My Beekeeping Journey Starts
So apparently our little Bulgarian zoo (2 ducks, 2 chickens ,2 dogs and 3 cats) is not big enough and will grow by several thousands of 'pets' soon. This lovely, but very insistent 85 year old gentleman from the village is very troubled by the fact I have not got any bees and he decided to do something about it. Insisted taking me on afternoon trip to buy what I need and wants to give me 2 families of his bees as soon as I graduated his classes in proper beekeeping at his house a hour or 2 every afternoon this week. Was interesting and learnt alot despite the huge language barrier (he speaks almost no English and my Bulgarian is severely limited). Full blown Karate Kid/Miyagi kind of thing happening...if only by the hand gestures and body language to try and explain things to each other :)
Will follow up when the bees arrive :)
I suggest you replace one of the tags with #beekeeping, it could become a popular tag :-D
Great suggestion :)
Love the karate kid reference! Bigger photos would be appreciated. How much did the equipment investments cost you? In Norway all the individual parts seem cheap, and then the whole package ends up being not so cheap.
I'd be interested in knowing how you tackle varroa.
BTW: Bees can easily mistake someone else's home for their own, you can help them by differentiating the hives with different colours (and remember that they don't have the same colour vision as us), or such things. Looking forward to updates!
Hey :)
The guy took me to a town in central Bulgaria called Troyan where there's a guy who produces the hives. I got 2 full hives with 3 levels each and 8 frames per level = 48. The bases and roofs for about 120 euros for all, so 60 euros each. Not sure about the colours since his hives are all the same colour also and he has almost 30 very close to each other. So I don't think it would be a big problem.
Updated pics. In the pics is just one of the 3 levels.
Great article! I would like to include this post in the next issue of the Weekly Homesteading Newsletter which is a series posted every Sunday that aims to help collect awesome articles and resources like this one! This article will be linked and your username featured if you accept - please let me know if it is alright to include your article as soon as possible! Thank you and have a great day!
Hey
That would be great. Just had a look at the newsletter. Its great :) Feel free to include me.
Awesome, thank you so much! I'll send you a link when it is published this weekend
Great :)
Hey there! I just wanted to inform you that your article has been included and linked in the most recent issue of the Weekly Homesteading Newsletter! Please check it out if you have the time! Thank you and have a great day!