Happy Spring all! It’s warming up enough in Southern Ontario so we can get in hives. Our August swarm survived and we found the queen. #grownostr #bees
been learning a ton about these awesome little guys lately, any tips for noobs looking to get into beekeeping?
Discussion
There's lots of good material on the youtubes, but find sources in your climate. I've asked dozens of questions on my local beekeeping club.
If you can find a mentor, or even someone a couple of years ahead that you can help with and get a little experience, that'll help take away fear of action.
Failing that, just do it. Start with two hives. There's no such thing as a cheap hobby and bees aren't, but you can do things like build your own hive bodies, or try things like to catch a swarm in your area.
We did a group build of swarm traps and hives to keep costs lower.
Concurr with starting with two hives. This is in case one hive has an issue, then you can use the other hive to help it.
Local swarms are acclimated. I'm not going to purchase non- local bees again.
Hopefully you have the right area. I’m in mostly farms with the odd small area of forest left. The one swarm we caught (and only by luck, the tree branch they picked was 50 ft high but their weight broke it in the night and it landed in our yard) was from our hives.