I have always wanted to keep bees, even on out paltry 600m2 block, and have heard stories of people keeping bees in the suburbs. I have had some training in beekeeping when I did the Farm Technology Certificate some years ago and I have a few books, but of course that does not completely prepare you for the reality of keeping bees in the back yard. My wife was somewhat sceptical (as it turns out with good reason) but after hearing me whinge for 15 or 20 years she finally relented and gave me the thumbs up.
Keeping bees in the suburbs has a number of advantages and disadvantages and before embarking on your own journey with bees they should be considered verrry carefully!
Advantages
• Your own honey (this one is a no-brainer)
• Your own bees wax for making candles, cosmetics and polishes
• Improved pollination of your home grown crops
• Pollen, propolis and other associated products
Disadvantages
• If your neighbours use chemicals on their plants, these can be brought back to the hive by the bees, contaminating the honey
• Stung neighbours can have no sense of humour about such things, even if there is no guarantee it was your bees.
Neighbours can be critical to your bee keeping exercise, if you are not on good terms with them the bees can provide more fodder for the fight and it is important to know if the neighbours have any bee sting related allergies. If you are on good terms with your neighbours it is important to talk to them before getting the bees to ensure their continued good graces. A pot of honey passed their way every so often can help to maintain the relationship on an even keel.
Siting the Hive
Apart from consideration of the neighbours, the next most important point is where you intend to locate the bee hive. It should face north or east of north and allow 10 metres or so in front of the hive as a “runway” for the bees taking off and landing. You should also check with your local council to see if they have any regulations about the keeping of bees, in some jurisdictions the hive(s) should not be visible from the street.
After much soul searching I decided to locate my bee hive on top of the flat roofed sheds I use as the chook retirement home and to house the worm farm. It is on the north side of our property and I put up a lattice to shield the hive from the street. No-one ever complained so it seems that I was successful. The hive faced north so that the runway was above head height across the top of our neighbours house. She was an older lady who spent a lot of time at her daughters place so I when I talked to her she had no problems with what I wanted to do. She has since sold the place to a young just-married couple and I don’t know how things would have gone if the hive was still there.
You will also need to register your bees with the local Department of Agriculture, who will charge you a fee and issue you a number which must be branded on the boxes. This is to ensure that they bees are looked after and don’t become a breeding ground for diseases which can spread to other bee keepers.
Bee handling gear
There is some stuff that you really should have before you start working with bees, I know you will see experienced beekeepers working without a lot of this, but that is the key – they are experienced.
Smoker – One piece of essential gear is a smoker, I picked mine up in a second hand shop years ago and it finally got some use. You use the smoke when opening up your hive to keep the bees calmer, the smoke makes them think there is a bush fire so they fill up on honey and become more docile. Generally pine needles work well but old hessian sacking works very well too, just light it, close up the smoker and pump the bellows a few times to keep it going, remembering to give it a few pumps every so often to keep it from going out.
Bee Veil – This is a bit of clothing that covers your face and head, preventing bees from stinging you there, the devastating effect of a group of angry bees dive bombing your face should not be underestimated. They have all-in-one styles as well as those that you wear over your own hat, which is the type I have.
White Overalls – Bees don’t like strong smells or bright colours so a pair of white overalls protects you without unduly exciting the bees. I had an old pair of Tyvek overalls from when I worked in the chemical industry, they are a thin plastic non-woven material, so i used to wear those. While working with a more experienced bee keeper (not wearing overalls of course) he made the off hand comment that a bee can sting right through the flimsy white overall, just as one did! Needless to say a good stout pair of cotton drill overalls is what you want.
Hive tool – not a strict necessity but it makes your life easier by allowing you to lever off the top of the hive and lever out the wax frames without much effort. To my mind it is well worth the money.
Bee Brush – Another “nice-to-have” a bee brush is a wooden handled soft brush that is used to remove bees from the frames without hurting them, again it makes life easier although I admit I don’t have one.
Working the Hive
Every so often it is good practice to open the hive and check that all is well, making sure there are no marauders like mice or wasps causing problems, there are no abnormal numbers of dead bees or other indicators of disease and that there is enough room for the bees ie empty frames for them to fill with honey. If the hive is too full and the weather is hot the bees may swarm and you can lose a lot of your hive. While bees may be a lot of work, there are some things which need to be done so before commencing you need to make sure you have the spare time – I did not!
The bees need to re-queened every year or two with a docile queen as well, otherwise they can go a bit feral and the result is stung neighbours, not a good option.
Picking up the Hive
I got our hive from a local bee keeper about 20 kilometres away, it is best you go at least 5 kilometres or the bees can decamp from your hive and find their way back to the original site. I picked it up late one afternoon, just on dusk so that all of the field bees were back in the hive and the beekeeper screwed some mesh over the hive entrance so the bees would not escape during transport. The hive fitted fairly well into my station wagon and I was able to get it home with no dramas.
I wasn’t sure how much weight the shed roofs would hold so I got hold of a shipping pallet and put it across the top of the dividing wall between the two sheds so that it would distribute the weight well enough. Then the next trick was to get the hive up on the roof......by myself. I am not sure I would recommend this technique to anyone, but it worked for me. I leant my extension ladder against the shed roof at an incline of 75 degrees and then tied some 12mm rope around the hive and placed it at the bottom of the ladder. After climbing the ladder with the free end of the rope and getting a firm footing on the pallet, I smoothly pulled the rope and attached hive up by sliding it along the ladder such that the ladder took some of the weigh. With one final heave I lifted the hive onto the pallet and made sure it was oriented correctly, then removed the screen so the bees could get out next morning.
As bees will do, they flew out next morning up and around the hive so they could orient themselves and after that is was plain sailing until the next summer.
The End of the Story
Well, things went swimmingly until the middle of the next summer, it was very hot and the hive was in the full blast of the sun for most of the day. It was very exposed on the top of the shed. One morning before Christmas I went out to look at the hive and there was a congregation of bees around the front entrance and i was afraid they were going to swarm. I tried a number of things to prevent it, playing water on the hive to cool it down and placing some corrugated iron on the western side to tone the hot sun down a bit. I even opened the hive early one morning and replaced some of the frames in the super that were full of honey with empty ones. Alas about this time they also started to get more aggressive and I knew I had to get rid of them.
Unfortunately I came to this conclusion on New Years Day, but I rang a beekeeper on spec and he was able to help and came out the next day. He was an experienced bee keeper and earned his money but instead of coming early or late in the day he came in the middle of the day. After much hassle we got the hive into his van and he drove off with the inside of the van covered in bees. He assured me this was not a problem so I left him to it. The legacy we did suffer for days afterward was crapped off field bees returning and finding the hive missing. They would butt into the kitchen window trying to get in and wreak a terrible revenge, fortunately they were not able to get in, but this little episode did not endear me to the neighbours. After he left I went around to all of our immediate neighbours and let them know what was going on and why so they could make what precautions they considered appropriate.
A New Start?
I am still well disposed towards having bees but the Missus, she is not so sure........or perhaps to put it another way, is dead against the idea! So I have come up with a plan that gives me some of the advantages of bee keeping with none of the disadvantages. I have been doing some work with a local farm that is about three quarter of an hours walk or a short bike ride away and they have agreed to me installing a couple of hives on their land. I haven’t done it yet because I still don’t have the time to look after them properly but once I do, we will be back in the bee business!
Update 2021 - Unfortunately this was written ten plus years ago and my relationship with that particular farm was severed without my bee plan coming to fruition.
