Bee 's Nest

[Deksan]

Hi,

Well I have ever collect honey in france, was wondering if it would be possible to have bees nest collect honey and sell it in thailand ? If anyone have experience about that well feel free to talk about it

Thanks.

[Maizefarmer]

All depends - if you're thinking of keeping hives - fine, but you will not find them anywhere near as productive as they are in Europe.

I have 12 Langstroth hives, and together I am lucky to get as much honey from them per year as a bee keeper will get from 3 hives in Europe. Dont ask me why - I havent got clue, but know that that is pretty much the case with all bee keepers in Thailand - low production rates.

Your big risk is ants - they will destroy a hive.

God only knows how clever an ant is - they are mean't to be pretty simply insects, but boy are they good at finding ways into bee hives. Then you have the usual problems with wasps and other pests, but no more so than anywhere else - ants will be your big problem.

As for the wild asian honey bee - that huge yellow bee that can get between 3cm - 4cm long and forms a huge single honey comb under the branch of trees - well, all I can say is good luck. They are extremely agressive - and cannot be handled like bee keepers handle hive bees. Great honey, but find a local who has experiance dealing with them otherwise you run the risk of getting seriously beaten up - they are really very different from hive bees and not to be messed with.

Two interesting things about this Asian honey bee - they come back to the same tree season after season, and studies have confirmed swarms from the North East of Thailand migrate as far as Malaysia, and then return to the same tree in North Eastern Thailand 2 or 3 years later. Just how do they do it, because the bees that comprised the swarm in Thailand before it left would have all been replaced by the time the swarm then left Malaysia a couple years later - just how do they pass on to the next generation not only where to go back to but also which tree??

Oh - and they won't stay in a hive - have tried - went so far as to put the queen in a cage - they built enough cone to breed a new one, feed it royal jelly and then when she hatched, pushed off with her abandoing the old one. So forget it, they cant be hived.

Then you also get swarms of stingless bees - they're quite common. Its a very small bee - smaller than a fly, makes very small cone out in the open (quite often find them on fences under trees) but commercially they have little if any value.

You'd think with the flora diversity we have here in Thailand and the climate we have, bee keeping would be a big industry. It isn't, and there arnet many comercial honey producers - most in the Chang Mai area - check out

www.sayanhoneyfarm.com

Tim

Good luck

[Deksan]

All depends - if you're thinking of keeping hives - fine, but you will not find them anywhere near as productive as they are in Europe.

I have 12 Langstroth hives, and together I am lucky to get as much honey from them per year as a bee keeper will get from 3 hives in Europe. Dont ask me why - I havent got clue, but know that that is pretty much the case with all bee keepers in Thailand - low production rates.

Your big risk is ants - they will destroy a hive.

God only knows how clever an ant is - they are mean't to be pretty simply insects, but boy are they good at finding ways into bee hives. Then you have the usual problems with wasps and other pests, but no more so than anywhere else - ants will be your big problem.

As for the wild asian honey bee - that huge yellow bee that can get between 3cm - 4cm long and forms a huge single honey comb under the branch of trees - well, all I can say is good luck. They are extremely agressive - and cannot be handled like bee keepers handle hive bees. Great honey, but find a local who has experiance dealing with them otherwise you run the risk of getting seriously beaten up - they are really very different from hive bees and not to be messed with.

Two interesting things about this Asian honey bee - they come back to the same tree season after season, and studies have confirmed swarms from the North East of Thailand migrate as far as Malaysia, and then return to the same tree in North Eastern Thailand 2 or 3 years later. Just how do they do it, because the bees that comprised the swarm in Thailand before it left would have all been replaced by the time the swarm then left Malaysia a couple years later - just how do they pass on to the next generation not only where to go back to but also which tree??

Oh - and they won't stay in a hive - have tried - went so far as to put the queen in a cage - they built enough cone to breed a new one, feed it royal jelly and then when she hatched, pushed off with her abandoing the old one. So forget it, they cant be hived.

Then you also get swarms of stingless bees - they're quite common. Its a very small bee - smaller than a fly, makes very small cone out in the open (quite often find them on fences under trees) but commercially they have little if any value.

You'd think with the flora diversity we have here in Thailand and the climate we have, bee keeping would be a big industry. It isn't, and there arnet many comercial honey producers - most in the Chang Mai area - check out

www.sayanhoneyfarm.com

Tim

Good luck

Thanks for your detailed answer very intersting ... Thai bees are really weird Wonder if european bees could survive in the north of thailand ? That would maybe an answer to that problem ? How thai ppl manage to get honey then ? Do they collect it in the wild ? (Would explain the relative high price) . That website you put at the end, do you recommend the honey from there, my father loves natural honey my oncle got 5-10 hives in france so we got the honey from him. Even in france some producer tends to add sirup in the honey, so i dont trust thai ppl about that do you know any safe place where I could buy 100% real natural honey ? Thanks for your reply again

[Maizefarmer]

I se no reason why bees from Europe would not survive in a hive here in Thailand - the genetic variation between hive bees the world over is very little. The Giant Asia honey bee is the exception (the big bee I wa refering to above) - they are very different, but hive bees - nope, not much diff the world over. Sure they would survive but I have a feeling you would not get a n import license because of the potential to import dieses that the local bees have no resistance to.

I know you are not allowed to take bees from Thailand and imnport them into NZ or Australia - and you cant take bees from there and bring them here - so the same I think is going to apply to bees from Europe.

The honey from the apariy I linked in my earlier posting is 100% pure - and if you go through the links on the left handside of the page, you will see they sell about 4 or 5 different types of honey (e.g. sunflower honey, logan honey, wild flower honey ect ect..). Its goo stuff - you can buy it in Tesco Lotus and Central Deptament stores and I'm certain its 100% pure.

Tim

All depends - if you're thinking of keeping hives - fine, but you will not find them anywhere near as productive as they are in Europe.

I have 12 Langstroth hives, and together I am lucky to get as much honey from them per year as a bee keeper will get from 3 hives in Europe. Dont ask me why - I havent got clue, but know that that is pretty much the case with all bee keepers in Thailand - low production rates.

Your big risk is ants - they will destroy a hive.

God only knows how clever an ant is - they are mean't to be pretty simply insects, but boy are they good at finding ways into bee hives. Then you have the usual problems with wasps and other pests, but no more so than anywhere else - ants will be your big problem.

As for the wild asian honey bee - that huge yellow bee that can get between 3cm - 4cm long and forms a huge single honey comb under the branch of trees - well, all I can say is good luck. They are extremely agressive - and cannot be handled like bee keepers handle hive bees. Great honey, but find a local who has experiance dealing with them otherwise you run the risk of getting seriously beaten up - they are really very different from hive bees and not to be messed with.

Two interesting things about this Asian honey bee - they come back to the same tree season after season, and studies have confirmed swarms from the North East of Thailand migrate as far as Malaysia, and then return to the same tree in North Eastern Thailand 2 or 3 years later. Just how do they do it, because the bees that comprised the swarm in Thailand before it left would have all been replaced by the time the swarm then left Malaysia a couple years later - just how do they pass on to the next generation not only where to go back to but also which tree??

Oh - and they won't stay in a hive - have tried - went so far as to put the queen in a cage - they built enough cone to breed a new one, feed it royal jelly and then when she hatched, pushed off with her abandoing the old one. So forget it, they cant be hived.

Then you also get swarms of stingless bees - they're quite common. Its a very small bee - smaller than a fly, makes very small cone out in the open (quite often find them on fences under trees) but commercially they have little if any value.

You'd think with the flora diversity we have here in Thailand and the climate we have, bee keeping would be a big industry. It isn't, and there arnet many comercial honey producers - most in the Chang Mai area - check out

www.sayanhoneyfarm.com

Tim

Good luck

Thanks for your detailed answer very intersting ... Thai bees are really weird Wonder if european bees could survive in the north of thailand ? That would maybe an answer to that problem ? How thai ppl manage to get honey then ? Do they collect it in the wild ? (Would explain the relative high price) . That website you put at the end, do you recommend the honey from there, my father loves natural honey my oncle got 5-10 hives in france so we got the honey from him. Even in france some producer tends to add sirup in the honey, so i dont trust thai ppl about that do you know any safe place where I could buy 100% real natural honey ? Thanks for your reply again