I’m just about finished with my bee keeping class. I have my notes put together and I think I’m ready. I’ve paid my $75 for the bees and I’m anxiously awaiting their arrival sometime in mid April.
I also picked up my bee hive from Honey Trails as well as a couple extra pieces of wooden ware I might need. Chris is a great guy. His basement and garage are essentially a bee hive workshop. He also gave me a quick tour of his backyard hives and I picked up some tips just in the 10 minutes we were standing there.
I was hoping to make a trip up to Dadant in Wisconsin within the next few weeks to get the rest of my supplies. I was going to take the family with me so the kids and wife could see all the cool bee toys and we could do some shopping. But alas they are only open on weekdays until 4pm. Which makes a 2 hour trip north nearly impossible, unless I take a day off work and pull the kids out of school. I will never understand companies that have a physical store and sell direct to consumers and yet are not open on the weekends…even limited hours on the weekends. I guess my $200 isn’t worth it. Their choice. I’m now free to buy from anyone on the Internet. Brushy Mountain Bee Farm looks like a good alternative.
Back in 2000 when Melissa and I lived in the bay area I fell into a fair bit of money from some stock options in the days of the .com boom. Instead of doing the responsible thing and saving for a down payment on a house, I went to a Jeep dealer and purchased a factory custom Jeep Wrangler, Chili pepper red. Oh I loved that Jeep. Probably the best times I’ve ever spent with Melissa was in that Jeep…or going somewhere in that Jeep.
In an emotionally compromised state, I let Melissa convince me to do the responsible thing and we traded that Jeep for a Mini-Van and started having kids. Worst decision I ever made in my life (the trade-in, not the kids). For 6+ years I’ve been complaining and bemoaning the fact of my horrible decision. As it got closer and closer to my 40th birthday, I told Melissa I was pre-scheduling my mid-life crisis and that whenever my then car died I was going to purchase a Jeep again (a real Jeep, not the Hummer wannabes they sell now).
Well it happened. In January of 2010 my Subaru Outback rolled over 130,000 miles and I knew I was nursing some engine leaks. The local mechanic had been keeping a list of fixes that I needed to make on the car and they were always about $1000. Every time I went in for an oil change we would tick something off the list for another $500-800. The car was only worth about $5000 if it was in good condition..which it wasn’t. (dents, scratches and DIY mods were lowering the value). While driving to work one day the ABS light went on. Thinking ABS is a good thing for my safety, I took it into the shop again. $500 of diagnostics later and I’m told it’s a $2000 job, not including the $2000-3000 in engine leaks/gaskets that should be replaced at the same time while they are in there. That put the nail in the coffin.
A quick trip to cars.com and I had a list of 3 or 4 acceptable Jeeps in the area. We had nothing to do the next Saturday (car still in the shop being made drivable) so we jumped in the Mini-Van and headed up to the first dealer on my list. On the way to that dealer, I saw two Jeeps in another dealer’s lot. Melissa pulled in and I jumped out to take a look. I remembered having seen the one Jeep on cars.com but it had looked in very bad condition. In person it was in wonderful shape for a 2005 and I knew the price was good (thank you cars.com).
One thing lead to another, a test drive here, a walk-around there, and we’re sitting in the sales room talking to the guy about prices. The sales guy mentions he’ll give me $3000 for my Subaru, site unseen. !!SOLD!! Where do I sign?
And that’s how I got my Jeep back.
I started my beekeeping class last night at the Wheaton Park District. There were about 20 people in the class and the instructor said the class was full in early December. I had heard the waiting list was at least 10 deep at one point. Many of the folks were around my age and there was a good mix of women and men. Most of the men were my age or a little older and probably going through the same midlife crisis as me. Many introduced themselves as wanting to learn about bees because it compliments their life goals of moving to a farm and living the “simple life”. I got the impression that at least half were only recently interested, primarily due to the “green movement”. Nothing wrong with that…at least something good is coming out of it.
The instructor, Charles Lorence (picture left), is full of 30+ years of beekeeping knowledge and has a great personality. The class should be entertaining and informative. He showed us a “turn key” hive setup built by a local craftsman Chris Saad (Wayne, IL). I got an up close view of the parts and they look to be excellently put together. I’m no stranger to quality wood work and Chris looks like he puts his heart and soul into these boxes. They are not “custom” per say as many of the parts come from Dadant. But they have been expertly put together and any low quality components from Dadant have been replaced by Chris. I’m sure I could put the pieces together myself, but the question is how much is 30 hours of my time worth?
Beekeeping isn’t a cheap hobby to get into, but neither is riding a Harley or ham radio or even gardening. Using the Dadant catalog, the Brushy Mountain catalog and Chris’ prices I’ve scoped out what I’m going to need to just get started. This doesn’t include the bees, medicine, sugar feeders, honey extraction or extras. Just the basics.
- [$292 ] – Complete “Woodenware” Hive from Honey Trails / Chris Saad
- [ $55.50 ] – (3) 6 5/8″ Medium Super (for Hive Body on the recommendation of GardenFork.tv)
- [ $37 ] – (2) 6 5/8″ Medium Super (for honey production)
- [ $135 ] – (5) 6 1/4″ Grooved Top Bar Frame (/w beeswax coated plasticell foundation)
- [ $25 ] – Cedar Varroa Screened Bottom Board
- [ $22 ] – Tele Cover with custom Aluminum Top
- [ $8 ] – Inner Cover
- [ $2.50 ] – Universal Entrance Reducer (mouse proof)
- [ $7 ] – Metal Bound Queen Excluder
- Fully painted with high quality oil based primer and semi-gloss latex white paint.
- [ $22 ] – (1 Extra) Tele Cover with custom Aluminum Top [ used during honey collection ]
- [ $36 ] – 4×7 Stainless Steel Smoker with Shield (Dadant)
- [ $8 ] – Painted Hive Tool (Dadant)
- [ $5 ] – Bee Brush (Dadant)
- [ $19 ] – Frame Spacing Tool (Dadant)
- [ $47 ] – XL Hat-Veil Combo with Zippered Jacket (Dadant) [recommendation of GardenFork.tv]
- [ $11 ] – Fume Board (Dadant)
- [ $14 ] – Bee Quick (Dadant) [used during honey collection]
- [ $5 ] – Blue nitrile gloves [recommendation of GardenFork.tv]
- [ $5 ] – Good quality spray bottle (for when you hive your new bee package)
- [ $6 ] – Terramycin (Brushy Mountain) [medicine]
- [ $18 ] – Fumagilin-B (Brushy Mountain) [medicine]
- [ $20 ] – Hive Top Feeder (Brushy Mountain)
- [ $25 ] – MegaBee Prepared Pollen Patties (Brushy Mountain)
Total StartUp Costs: $450 + shipping/tax
When everything is said and done it will probably be closer to $550 by the time the bees arrive in April. (It better not be late April..I’m scheduled to go storm chasing in late April). Probably more like $650 after I buy a spare veil and a “kids outfit” so the girls can help. Then probably another couple hundred in fall during honey extraction. But after the initial investment you only need to pay for new queens and bees (if they die) and supplies.
[note: Yes yes, I know some of the stuff above isn't technically needed but for someone who has never raised bees before or worked around bees it's the minimum. Technically all you need is a Veil. Technically all you need to play football is a ball. ]
I have limited space in my garden and have decided to not grow garlic to save about 1/8 of the garden space. I also decided not to grow tomatoes in the raised beds since they take up so much space too. Probably another 1/8 of the garden. Both decisions recovered about 1/4 of the space for other items. In 2009 I purchased several deck “pots” and tried to grow tomatoes in them but did not have much success. I’m sure it had more to do with my inability to maintain watering. I found this while searching the Internet this afternoon…looks like a possible solution to allow me to grow tomatoes on the deck and not take up the precious raised beds. Includes a PDF and a video of how to build a self-watering tomatoe system from basic household items.
http://earthtainer.tomatofest.com/
