Anyone ever kept bees???

[3Ddonut]

Are they a 'nuisance'? my garden is not massive, but I could put a hive on the garage roof??? but would the bees bother the kids??? Anyone??? Thanks.

Not a nuisance at all, although they do need a certain amount of work. There are various 'rules' about placing a hive so that the bees will be happy and not bother people, it is quite possible that your garage roof would be fine.
Very unlikely to bother the kids, in fact depending on age they would probably like to be involved in the looking after.
The best bet is to find your local beekeeping group, they often run introductory courses which teach you the basics.
This is years ago, but we went on a short evening class course run by the cambridge beekeepers, then to their apiary one sunday pm a month, then to one long session where everyone built their own hive (from a flatpack kit), then they gave everyone a 'nuc' of bees to put in it and linked us all up with mentors. The total cost was less than if we had bought a basic hive and bees and nothing else from a bee supplier!
If you are in a town, you will probably get fab honey, due to all the effort that people put into keeping their gardens full of flowers all year round

Oh wow!!! Thanks for that advice!!!! I will look into it, my friend is a 'registered beekeeper' as it happens, although she doesn't have any at the moment, but I suppose, if anyone will know the contacts, it will be her!!! Do you keep bees yourself?

Not at the moment - we had to give ours away when we moved to Spain (they went to Audley End House - how posh is that ). We keep meaning to get some more now that we're back in Britain and now that DD is a bit bigger & could join in with the care. (Spanish bees are apparantly much more aggressive than nice placid British bees - didn't fancy them at all.)

i saw something about this on the tv a few weeks back. think it was that hugh fearnley bloke (the one who did the free range chicken thing)
he had some honey he had done and put it in a challenge with some a child in a town had made. the town honey one was voted the best tasting

oh I would love bees
I think it would be so fab
and I don't even like honey, I just like bees
dp and ds are a bit scared of them, though - it would increase the no of bees in the garden, wouldn't it? i don't think I would be popular

i would imagine so.
on the tv they had them kept them on a roof

Maybe it would stop dp/ds being scared once they got to know them? Its really cool opening up the hive & seeing what they are doing.

We have bees. DH is the beekeeper in the family, we have 4 hives they are about 40ft in front of the house. We live in the country and have no neighbours to speak of.

But they are no trouble. My DD is nearly 2 and although initially i was worried, (we had the bees before we had her) they just arn't a problem.

In terms of work, he needs to check on them every 9 or 10 days during the summer. Which involves the very attractive 'space suit'. He opens them up and checks each frame. There is a lot to learn about them. He absolutly loves them.

Our own honey is also great to have. It's a messy business extracting it.

The only drawback is that they do swarm occasionally, which looks and sounds a bit scary. But neither me or DD have been stung.

yes maybe Takver
I would not be best pleased if dp decided to start a loofah farm to rid me of my fears though, so perhaps I had better leave it for now

Loofah's aren't that scarey either, I promise - I can send you some seeds and you can work on overcoming your ishoos with them if you like - with a nice hive of bees tended by dp to pollinate them

LOL my 'loofahs' have eight legs and hide in the bath to scare the willies out of you - it's an MN joke euphemism to avoid upsetting arachnophobes

I love the idea of growing them in the garden and the bees pollinating them

oooooooooooh i was imagining a garden full of useful bath things not scary nightmarish bath things

I would never have thought about putting them on the roof, but Hugh has given me ideas again!!!!

I give my dd local honey because she's 2 and gets hayfever, but she's 'too little' to get hayfever, and anyway, I don't want to give her drugs, anyway.....I thought it couldn't 'bee' more local than out of the back garden could it???? I'll have to research this obviously, I know that there's a lot to learn, so I suppose I best get looking!!!!

Bees are great! We've got a few hives and it as Livvy said. Definately join your local beekeepers group, they will be very helpful.

Thanks for your replies, I have found my local bee keeping group and they do a two day introductory course once a year in June! so I've missed it!!! but, it will give me time to save up for a hive and a nucleus of bees!! I'm still a bit worried about the size of the garden we have gardens on every side of us and I'm worried that they will be in the bees pathway and cause problems,any ideas?

but it's your thread so that must be ok, right? . I think I found you on Facebook, but there is no option to add you as friend. KM, right?

Yeah, that's me, was going to say, look me up, but you won't find me because I'm hiding!!! errrmmm, have you commented on that 'thread'? maybe I can find you?

Just had another thought, if you go back onto that list, I'm on whomovedmychocolate's list and lulumamas.

I am the Sea Dweeler

I thought I 'got' your message, but I still couldn't find you!! (I did give up at about page 55 though!) I have sent you a wall post on the group page, see if you can add me from there or make yourself known!!!!!!

I'm on the first page!!

I have made it easy for you though and posted on the wall