The birds and the bees---well, mostly just the bees

I want to be a beekeeper.

 

I want to spend hours watching tiny little insects fly in and out of a hive gathering pollen.

I want to put on a crazy looking white suit and open up the hive and pet my little bees and hum to them and tell them what a good job they are doing.

I want to see little eggs hatch out and become drones or workers or virgin queens.

I don't even care if I get stung in the process.

I've wanted to keep my own bees ever since I was a little girl and my great uncle would bring jars of honey comb from Mississippi where he kept bees.

After one bite of REAL honey---you'll kick that little cute store bear to the curb.  Your taste buds won't be satisfied with anything except for the real thing.

We've been hooked on real honey for a while now.  We've even gone as far as to become picky as to say, "Oh, I like the honey from the jar made from blackberry plants better than this stuff."  I know---we are honey snobbs. 

This is why I have to raise my own bees.

On Saturday I got just a little bit closer to reaching that goal.

I went to the Kentucky State Beekeeping Association Bee-School and for six hours listened to experts talk about bees and the future of beekeeping.

It wasn't enough time.  I could have stayed all day.  I could have stayed a week.

Now, I have some big decisions to make: 

• Should I order bees or catch my own swarm (sounds like more fun). 
• Should I use a beeswax foundation or go foundation-less.  This guy says foundation-less.
• To treat or not to treat.  Thinking not treat because Kent Williams doesn't treat and he's a Master Beekeeper and he invented his own hive tool.  AND he kind of reminds me of Silent Bob.
• Do I supplement their food?  If so what with?  It just seems to UN natural
• Top Bar Hive?  Medium?  What size?  Buy or Build? 

Okay, so maybe I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do.  I want to bee keep as naturally as possible.  I want to catch a wild feral swarm of bees who have been keeping themselves alive for generations without special sprays or foods and I want to care for them in an environment as UN artificially as I can possibly get without using a hollowed out tree trunk. 

Since I won't be able to do this until next year---I'm going to spend this year studying up.  Hanging out with some people who have their own hives and aggravating the dickens out of anyone who has ever owned a beehive and reading books probably a lot like this one and this one.