Bee culture is an interesting hobby for which you do not have to have more than one hive to get all the honey you need. Honey is a good substitute for sugar. When my wife makes homemade bread she use honey in her recipe.

     I have a small apiary consisting of five hives and extract honey usually at the end of July. We heat the honey to 150 degrees to help delay crystallization and bottle it immediately. A number of booklets and pamphlets are on the market that can help you get started. Many companies sell starter kits that provide everything you need to get up and running.

     There are few wild bees left, and because of this many orchards must rent bees during pollination to insure a good fruit set. Keeping and maintaining bees is a challenging task because of the diseases and pests that attack them.. Some of these are mites, foul brood, hive beetles and wax worms.

     Besides being fun to raise, bees have an interesting society in which the queen, drones and workers have a division of labor that promotes the success of the hive. The bee dance that workers perform in the hive to show the direction of a honey source is unique.

     A good book that will help you get started with bees and answer many of your questions is ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture by A.I. Root. There are a number of catalogs that sell bees and equipment. If you have access to a computer, look up honeybee supplies on the web. Many companies have free catalogs for the asking.

     Included on this page are some pictures of my hives and supers full of honey. I hope that you might become interested in raising bees.

If you have questions or comments, please feel free to .