Keeping Bees in retirement

On radio 4 recently there was an item that there are too many bees in London! Not enough flowers to go around apparently and the bees are displacing other nectar needing insects.

As for the tattoo, a bee would be nice but [SPIDER ALERT]
.
.
.
.
.
.
I love spiders too and a nice friendly spider would be good.

Oopsadaisy4

LadyH keeping bees isn’t a part time hobby that you can pick up,and put down. You will be responsible for over 60,000 bees per hive and they will need looking after.
Please try to go and see a bee keeper and see exactly what you have to do to keep the hives healthy.

DD has 3 hives and they keep her busy and she worries about the all year round.

Oopsadaisy, I was going to check in with the local beekeepers association to see if anybody could use an apprentice! I'm told I need to get stung early too, just to be sure I'm not allergic before investing time, money and energy. But I am very fond of our buzzy friends.

We had (can’t remember the numbers) between 20 and 50 hives at various times. We started with a nuke which is a “mini” colony. My instinct is to start in the warm weather by shadowing a beekeeper I’d say, but, you may find a friendly person who would enjoy chatting bees with offers of help cleaning, repairing frames and so on. That would perhaps be nice for both of you.

We only ever used veils (not the whole suit thing) so it wasn’t expensive in “gear” but if you get the bug then you will be needing some different hive items and other kit quite soon. Often beekeepers will lend you things but of course come the “honey season” they will maybe be using it themselves. We quickly bought our own honey extractor for example.

Getting started in beekeeping is not rocket science and there are definitely a good number of beekeepers to learn from , and, unfortunately, as one “old guy” said to us, there are too many poor and lazy keepers of bees whose advice you should ignore!

LadyH keeping bees isn’t a part time hobby that you can pick up,and put down. You will be responsible for over 60,000 bees per hive and they will need looking after.
Please try to go and see a bee keeper and see exactly what you have to do to keep the hives healthy.

DD has 3 hives and they keep her busy and she worries about the all year round.

phoenix ??

JackyB

Oh, I thought you meant founding an Old Bees' Home! ?

Oh what a lovely thought, JackyB, little old bees with Zimmer frames, sitting in chairs and watching gardening programmes, getting really interested in the flowers, remembering their days of buzzing amongst them!

But definitely go to Patagonia?

Sorry if you love Buenos Aries and I've offended you.

Ive been there several times, mostly as a two day stop over but once for an extended time.

I just hate it. Dirty, decaying, dangerous. All those homeless people with their little cardboard houses.

I don't like Paris either ?

Oh, I thought you meant founding an Old Bees' Home! ?

What's wrong with Buenos Aires? The Paris of the southern hemisphere! Hopefully with a digression to Patagonia.

Keeping bees?

Motorbike ?

Tattoo ?

Buenos Aries ☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️