Hello from Colorado

[Cold Bees]

Hi,

Colorado family, we are new to and all excited by beekeeping!  What a wonderful resource, a really useful site, especially in it's completeness.

[pdmattox]

Welcome to the forums, glad you found our community. I'm sure you will meet a lot of new friends, learn a ton and most of all have fun.  Good luck and hope to see ya in ventrilo.

[buzzbee]

Hello and Welcome coldbees!! :)

[Cold Bees]

THanks all, already found great help here!  What a wonderful service.

[lemur]

Wonderful!  Welcome to Colorado and beekeeping.  I'm a newbee to both.  Where in CO are you?   My hubby and I are thinking on the Walsenburg area or thereabouts, but our plans are still in the works, and our move a year or so away.

[nepenthes]

Welcome!

How did you choose your name?

[Cold Bees]

Walsenburg!  How did you ever find Walsenburg?  Must have friends, family?  We are in Woodland Park, bit north west of Colorado Springs.  I think we are quiet a bit higher up than you.  Not as dry as Walsenburg, typically, but colder. If you stay with beekeeping, look up the Pike's Peak Beekeeping Association.  No permanent address, but very experienced, professional, dedicated and active.  We know some of the members have hives as far south as Trinidad.  They teach a class every year at the Bear Creek Nature Center, which you can call to ask about the association. 

Chose the name based on our altitude.  8700 feet.  Still in the 30s overnight, but can reach 75 during the day.  We got our first bee package April 30, hived them on May 1, a blue moon, btw, and got a foot of snow May 5!  I keep the feeder jar on top of the inner cover, I put an empty deep over that and the telescoping cover over the deep.  When I check on the feeder some nights, there's no activity near it.  I can see the "cold bees" through the inner cover slot just working the center frame top bars.  When it warms up, they spring into action quick and I see tons of yellow or orange pollen coming in.  I assume it's mostly dandelion, but some other stuff is ready to bloom.

Typical practice up here is 2 deeps for the bees to winter over in.  Honey flows are very variable from year to year.  We aer using all new frames and foundation, told not to expect much honey at all this year while the package bees build comb and raise brood.  BUT, you never know.  Last year some of the newbies with the same set up got 35 pounds. 

[lemur]

Walsenburg!  How did you ever find Walsenburg?  Must have friends, family?  We are in Woodland Park, bit north west of Colorado Springs.  I think we are quiet a bit higher up than you.  Not as dry as Walsenburg, typically, but colder. If you stay with beekeeping, look up the Pike's Peak Beekeeping Association.  No permanent address, but very experienced, professional, dedicated and active.  We know some of the members have hives as far south as Trinidad.  They teach a class every year at the Bear Creek Nature Center, which you can call to ask about the association. 

Chose the name based on our altitude.  8700 feet.  Still in the 30s overnight, but can reach 75 during the day.  We got our first bee package April 30, hived them on May 1, a blue moon, btw, and got a foot of snow May 5!  I keep the feeder jar on top of the inner cover, I put an empty deep over that and the telescoping cover over the deep.  When I check on the feeder some nights, there's no activity near it.  I can see the "cold bees" through the inner cover slot just working the center frame top bars.  When it warms up, they spring into action quick and I see tons of yellow or orange pollen coming in.  I assume it's mostly dandelion, but some other stuff is ready to bloom.

Typical practice up here is 2 deeps for the bees to winter over in.  Honey flows are very variable from year to year.  We aer using all new frames and foundation, told not to expect much honey at all this year while the package bees build comb and raise brood.  BUT, you never know.  Last year some of the newbies with the same set up got 35 pounds. 

LOL well we're not IN Walsenburg yet.  We're still in FL <sigh> and testing out where we want to be.  Elevation has a lot to do with it - my mom-in-law has a heart condition and lower elevations are better for her.  We started looking at Pueblo, but honestly I don't like the way the land there "feels" based on pics.  I was raised in the deciduous/coniferous mountains of upstate NY and that's the kind of land I like.  Something watery enough to feed our livestock, something that doesn't look FLAT.  We haven't yet had a chance to actually fly out and see the area, but we've found a few properties in Walsenburg that fit the bill of rolling hills, water, trees, and still offer a safe elevation for the Mom.

Please do forward your theories on all this!

[Cold Bees]

Well, no theories, one caution...

Yep, I had a customer located in an area that took me through Pueblo, and I agree that it is a bit flat there!  I would always talk to the county agricultural extension office about any farmland purchase I had in mind in CO.  The reason I say so is because of WATER.  Water rights are being sold to developers and municipalities at a very high rate these days throughout the state, and througout the West. 

Not far from me is another water rights boundary, the Denver Water Board southwest bundary of the Arkansas watershed. A man I know that lives in literally the south western most house was watering his tiny container garden when he was served a summons to a water court, fined, and made to stop using a hose outside his house!  And this is a 3 hour drive to Denver, this is a very rural area.  It still galls me that someone around here must have called him in...

So no matter how humble your few acres, you need a steady irrigation water source, as the sun here will easily parch the top 4 to 6 inches of any soil and rainfall is not consistent enough.  Certainly organic practices, especially MULCH and rotational grazing practices, will help you conserve water,  as does raised bed gardening.  So just make sure it's really sure about water, wells and all that, and don't trust the realtor to find out honestly for you.  Lots of farms are being sold with "wells", but the real water source, stream flow rights, has already been sold away...

All that said, Colorado sure is a beautiful place, and every place you go to is unique in it's own way and beauty, and every place on Earth has it's unique problems, so good luck finding that dream farm with the mountian vista

[Cold Bees]

Just coincidentally, had a guest this weekend who is looking at a few acres between Walsenberg and Canon City.  She tells me that the parcels she is looking at have advertosed water rights.  Says there is a healthy organix growing commuity there, and that there is plenty of support for people trying sustainable approaches.