How I got started.

Hi Everyone,

Welcome to my beekeeping post documenting my trials and tribulations as a first year beekeeper.

To start off I wanted to describe how I got into this.

About one year ago I was at a Farmer's Market and started talking to this guy who had a booth selling honey. Talking with him sparked an interest I'd always had in beekeeping so I contacted a local beekeepers club.

Conveniently the club was having a bee day where they met at a beekeepers place and worked many hives. I borrowed a bee veil and went out there and was fascinated by the experience of keeping a bee hive. Since it was too late in the year to start my own hive I spent the year reading up on beekeeping and accumulating equipment and going to the beekeeper club meetings.

A few things I learned:

Definitely check around for used equipment. I found a guy who was getting out of the hobby and he sold me all of the equipment I needed for very cheap.

Definitely spend some time reading. I bought and read "Beekeeping for Dummies" which I still refer to frequently.

Definitely find a peer group. I really enjoyed the beekeeping club, or if you can't find one I would suggest an online forum (I really like "The Exchange" at www.beesource.com). I use both my beekeeping club and the online forum all the time for questions. People are friendly, helpful, and have a lot of good experience you can draw on.

I decided to start a bee hive from scratch with packaged bees. I had all of the equipment set up and ready, so I just ordered my bees and waiting for them to arrive.

Next post, the actual installation.