Went to the Ohio State Beekeepers Association Annual meeting at Tolles Technical Center; this was a neat event; got to meet a lot of peeps, look at and touch equipment, talk to the vendors, etc.
The talk on the how bees mate was fascinating; I had no idea; and kudos to the speaker (Dr. Ellis; University of Florida; really knows his stuff).
After looking around, and talking to folks:
- I think the polystyrene hives (though a good idea) are still being proven in this area; I wonder what winter ventilation issues there may be; plus, I’m not sure that should be our first set of equipment, cause once you jump onto that bandwagon, you are pretty much locked into that system (they don’t seem to interchange very well across manufacturers); I think I’ll follow advice to start with standard stuff.
- I liked the discussions I had with the folks at the Brushy Mountain Bee Farm (http://www.brushymountainbeefarm.com), and the quality of their equipment for the price. I bought a bee suit from them (even though a stranger was telling me that I only need a bee jacket as I was trying it on.. maybe so on that one, but I’ll error on the side of caution until I can form my own opinion). Got started with a whole set of stuff; they’ll ship it to the house, I’ll have to put it together; they made it interesting with free shipping and a 10% discount on the whole deal; 2 complete hives, all mediums (my idea; I liked what some beekeepers advise on standardizing on mediums, cause then the equipment is all the same, and 3 mediums is approximately the same size as 2 deeps).
- Talked with the guy at BroodMinder, and bought 2 completes (1 for each hive) for monitoring hive temperature, humidity, and weight; felt it was superior to some of the other gadgets out there (smaller, synchs to bluetooth, then synchs up to web when you are near wi-fi; this was a much better answer than the vendor selling a physically huge unit, and advising me to install wi-fi repeaters in my bee yard…. big NO on that one). Plus, I liked their story and what they are trying to do, so I’ll support them where I can. Especially for starting out, I like to quantify and track parameters as much as I can.
- Put my name in with some vendors on getting some Nucs for Spring; seems they are almost ordered – out already; now I’m worried I won’t be able to get bees; not crazy about the packaged bees; would prefer to get an established, over-wintered colony AND get local bees instead of bees from California, or Georgia, etc.
- Anita got stuff too… (hahahahaaha)… I’m like a kid in a candy store….