Hello from New Brunswick Canada!

[sgrawunder]

Welcome BeeWrangler! I can send you bees if you can send me rain. I live in S Texas and we have the Africanized bee variety to go with the dried up cracks in my front yard.

 

[BeeWrangler]

BeeWrangler
Wow you like starting out big and that's great. Can't wait to see your pics. Do you have bee hives?

I have been keeping bee's for about ten years now but for the first time I lost all my hives over the crazy winter we had here, way too much snow. But I will be starting over again next spring, I took a break for this season.

I can just see him wrestling those bees to the ground!

LOL it is fun but awfully hard to get the lasso around their little heads, takes alot of practice

Like the mosquitos, they really grow BIG here in the Great White North! John

I see your from Ontario, I moved to NB a few years ago but was born and raised in Ontario. And I agree about the squit's there, they are the only thing I don't miss from home lol

Be honest with you we need the rain cracks in the earth have now widen and are 6 inches deep and hope you don't trip though but hope someone doesn't see you and think your a tad bit crazy LOL Rock garden idea sounds great

Wow! that is really dry. I will definitely do a rain dance for you, and if anyone looks at me like I am a bit nuts I will explain to them the rain dance is not for me, it is for someone else lol

do you keep bees? mr beewrangler? my honey wants me to get some hives and give it a try, but I hate being stung and really swell up. Did plant a lot of plants that are bee friendly.

I think it would be a great hobby for your honey! Honeybee's are calm, they only get angry when you break into their home and take their honey... and when you try to lasso them lol

Welcome I can not wait to see pictures from start to finish,go big

Thank you! I can't wait till it's finished so I can watch the fish and see what else makes their home in and around it

Welcome BeeWrangler. We have got a lot of rain here also. It was the wettest July on record and the 6th or 7th all time wettest month in Chicago and it keeps raining almost everyday this month too.

I thought the sun was going to come out today, it had stopped raining for a couple hours but its back again. Maybe I should be making plans to build an ark rather than a pond lol

Thanks again to everyone for the warm welcomes!!

 

[BeeWrangler]

Welcome BeeWrangler! I can send you bees if you can send me rain. I live in S Texas and we have the Africanized bee variety to go with the dried up cracks in my front yard.

I will add you to my raindance list sgrawunder, but you can keep the Africanized bee's lol. I hear they produce a massive amount of honey compared to any other type of honeybee though.

 

[j.w]

Sad to hear that about the bees. We need more bees to reproduce and make more bees. Times are not too good for bees it seems. We are losing them and w/o them we are in a heap of trouble. I hear they are dying off. We rely on them for pollination of crops and of course their honey is yummy too. Hope you have better luck w/ your new bees. What do you do now to deal w/ the cold winter if it's as bad as last year?

 

[BeeWrangler]

Sad to hear that about the bees. We need more bees to reproduce and make more bees. Times are not too good for bees it seems. We are losing them and w/o them we are in a heap of trouble. I hear they are dying off. We rely on them for pollination of crops and of course their honey is yummy too. Hope you have better luck w/ your new bees. What do you do now to deal w/ the cold winter if it's as bad as last year?

Your right, they are in trouble. I remember when I was a boy there was bee's everywhere! every flower had a honeybee on it, but now they are few and far between. It was not the cold that killed mine off but all the snow and dampness. Every week we got hit with a huge snow storm and it would cover them with mountains of snow. Guess I should have been more on the ball when it came to shoveling them out. I know for next time to dig them out right away. I don't think I have even seen a winter with that many snow storms though

 

[taherrmann4]

Do the bees sort of hibernate in the winter or are they still active? I would think that the snow would insulate their hive and keep them warmer. Sounds like a really neat hobby.

 

[j.w]

So they don't ever build covers over the hives to keep all the snow and dampness out? Seems like if they did that it would help. Guess it would have to be quite a large cover to keep blowing snow and sideways rain out and the cost maybe prohibitive.
Have to stop when I'm mowing the grass w/ my riding mower to wait till the bees get done sucking nectar from the clover all the time.

 

[Jas2Cats]

I can send you my neighbors bees They are 20 feet up in my cedar tree right now. Have been there for 2 days. We're supposed to keep an eye on them when they leave so we can let her know if they move somewhere where she can get to them.


Last time they swarmed, they took up in a plum tree about the same height, but, the branch broke and they ended up on the ground. She brought a box over for them, and they marched right in.

 

[j.w]

Nice pix Jas and glad to see there are still people out there collecting them. When I go on my walks I see someone that has the white wooden boxes of hives. Very neat to see them all buzzing around happily doing their busy bee things.

 

[BeeWrangler]

Do the bees sort of hibernate in the winter or are they still active? I would think that the snow would insulate their hive and keep them warmer. Sounds like a really neat hobby.

They don't really hibernate, they go into a ball and slowly move around the hive eating the honey. I guess being clumped into a ball keeps them nice and warm.

So they don't ever build covers over the hives to keep all the snow and dampness out? Seems like if they did that it would help. Guess it would have to be quite a large cover to keep blowing snow and sideways rain out and the cost maybe prohibitive.
Have to stop when I'm mowing the grass w/ my riding mower to wait till the bees get done sucking nectar from the clover all the time.

There are covers to go over the hives, I use pine shavings and straw to fill between the hive and the cover. But you have to leave a hole open for them and when it gets covered with snow thats when there is a problem. This past winter there was days when it snowed for days strait, the blowing snow would build up and cover the hives with a few feet of snow so no air could get in. The warmth of the hive would make dampness then at night it would get -30 or so and deep freeze. Between work and snowstorms it got ahead of me.

I can send you my neighbors bees They are 20 feet up in my cedar tree right now. Have been there for 2 days. We're supposed to keep an eye on them when they leave so we can let her know if they move somewhere where she can get to them.
View attachment 37487

Last time they swarmed, they took up in a plum tree about the same height, but, the branch broke and they ended up on the ground. She brought a box over for them, and they marched right in.
View attachment 37490

Cool pics jas2cats!! I love catching swarms, that is where I got my name beewrangler lol. a few years ago I was working in a sawmill and a swarm came in and landed in a huge oak tree just outside the mill. I only had shorts and a tshirt on but I was not going to let them get away so I got a ladder and empty box from my boss and went up after them. I was stung so many times I could hardly bend my arms and one of my eyes was swallen shut. But I did get the swarm with the queen and was back to work the next day. I was told a theory from other beekeepers that bee swarms do not sting as they have no hive to protect. I soon dismissed this theory as inaccurate after that.

 

[sissy]

My father was an organic farmer when there were none and we had a guy ask to put beehives on our property and we welcomed him and boy that free honey was the best .My father past away in 1992 and the farm was sold .But still remember it well

 

[Jas2Cats]

They really do seem to be pretty docile when they swarm. The sound though is incredible, and, me being allergic to bees, well, I should just stay inside with all the screens closed, except when she was retrieving them, then, curiosity overruled good sense. I had to go stand right out there near them and watch. It really is fascinating

 

[addy1]

I had a swarm fly over me while in the back yard, no kidding about the sound, looked up and just saw this dark cloud.

 

[sissy]

keep dancing darn it dark clouds are rolling in could be rain dance sucker dance LOL

 

[CometKeith]

We used to have a lot of bees until we got a bullfrog. I think he eats everything except for mosquitoes!