown. They did leave behind a bunch of real nice honey for us though.

True story...My neighbor raises bees and the bees sometimes, set up shop on my property in the wrong places, then I have to hire a professional beekeeper to remove them...He takes them home with him and is very cheap if they are honeybees. My neighbor has several hives and gets a discount on his property taxes for raising them.

We are in a suburban setting.

We have to give up a part of our backyard during warmer parts of the day for bee activity.

We do not use any chemical pesticides nor herbicides.

Monsanto is a curse word around these parts.

Most of these people that charge you to come out and remove a swarm, take the swarm home and sell it to beekeepers. That swarm they charged you to remove is wort about a hundred and fifty bucks. If you know a beekeeper, most of them will come get the bees for nothing. They set up a new hive, and don't have to buy the bees. It's a win, win.

I had two hives swarm today,managed to capture one but the other one took off before I could locate a ladder long enough to reach it.

Top bar hives or some other type? Who doesn't love bees!

Question. If I set up a small hive and my neighbor gets stung, am I liable? Not kidding, serious question. HOAs are a bitch.