A Little Update

Went to the beekeeping meeting last night. We're getting pretty close to crunch time I think. The beekeeping thing may not work out this year. We'd only have the rest of June and all of July to get our gear and hives together before ordering our bees in September or so, and because I'll be gone most of August, that cuts into our prep time severely. Things will start to speed up too once the solstice passes us by. Apparently the bees know when the days are getting longer, and the queen will start laying eggs. I don't think we have enough time to manage this for this year.
 

As disappointing as that is, I think I've got Z interested in going to the meetings. The next one is July 16, so we've marked our calenders, I've put my name down to get some info on those who may be selling gear, bees or both, and I hope that maybe we can go on some of the field days with the more expert beekeepers. I've also sent Z on a mission: she's going to ask her Dad about his beekeeping days, and what he knows may help us even more, though she suspects he's sold off all his own equipment years ago. Still, any help is good help.

It gives us time to save up as well, especially if we end up paying for Langstroth type hives. Or any hives really I guess. We'd still have to get the plans and build from scratch the top bar hives, and I personally would like to try out the Warre hives too (somewhere down the line; I think different hives for caparison would be good). Especially as it seems like everybody here pretty much sticks to a form of the Langstroth hive, which as you may already know, I don't necessarily like the idea of (it's more work!)

I'm going to go start a money jar now.