Wondering if any OKCtalkers are bee keepers?

We've been reading up on the hobby and actually went today and put a deposit on a few nucs of bees that will be available around May.

We will be buying the hives and supplies over the next couple of months. Wondering if anyone here has any advice; setting up and maintaining new hives, good local and/or online retailers, continuing education opportunities, etc.... Thanks!

We set up our raised bed garden last year and planted some fruit trees. We figured dabbling in bees was a natural next step for us.

Not me; but I just wanted to pass along this extensive thread about the subject if you haven't seen it already and are interested in browsing it:

Beekeeping (http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/30194-Beekeeping)

this thread would've gotten more clicks if it were titled: "any convicted apiarists here?"

i've never kept bees (nor wanted to) but just happened to run into this a few weeks ago and it seemed pretty neat: Honey On Tap From Your Own Beehive - Flow? Hive Home (http://www.honeyflow.com/)

-M

might be a good source of information. . . Central Oklahoma Beekeepers Association, LLC (http://www.okbeekeeper.blogspot.com/)

BBates,
Good luck with the bee keeping, we certainly need them since we have had some problems in the last few years. I have had two neighbors that had bees. As for me, I have hunted and captured live rattlesnakes, and I have no problem with that but bees, wasps, any flying thing that can sting scares me to death.
C. T.

We buy our honey from Honey Hill Farm right in Edmond through the Oklahoma Food Co-op. Perhaps when you are up and running you can think about being a producer/seller for the OK Food Co-op. And that honey is delicious (expensive but worth it). Hope it goes well for you.

I had a couple of hives for a few years. It was fun and challenging. I bought a few empty hives locally from an ad in the paper. Mail ordered supplies from Dadant and mail ordered bees from ads in their magazine. (pre-internet days)The longer I had them the more challenging it got. Hives need to have new healthy queens every few years and get unruly if you don't manage that. Verroa mites were just starting to become a problem and I was trying to stay informed about dealing with that issue. Finally, one of my hives froze to death over a winter, lack of enough food and possibly too small in number to make enough heat to survive. After that, I decided to give it up.

Looks like this place might be a resource. They had a class yesterday.

Little Creek Bee Ranch & supplies - Home - Inola, OK (http://www.littlecreekbeeranch.com/default.html)

Just an update....

We got our bees (NUC) the other day from Royal Bee in Norman. We went to a free one day workshop a few weeks ago, got all our supplies and then got our bees.

This is from the workshop...
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This is from this morning - after transferring the bees to our hive on our property....
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Been doing lots of reading and research. Hopefully it will all go well.