Hello, Thinking of starting a hive or two in the spring, taking a 4 hour beginners course next week, will be checking in with the local club.
Working my way through "The Practical Beekeeper" and have a copy of the 1935 edition of "The ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture" on the way.
I have also, time permitting, been reading anything I can find on the web. One thing I have noticed is, for every problem there seems to be many varied and conflicting solutions. I think, right now at any rate, that I am leaning toward keeping things as natural, chemical, etc. free, as possible. I am a big fan of Joel Salatin, not a beekeeper that I know of, and would like to apply his philosophy of farming to beekeeping. IE; let the bees be bees. We keep chickens and try to do it as naturally as possible.
I live on 4 acres in central NY with what should be plenty of good flowering plant life for the bees. Not looking to necessarily sell honey, just thinking that keeping a few bees is the right thing to do considering their decline.
I am open to any and all advise and will most likely be posting my fair share of questions, though I promise I'll try to do a topic search first.
Thank you for this site and wish me luck.
Topic: Not yet a beekeeper (Read 2313 times)