Hi everybody,
Brand new member here and quite new to beekeeping in general as well.
I went to the county bee school last March then started with a Langstroth hive- just building and staining the hive itself and building the frames was such a joy! Bought a bee package in April, colony was doing great, but by early June I had a bear pay a visit and as a result I lost all bees.
Needless to say this Spring I will start again, I will build an electric fence this time around. I am thinking of adding a second hive and I'm contemplating getting another type of hive just to experience something different. Really considering a National with a deep brood box and a standard brood box (here in New England most everybody seem to have two brood boxes, I believe because winters being harsher than down south, they want the bees to have adequate food stores for the winter- I am mentioning this as I did notice that a standard National comes with only one brood box).
Anyways, I really enjoyed the short month or so of beekeeping last year and I'm really excited to start again and to become an active member of this community- I am sure I will be soaking up the wealth of knowledge on this forum as needs will arise along my beekeeping adventure.