Unique Features (Issues?) of my Workshop #2: The Bee-Hive

impressive. and very thoughtful! when do we see the honey production picking up?

-- When in doubt - There is no doubt - Go the safer route.

You’re a better man than me, Charlie Brown. Especially considering they were African “killer” bees, those suckers would have been taken out. In my youth, I made the mistake of stepping on a hive of yellow jackets. 25+ stings later (luckily not allergic), I’m not a fan of anything with a stinger.

I absolutely hate bees and wasps. I’ve never been stung, and I intend to keep it that way. I’ve had wasps try to build nests under the eaves and in the front door alcove of my house, and “shoot on sight” is my policy. Luckily, though wasps look menacing, they fold fast when hit with any commercial spray. Also luckily, I’m far enough north and at a high enough altitude that we have winters cold enough that we don’t have the African honeybees here – but you’ll find them not too much farther south.

-- Measure twice, then try to figure out which one was right.

I am definitely not a fan of stinging insects, but I figure that we moved to a farm to get closer to nature so we have to (largely) accept that nature is sometimes not friendly. Our bush island surrounded by sugar cane fields is a haven to many of nature’s gifts and we deliberately try to allow nature to find its own balance.

Our micro-environment includes a small buck, a clan of vervet monkeys, about 2 dozen species of birds, a wild bee hive, a few species of rodents and assorted small mammals.

Our policy is let them alone as long as they don’t interfere with us. I set rat traps in the house and the horse-feed storage area, but they are welcome to live outside. The monkeys keep to themselves, and live off the fruits of the bush. They have apparently been here for decades, and regulate their own numbers so they don’t need to raid our stores.

Sharon – I don’t think I’ll be harvesting honey any time soon – Those buggers hurt me bad, and I don’t want a repeat encounter :-) If they outgrow their new home, I’ll have to harvest to keep them contained, but we have 2 allergic people living here and I don’t want to antagonise the hive unnecessarily.

-- I may be schizophrenic, but at least I have each other.

you definitely passed the test.

mosquitoes and flies—they are on my list of “sorry but you have to go”.
If we had killer bees here, though, I think they’d be on the list as well.

A great blog by the way.

-- ~ Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

hey PG you go carefull with thos darn things i know from experience they have one hell of a kick

-- cut it saw it scrap it

more brave than me I would not be removing bees from any where.

-- Jim from Heirloom Woodshop Southern Oregon

Good for you PGZ. I’m with the rest though. If it were me, those buggers would have been long gone, especially if they were around anyone allergic. Spiders, bees, wasps, etc. don’t need’em close to me. Looking forward to the next installment.

-- Brad, Oregon- Wood, it's what's for dinner.

Your a better man that I! I would have burned the house down to get rid of them. I hate bees, read as petrified by them and the older I get, the worse the fear becomes.

-- Chunk

I will say this you are indeed a better man than me. I relocate various insects (including wasps) and any spider that come into the house. But I would have had to take these guys out since they insisted on crossing the line and nesting in your shop. And with people being allergic to them in the house this would just be too big a risk for me to take. This summer, even though I felt guilty about doing it, I took out a yellow jacket nest that was located about 50’ from the house because the grandchlildren play in the backyard when they are over and I did not want to risk them getting stung.

-- With God's help all things are possible- even woodworking. Woodworking is not just a hobby, it is an (expletive deleted) expensive hobby.