My head hurts from all the online reading I’ve done on honey bees in the past few weeks. Every couple days I discover a new website and explore every corner of it. I’ll provide links to the more informative websites once I’ve committed to starting my own colony.
These Backwards Beekeepers videos are what go me interested in the first place, especially this video about harvesting the honey (I posted it before, but I’m throwing in a few more to go with it):
I would choose the above destruction method of harvesting if I could. It’s the simplest and most economical process, and the bees don’t seem to mind. The other method usually requires inserting a plastic comb foundation into the frames and then later spinning the honey out of the comb using an extractor — and then cleaning it all up afterwards. The Backwards Beekeepers get their honey from wild bees in Los Angeles, California, where the destruction method isn’t an issue, I assume, because they don’t have to concern themselves with a short season like, say, Newfoundland bee keepers do. There’s plenty of time for bees to build new comb in California. (I’m guessing.)
Philosophically, I’m attracted to the Backwards Beekeeping method of creating frames for honey bee combs too. They call them starter strips. Check it out:
This next video is even better. It demonstrates how to light and use a smoker, but it also shows the bees building their honeycombs off the starter strips. Bees are amazing.
Here’s another Backwards Beekeepers video showing the bees hard at work cleaning away dead bees after a heavy rainstorm:
There are more videos from Backwards Beekeepers on their site and on YouTube. Not a bad place to start poking around for anyone interested in bee keeping.
Related post: Starting a New Bee Hive (Video).
