My Backyard Bees

In the Spring of 2012, we accidentally started beekeeping...

My wife and I were helping a friend who had some pesky honey bees taking up residence in her home. Through our research we quickly became fascinated with the world of the honey bee and decided, if we're going to go to all of this trouble to help rid our friend of her bees, the least we could do was put them in our backyard and see if we could get some honey!

Ok, so all those "we's and our's," I might be stretching the truth a little, the fact is my wife has been supportive of my little honeybee experiment from the beginning but sometimes when I turn my back I think I hear her eyes rolling around to the back of her head. My wife keeps me grounded, and without her I would probably be, eating sardines from a can and living out of homeless shelters, moving from one job to the next eking out an existence.

My wife and I and our three kids live in a community just south of Chattanooga, Tennessee called Flintstone, Georgia (aka Chattanooga Valley). Our neighborhood is one of those quite cul-de-sacs were we know all of our neighbors and the most exciting thing that has happened in the last few years was when the "cat lady" painted her house pink. I like to mix things up a little and so last summer we got some bees. 

For some time now, we've talked about getting a couple of acres with a goat and a cow and a couple of chickens. But we like our little neighborhood and so we have had to get creative. 

Last year, I got an old Langstroth hive from a local beekeeper, and with the help of  a couple of friends,

I rescued some bees from the floor of another friend's house where these bees had taken up residence. I spent the summer trying to figure out how to keep bees. I had mild success and I learned a lot along the way.

This summer we have decided to ramp up our operation and start a few more hives. We have ordered some bees from a local supplier and in April we are expecting our first packaged bees.  

We will be documenting our adventure on this blog, I have a few friends that I've roped into helping me along the way and I am hoping that they might contribute some of their experiences too. Thanks for checking us out.