Hobby Farm Beekeeping | Beekeeper Supplies | Hobby Farm Honey
Get involved, consider keeping your own honey bee colony, they not only provide honey they pollinate corps and plants that we all depend on.
The decline in honey bee populations over the last decade coupled with a high demand for premium honey, especially honey produced locally, has skyrocketed the price for this golden sweet nectar. Soon honey could become as good as gold.
Scientist and beekeeping experts are stumped with the recent rapid decline in bee colonies, entire colonies are dying off and no one has yet to fully understand why and how to prevent more colonies from disappearing.
A bee colony depends entirely on worker bees going out and bringing back the nectar used to produce honey; honey is stored as food to keep the bee colony fed and alive over the winter until new spring plants allow more nectar to be gathered. Without the worker bees the colony will die known as a colony collapse.
Worker bees are just disappearing and not returning to the hive. Some experts feel it is related to pesticides and sprays used by both farmers and home gardeners, others point to potential diseases and stress.
Everyone eventually ends up dependent on the honey bee even if you like honey or not. Without bees plants do not become pollinated, which means, flowers don’t bloom, vegetables don’t grow, and crops don’t produce the corn and grains we depend on in our food chain.
Home beekeeping is easier than you may think and it provides a great hobby that can even produce a nice side income. The top-bar-beehive is one of the easiest to maintain and extract honey from without upsetting the bees. Some top-bar-hive beekeepers don’t even dress up in beekeeper clothing and netting to extract honey from a top-bar-hive.
The traditional-beehive which most are accustomed to seeing in back yards and farms consist of white painted boxes stacked on top of each other. Beekeepers have to lift the box sections up to extract honey from the hive causing more aggravation and the bee’s natural instinct to protect the hive.
Not all honey is extracted from the hive; a reserve amount is left for the bees to survive. Beekeeping training and classes are available through a variety of local community colleges, and agriculture county extension offices. You can get involved do good for your neighbors and the environment by raising and keeping your own bee colony(s). It is not as scary or dangerous as you may think.
Cottage Craft Works carries both the top bar and the traditional beehives as well as supplies and books for beekeeping. Purchase them at Cottage Craft Works . COM
