Back in the early 90's my father kept bees. He had two hives, I think. All I know is the honey was absolutely wonderful, I had a gallon of it and it lasted for quite a bit. I wanted to try to keep bees, too, but my husband at that time had no interest, so it didn't happen. Then I met my new and improved husband :), and we were walking through the Marshfield Fair, when he saw the bee club display and said he'd always wanted to keep bees! I was thrilled! That was in 2005. In January of 2006 we started bee school, got our first packages that spring and went from there. This spring we'll have a total of ten hives in our three locations. Oh yea, we started at 49 (me) and 47 (hubby).