Bees!  One of my personal dreams for this homestead is to begin an apiary. Sue gave me  an amazing hive for Christmas and I can’t wait to begin using it. It’s from an Australian company called Flow that created a different type of hive that is less intrusive than a traditional hive when harvesting honey. Here’s a quote from their website “It all started because Cedar felt bad about bees being crushed during the honey harvest. He was also sick of being stung and having to spend a whole week harvesting his honey.” Their system simply cranks apart the cells and allows honey to flow out. “No mess, no fuss, no heavy lifting, and no expensive processing equipment. Through the clear end-frame view, you can see when the honey is ready without opening up the hive. The extraction process is so gentle, the bees barely notice at all.” I was so excited to receive this amazing present! Then Sue said, “You better research Bees in Arizona.  We might have a problem.”

What does she mean, “we might have a problem”?  Well, the problem is that, according to the research from the University of Arizona almost 100% of the wild colonies in Arizona are Africanized bees!  So what does that mean for us? We might need to wait a bit. Here in Cochise County, if you have Africanized bees on your property and someone is attacked, or their animals are attacked, you are liable for any damages. Even if you don’t know that they are on the your property!  The issues with beginning a colony here are that the Africanized bees take over, and they have a tendency to swarm every six weeks and can be horribly invasive.  So, there’s a pretty good chance that a domestic hive will be taken over relatively quickly.

I’m contemplating joining the Tucson Bee Keepers and working under a Mentor for this area so that I can learn how to keep bees without an incursion.  Although, there is a man in Bisbee that is harvesting honey from Africanized Bees. “Killer Bee Honey.” We might stop by there this Saturday and see if I can talk to the owner and ask his opinions.  I haven’t given up yet!  Currently my hive is in California awaiting set up.  If worse comes to worse, I’ll set it up on my parents’ property and just go back once a month to harvest the honey. Keeping the dream alive though, until I figure out how we can make it work.  If you’re interested in reading about the Killer Bee Guy here’s an article from the Arizona Sonoran News.

As always,
Thanks for reading!

Today’s Weather:  More of the same.  Beautiful and slightly overcast.  The high was 72°. Low will be 45°.  And tomorrow it’s supposed to be 80°!

Egg Report: We only had one egg today.  Still hoping for more soon.