Welcome Everyone :)

I'm keeping this Detailed Beekeeping Adventure to help show the time and effort that is required by a typical hobbyist in a modest bee yard. Hopefully this information will help you understand that beekeeping is a hobby that isn't for everyone, but it might be for you. And also to demonstrate that there are many things, such as inspection, box assembly, frame building, swarm catching, honey extracting and many other weekly and seasonal duties of the beekeeper that need to be logged and compared for the success of the bee yard.
 

Many of you are already beekeepers and you enjoy to see another yard for comparison. Many of you have never had bees and may never have bees, but you are interested for all kinds of reasons. As of June 2001 I have nearly 5000 regular followers of the logbook and that includes near 300 schools and many 4H and Scout groups. 

The amount of time and effort you put into your apiary may greatly vary from month to month, but your direct participation with the bees make for a healthier yard and a much great chance at well Wintered bees. Your colonies and equipment will have a much greater chance of lasting many seasons IF you regularly involve yourself with the bees. But no matter how often or how infrequently you visit with your bees, log everything that seems note worthy and a series of inspection points that are covered every time you open the hive.

I hope this "time line" of apiary events helps you to see that beekeeping is a fun and also involving hobby. When you make or assemble your own boxes or frames, it's rewarding to see them survive several seasons of extracting or brood. And nothing is more rewarding then to see healthy colonies swarm and then slowly reintroduce healthy honeybees in to the wild again. The final reward is usually measured in honey surplus. But I find the most pleasure in seeing the bees popping their heads out of the boxes after a long and cold Winter. 

The Virtual logbook for the year 2001 covers beekeeping from my humble prospective and in as much detail as possible. Including purchasing, inventory, building and assembling of hives and every event including information and photos added to this website. You will get the detailed story of the season of 2001. I hope it is a learning experience for all of us. Expect dozens of wallpaper sized image each month and just as many demonstration images this year throughout the logbook and Beekeeping Course.

Join along with the thousands and thousands of regular visitors to my website. Here is a preliminary Bee Yard for the year 2001 Beekeeping Season:

Primarily we will deal with two Colonies C1 and C2. Each are very different and even a casual visitor to the site will see that each needs individual and unique attention. Both colonies and any spin-off colonies are detailed and sometimes lengthy discussion on their current conditions and needs fill these logbooks.

I also offer input from the visitors of the site and I pass on note worthy web sites for you to visit. I hope you will join my twice monthly emailing that keeps you up to date on my virtual beeyard. The Newsletter is an ideal way to keep up with the logbook without checking in every day. To sign up for the free monthly Newsletter click here - feel free to tell me anything about yourself, but a blank email is fine too :)

All other colonies are Experimental, that is - Expect strange things to happen throughout the season, such as Queen Rearing, Drone Cell Forcing, forced pollen collection, mating and insemination. 

This is a photographic journal of great proportion. I'll have Nucs, Observation Hives and incredible Macro photography of eggs, larva, Supercedure, and so much more.

I rarely ask a favor from my visitors and friends, but I would like to now. 

If you have enjoyed my site, and you think it would make an interesting column in either Bee Culture Magazine or American Bee Journal,  then please write to both publications listed below and let them know. 

I'd enjoy writing an article about beekeeping in this digital age from a hobbyist point of view - I'd love to show people how to create web sites about their hobby, and of course detail close-up digital photography. 

Ideally, I'd like to see my work in book format, something sturdy that can go out in the bee yard with you and your camera. Every page filled with my photos and insights about beekeeping from a simple hobbyist point of view. A guide to taking your Beekeeping hobby to the Next Level and making it available for the World to see through the Internet.

Let me know if you think this is something you'd enjoy seeing published. Even more important... Let those Major Publications know it and let them know how entertaining or helpful you have found my site to be. 

please click their names to let the Editors at Bee Culture and American Bee Journal know that you enjoy Beemaster.com - and you would like to see a column by him in their Publications. 

Thanks again.