I am a 20 year old bee keeper! AMA!

How many 20 year old bees do you keep?

Just one left. All the others are dead :(

Do you ever stop and think “What the fuck am I doing? I'm covered in bees!"

No, not really. Honey bees are usually pretty chill and if they land on you, they're just curious. If they keep running into you, then you know its time to run.

What if they're just buzzing around near you? Have can you tell if they're getting aggressive?

BRB. I'm going to go look at the hives in my backyard and see if I have more questions. This is a really cool AMA by the way.

They typically start running into me and so I just runaway before I find out if theyre seriously pissed.

Oh my god yes! I always have been so curious about bees and have tons of unanswered questions, but I'll only ask one. How do bees actually produce the honey? Is it just bee shit?

Its pretty sweet how it works! Bees go out to plants and collect nectar (typically from flowers), they then fly back to their hive and worker bees there suck the nectar out of their stomachs and chew it for about 30 minutes. During this process the sugars are broken down. They then store the broken down nectar in combs and fan the produce with their wings, during this process the water is evaporated and we get honey.

tl;dr honey is thoroughly regurgitated bee-spit.

kinda cool but nasty at the same time.

No question. Just want to say I have a weird fascination with honeybees and honey in general. Love them! And people like you are the ones fuelling my fascination so keep up the good work! Would love to visit a bee farm one day :)

Honey bees are pretty sweet to just watch do their thing. If you're not scared to get that close.

If you go near a hive to watch it, how much danger of being stung is there?

Very little. As long as you don't make fast actions and don't touch the hive, they don't care that you're around.

Are you impacted by colony collapse disorder?

So far, no. They worst that happens is a hive will split, (its called a swarm) and half the workers will follow a new queen bee and leave the hive, then the hive can't produce enough honey or new bees to survive the winter.

I don't mean to judge you or anything, but I thought that a lot of keepers kept 3 or 4 hive boxes in a stack and kept the bottom honey one just for food. Do you do this and that still isn't enough? Or you don't also participate in this? Are you sometimes able to find a swarm that has split from one of your own hives?

Yeah, I definitely won't take honey from a hive that is struggling. I have gone as far as to add honey from other hives to try and save it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. For sure! If I can find the swarm before it moves on (they usually hang out for a couple hours near the hive), all you have to do it is kill the new queen and the workers will go back to their home.

Can they tell it's different honey, or does it generally have the same chemical makeup?

I think its close enough to the same that they accept it. If the hive did survive, they have always eaten all the honey, no matter the source.

Are the bee's knees as excellent as said to be?

The bees knees are... well, the bees knees!

How did you get into this? Is it a family business or something you wanted to be? Also what do you think about wasps?

My dad started it. He's big into stuff like that and so I learned it from him. No, its more of a hobby/pass time. I only have a couple hives so far so its nothing like a business. Just small production. Wasp are literally the worst thing ever. First they don't do any benefit for humans. Second, the like honey so they constantly try and get into the hives, and then the bees have to go to war to keep them out. They just suck.

Thankyou for reply. I knew wasps were good for nothing!

Seriously... bastards.

Bees and Wasps have wars?

How do they 'fight'?

The wasp tries to get into the hive and the worker bees keep attacking them till they fly away or die.

and then the bees have to go to war to keep them out.

I feel like this would be epic to watch.

And its usually like 10 honey bees against once wasp.

[deleted]

I fell 45 feet out a tree trying to collect a swarm and broke my back in 3 places. Im okay now, but it sucked for that summer.

How do you go about collecting a swarm, and was it some that split off from your other tribe (I don't know why I used the word tribe, but I'm gonna stick with it)?

If theyre on a branch or something moveable, you cut it off and stick it in an empty bee box and then wait a while and then smoke them and go through the bees till you find the queen and kill her and then put the boox with all the workers on the original hive.

Why are people downvoting this?

I wish I knew... :/

How often do you get stung?

Not as often as you'd think. If you are just checking the progress of a hive, they dont mind too much. When its time to harvest honey, they attempt to sting a lot, but I wear a full body protective suit.

Do you ever get sick of honey?

Nope, I only use it when I want it. The rest is sold or given away.

Can I have some?

/jk

Does the honey ever taste different depending on what the bees have been eating nearby?

I only got "into" honey a few years ago while driving around the Balkans. In southern Albania is the most wonderful honey in the world made when they munch on some purple flowers that grow there.

I can't really tell. I know fresh honey taste better then the stuff you'd buy at a store, but I haven't been able to tell a difference in my products.

Until you work with an africanized hive.

Those guys are MMFs... on more than one occasion I've seen them figure out how to sting through the bee glove.

Even the gloves I have, I can kinda feel bites. Not too bad though unless one lucky bastard finds a hole and gets in your face mask.

What's the cost of production? I have this impression that it must be difficult to break even, it's more of a hobby than anything else to most bee keepers... would I be correct in my assumption?

Yes and no. Honey can sell for about $40 a gallon and when you produce 40 gallons, things aren't so bad. But yes, initial cost to start is high. You have to buy a queen bee ($30 or so) and all the boxes ($50-60 a box plus you have to build them), bee protection suits ($80) and tools to work with the hives ($40) plus all the time they need. So initial cost is high, but after thats done, it mellows out.

How do they breed queens, and have you thought about getting into the queen breeding business?

Im not sure. I haven't ever had interest in doing it, so I haven't looked up how.

Got any tips for dealing with wasps and bees around your food in the summer?

No. Wasp do what they want. Get raid. haha

Are you by any chance, a Doctor?

thats super funny, but no :( Im normal..

Do the bees ever leave your hives and set up there own? Have you ever thought about being a little more creative than a square box for the hives?

They will try sometimes. Its called a swarm. The hive makes a new queen and she leaves the hive and take half the worker bees. Its pretty bad for hive so I try and not let them get a new queen. And someone wise said, "if it isnt broken, dont fix it." Square hives seem to work great, so I dont try anything else.

Can you transplant a hive in a tree to one in a box? I have no idea how you would do that. Also, how do you prevent them from selecting a new queen?

Ive never heard of it being done. Its just more simple to buy a queen with workers. In the spring you go and open the hive and there are things called queen cells, which if given time would become potential queen bees, so you go and take them out of the hives.

What types of honey is the best to buy at the supermarket. I herd that all cheap honeys' are not actually honey, but some type of corn paste. I don't want to eat corn paste... I want real honey.

Anything organic is probably your best bet. But I'm not entirely sure since I haven't had to buy honey in a couple years. haha

Any advice for someone with no experience who wants a small observation hive?

Look in you local area for bee keepers meetings. They can be informative and help with any questions. Also read a lot of books on the subject. The more knowledge you have, the better. Then you just have to try. Also, paint the hives white.

Does that do anything besides reflect more sunlight? Every bee hive I've seen is white, but I didn't realize it was intentional.

It keeps heat down. Thats the main reason.

Do different bee colonies have different 'attitudes'? Like maybe one is less aggressive or anything?

I haven't noticed from hive to hive but all hives seem to be much more pissy right after sunset.

Do you have any theories for why this may be?

I think its because its their resting time, but not long enough for them to be asleep, so they get agitated when I come a long and disturb their rest.

Former beekeeper here, and Jesus that's a tall hive. Have you thought about splitting it? 4x [however many pounds] of supers have got to be a pain in the ass.

Also, I can't tell from the pic, but do you have a queen filter (I forget what they're called) between the bodies and the supers?

Theyre a pain to move, but the hive was doing so well I didn't want to split it and mess up progress. And kinda. There is one at the top of the hive but thats it. They usually seem content to stay in the lower part of the hive.

When I saw the title I was wondering whether you have been bee keeping for 20 years, you bee keep bees that are 20 years old, or you are 20 years old and you bee keep..

Im 20 years old and I keep bees.

Tell us about all the tools you use, and how they work, etc

You probably should get a smoker, a mini crow bar,a hive mover, and a honey extractor. The smoker calms the bees and makes them less agressive. Its used when its time to hardest honey. The mini crow bar breaks the bonds the bees use to keep trays in place or the boxes together. The hive mover has two handle and it locks onto the handles of the boxes and it helps move heavy hives with ease. And the honey extractor is like a big barrel with a grated device in the middle that spins the honey out through circular motion.

Bears. Please discuss?

I live far enough away from the trees that I haven't ever had an issue.

ever get stung?

Usually not bad, but ever once in a while one gets lucky.

Do you think your profession should have been better represented in the Village People?

I never saw village people.

Is this your profession? Like, do you make the honey for sale? Or is this just a hobby of yours?

Yeah its just a hbby. But it can be sold for about $40 a gallon.

Do queen bees look different to normal bees?

How do they elect a queen bee?

Yes, theyre bigger. Queen bees come from fertile eggs and are feed a special jelly to help them become queen bees.

Do you have any measures in place to stop your bees from running away? I've heard they always return to the hive, but I've also heard that sometimes a whole swarm of bees will decide to relocate to a new hive. If they just had a meeting one day and decided to relocate to a new hive, is there anything you could do to stop them?

You can try and kill the old queen that is leading the swarm, and kill queen cells before the grow into queens, but thats all I know to do.

Which one is better, hornets or wasps. And why.

I dont know. They both just suck.

how many people have you killed.

8