Hi, I am a fledgling beekeeper, keep a few animals, garden a bit, homeschool two children and work at a church as an accompanist and choir director. I live outside of Covington, La which is across the lake from New Orleans and have lived in the area for 35 years. We have 40 acres and three hives (soon to be 4). I love the bees but am continually humbled by the little creatures!! They sometimes don't do what the books and manuals say they should!!
I am looking forward to learning more and lurking about-trying to figure out the right questions to ask!!
When I first began learning about bees (4 years ago), I never saw any honeybees on our property. I would regularly inspect flowers, garden area, etc and rarely saw anything. Of course, that changed when I got my hives, and the squash and cucumbers (plus various weeds that I could have skipped having pollinated) began to proliferate. This year, we had three swarms on our property. One was from one of my hives (I got sick in the spring and couldn't get to the splitting). Tried to catch the first one and got badly stung in the process. We successfully captured another one, put it in a hive box with sugar water. They sucked down my sugar water and took off the next day!! Anyway, I am thrilled to know that there are more beekeepers around and more bees in the area-doing our part to repopulate our little corner of the world.
Candy