This is what it's all about right here.
I know you can't wait to get your hands on those bees.
Especially the nice lady who just came up and asked me, "how
do I know if I'm allergic to bees?" Well, there's one
way to find out for sure.
And hopefully you're not.
If it turns out you are, this is probably not the hobby for you
because you are going to get stung at some point.
Hopefully not too often.
We'll do everything we can to minimize that.
But it's just kind of one of those facts of life.
If you're going to work on a car engine, gonna to get grease on your fingers,
if you're going to work in the garden
you're going to get dirt under your fingernails.
You're going to work with the bees, eventually probably going to take a sting.
But people ask me, we'll always ask you, "do
you ever get stung?" So get used to that question.
And then
they follow that up with, "do you ever get used to it?" No, you never do.
It always comes as a surprise.
You never expecting it.
But it's one of those things.
So I hope maybe you've considered reading up on honey bees a little bit.
Hopefully you did that before you came to class.
You know, there's a lot of good references out there.
Your hand out from last week had some recommended books that I like.
It's good to have a couple of them around.
They all pretty much say the same things in a little bit different ways.
Sometimes one book will make more sense
than another, but good to have a reference book.
You may not sit down and read it cover to cover more than once anyway,
but it's good to be able
to refer back to things, and it's good to get different people's opinions on it.
Of course, if you haven't already purchased your beehives
and other equipment, then that's something that you need to get going
because bees will be ready soon and we don't want them to be homeless.
So you want to make sure that you've got all your frames together, foundation
in, all your hives together,
make sure it's painted, all the stuff that we talked about last week.
And of course, if you haven't ordered bees yet, there's still time., maybe.
For a lot of you, if you get them here
locally, they should be in in a couple of weeks.
So if you haven't, you
might still be able to find some places you could order them from.
Pretty soon, though, all the early bees are going to be gone.
You may have to wait
until May, even June, in order to get your honeybees delivered.
So they are in high demand and they can be in short supply in the springtime.
Whether you want one bee hive or you want a dozen or more.
You need to think about where you're going to put those bees.
So plan on your apiary site.
Placing beehives does require a little bit of forethought
because once the bees are established in the hives, you can move them around.
But it takes a little bit of knowledge to do that
because every one of these hives here, the bees inside know where they live.
They orient on that location their first day out of the hive.
They do what's called an orientation flight.
They make little circles wider and wider,
taking in all of the landmarks around them.
They know that this is where they came out from.
It's between those hives and they look at the trees,
the buildings, everything else, and then they'll take off and go far away.
But when they come back, they can find that one spot.
So as long as we don't move them too far, they always come back home.
Your bees need various things, or I should say
there is ideal situations for your bees and what they need.
So if we understand what bees really want, what makes them happy,
what keeps them healthy, that'll help you to choose a spot.
Now, there's maybe an ideal not every site is
going to have all of those things, but get as close as you can.
Of course, your bees want dependable nectar sources.
We want our bees to have dependable nectar sources because that's more honey
for us.
And more honey for our bees, of course,
unless you have thousands of acres you're willing to plant,
that's not something
that we necessarily need to worry about because our bees are going to forage
in a very large area around our apiary, and they're going to find what they want.
They're going to find what they need.
They're going to bring back that pollen and nectar.
Bees do need a good water source.
Plenty of water out right now.
But in the hot summertime, some of those sources may dry up.
You want to make sure that you provide bees with water if they need it.
So if you don't have a natural source within a quarter mile or closer,
then you might want to supply them with some water.
We'll talk about that more in a minute.
You can't have too much water.
There's too much of a good thing there.
And I actually had some bees out by the river in 2019
when that whole area flooded and I lost several hives,
I knew the water was going to rise, but I was not expecting it to get that high.
That's not my apiary there.
But I did have some that washed away and never, never were seen again.
So you want to make sure that you keep them high and dry.
A windbreak is good.
That helps your bees as they're coming in for a landing.
A heavy crosswind makes it difficult for them to be able to come and go.
And in the wintertime if you can block that cold north wind coming in,
then that's going to help your hives to be able to stay a little bit warmer.
So if you have your bees next to a building or a wooden fence
or something like that, then maybe you're blocking that wind already.
If you have your bees in the middle of a pasture, it's wide open
and there's a lot of wind you might consider setting
something up around them, especially in the wintertime.
Our bees seem to prefer a hive that has an opening that faces the morning sun.
Studies they've done
have shown that even in nature, bees are moving into hollow trees.
They like one that has morning sun
shining on the entrance and helps them to get up and go and get moving
so you can turn your hives to face that direction.
Kind of east southeast they seem to like that, and we recommend
that we put hives in bright afternoon sun in the evening.
And that's because of these darn small hive beetles.
If you put your hives in the shade, then you are definitely going
to have more problem with these beetles.
The Beatles do not like the sun and they're out in the late
afternoon in the evening looking for hives to invade.
And if your hives have more sun, then you're going to have fewer problems
with them.
But hives in the shade,
almost guaranteed, are going to have more hive beetles in them.
And we'll talk more about those beetles in our next week's lesson.
Consider your own needs as a beekeeper.
You want something convenient to get to,
but you also want to have plenty of space for your bees.
You want them to be safe.
You want your neighbors to be safe.
So depending on the scale of beekeeping that you want to get into
and how much space that you have available,
you're going to have to find something that works for you.
If you've just got one hive in your backyard,
you can probably find enough room for it.
In some places, they keep bees on rooftops.
In cities, people live in apartment buildings and they don't have a yard.
People keep them on balconies.
This seems like a very inconvenient place to keep bees, but perhaps it's
better than no bees at all.
But imagine when it comes time to harvest honey and you've got to be handing
frames to your friend inside the little window there.
So that's probably not the best place.
If you can roll right up to your beehives and in your truck or with a cart
or a wheelbarrow or something like that, it's going to make things a lot easier.
Now, a lot of things in beekeeping get heavy
and they're heavy when you put them on the hive
and they're even heavier when you take them off, hopefully,
because they'll be full of honey, and being able to roll that right away
with hundreds of pounds of honey is very convenient.
If you have to walk up and down a muddy hillside carrying big boxes,
sometimes two at a time, two people at a time carrying boxes.
It can get kind of cumbersome.
So pick a spot that's got easy access.
And if you're going to be putting
your bees on someone else's property, you should have their permission.
Believe it or not, some people don't sometimes bee hive show up on farmland
and they may have been on the wrong side of the road, Farmer says.
"Whose beehives are these?
I say, I don't know. Finders keepers".
But we in Arkansas, we actually have a state law.
We call it the three mile rule.
If you want to place
bees on your own property, then that's always going to be approved.
But if you want to put bees on someone else's property, you need permission
of the other established beekeepers within three miles of that area.
This is designed to protect the pasture rights of beekeepers.
So if I've had bees in this location for years and I'm making lots of honey,
it prevents somebody from moving in 100 beehives
right next door on land that doesn't belong to them.
And they're taking all of my good honey that I've been making.
So if you're renting,
if you rent a home, then of course that counts the same as owning it.
As far as that rule goes, if you have been asked by someone else
to put bees on their land for pollination,
if they've got fruit trees or a garden or farm or something like that,
all you need is a letter from the land owner
that says they request that and it's going to be approved.
It's a little bit contentious some people don't like that rule, but it is the law.
Do be aware of your neighbors.
This is in particular for you urban beekeepers.
You love your honey bees, but you may be living next door to someone
who is not quite as keen on them as you are believe it or not.
Whether you've got one hive or you've got a dozen hives,
you do want to just be on good terms with your neighbors.
There is too much.
There is such a thing as too much of a good thing.
You know, you have a bee suit and you can put it on
when you have to be around your hives and you might be stirring them up,
but your neighbors may not necessarily have that.
You may like it where you can just look out your window
and see your bees, but you might have somebody very nearby
who is not quite as comfortable as you are with them.
So, you know, just be a good neighbor.
I find that a couple of jars of fresh honey straight out of the hive
helps to soothe any uncomfortableness that your neighbors might have.
They're a little nervous at first, but the first time they taste that
fresh, honey, they forget all about it.
And they're glad to see you again next summer, too.
So keep that up.
We like to put up
a privacy fence around bees or some thick vegetation.
And this is called a flight barrier.
It forces the bees to fly up and over instead of just going right
across your neighbor's yard.
Honey bees, once they're about ten feet out from a hive,
they're going to be about ten feet in the air.
And they travel in what we call foraging lanes that are up overhead.
And this keeps them out of our way, keeps them out of the way of everybody.
And most obstacles.
And this is just
where they tend to travel, and they'll come back down in for a landing.
They're not going to go up over a fence
and right down into your neighbor's yard again
unless your neighbor's yard is full of flowers.
In some cities, some municipalities, there's actually rules
that require you to have a flight barrier.
So you might need to look into that.
And it's also just a good idea
if you hide your hive, out to sight is out of mind.
You might have neighbors that don't even know you've got bees for years.
They might wonder what all that smoke is coming out of your yard,
but they may not know you have bees for a long time.
And of
course, when your neighbors are out having a barbecue, when they're out there
with a bunch of ten year olds having a birthday party, use your common sense.
That's not the time that you go out and open up hives and disturb them all
and, you know, rile them all up and get them in the air.
You do need to follow the rules.
We have rules.
There are state laws about beekeeping, and those are put in place
by the state Department of Agriculture and the Apiary section of the State
Plant Board.
You are required by state law to register
the location of your bee yards, your apiary.
It's not complicated.
It is a simple one page form.
And if you look on the back of tonight's handout,
you can see what you've got there.
They just need your contact information and the location of your apiary.
And it says, you know, quarter section and township and range and all that.
That's from an old record keeping system.
They don't use that really anymore.
They need your latitude and longitude.
You can find that on your cell phone or on Google Maps,
or they can help you find it if you need to.
But that's really all you need.
Give it a name or a number.
Just say home.
If that's your only bee hive, that's fine.
And the other stuff is pretty obvious.
It's free.
So in Arkansas, this is free.
In a lot of our neighboring states, there's
actually a fee you have to pay to register your hives.
But it is the law. You are required to do this.
What happens if you don't?
Well, not a whole lot, but when they find out, they'll add to their list.
It's a good idea to be registered.
For one thing, you can take advantage of your state apiary inspectors.
They make house calls.
If you think you've got a problem in your bee hive, you can't figure it out.
You can call the inspector.
They come to your home or your bee yard for free
and go through your bees with you.
They can give you advice.
Do consult local regulations.
So I mentioned that we have city laws whether you live here in Little Rock,
in North Little Rock, Bryant, Cabot, Conway,
I know a lot of y'all are from different places.
You can look up city codes online, pretty much all of them are online now.
They're searchable.
Look up, "honey", look up "bee", and look up "honeybee" as one word
because technically it's two words, but a lot of people misspell it as one word.
So search for that. If you can't find
any reference to honey bee laws in your town, shh.
Don't tell anybody
because if you call up the courthouse and ask what the rules are about
honey bees, they'll look and they'll see that there's not any.
And by golly, the next time there's a city council meeting,
somebody will propose one.
So don't be that guy.
If you are a member of a property owners association
or homeowner's association, they also have their own rules and charters.
And you can look through that and make sure that
there's not anything that you need to worry about there.
Sometimes those rules are very vague.
They just say no dangerous animals.
So they can apply that to alligators and pit bulls and rottweiler farms.
But, you know, somebody might apply that to the honey bee too so,
just be aware.