Bee-keeping,

[Martin]

I fancy having a go at keeping a hive or two, but how should I go about getting the bees and the equipment?

I would welcome any suggestions, please.

[Somtham]

I fancy having a go at keeping a hive or two, but how should I go about getting the bees and the equipment?

I would welcome any suggestions, please.

Here's an old thread. Take note of the additional links listed in post #2.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?sh...p;#entry1405673

Good luck

[Martin]

Thanks, Somtham.

I will post what I find.

'Plachon' says there is an information centre near Khon Kaen, and I am going there today.

[Martin]

The technician at the information centre took me to a honey farm a few km on the other side of Khon Kaen, where I could get all that I needed.

Details are on the thread "Bee-keeping" on the Isaan forum.

[Pond Life]

Here's some plans to build your own "Langstroth" Hive.

Good Luck

[Martin]

My uncle had those 'Langstroph' hives, but the ones that I saw yesterday in Khon Kaen were a bit different; just one box, and I didn't see any sign of any of those upper levels called 'supers'.

For people in Bangkok, it could make a nice day's outing to visit a bee farm near Lopburi.

Or for anyone who drives down to Bangkok from the North or Northeast, it would be an easy detour.

There is a map of how to get there on http://www.lungsaardbeefarm.com/

They sell all sorts of bee products in their retail operation.

For beekeepers starting up, they do a package deal of a box, 7 frames with bees and a queen, plus a spare frame and charge 2500 bahts.

I wonder if there is much urban beekeeping in Thailand?

It is quite practical.

There is one props man at a Paris Opera House who keeps bees on an outside balcony many storeys up. He gets a phenomenal price for his honey that is sold in tiny little jars in the Opera House souvenir shop. (There is also a fireman there who raises trout in the firewater tank!).

[MrSquigle]

Sounds good.

I asked about how much honey in the other thread from 3 hives...not for the reason of making a profit or anything, just to see if 3 hives would be enough on average to keep a family fed of honey. We seem to eat a lot in this house and as honey seems quite expensive here, it would be nice to make my own.

I do not buy the honey anymore from street stalls or sellers as whern you open it, it smells of whiskey in the old whiskey bottles.

Just looked at that site, might take a weekend trip up there very soon. Might be worth it if the price of the honey I saw was correct, plus all the other stuff.

Might even think about a hive in the garden if possible.

Edited October 16, 2007 by MrSquigle

[Pond Life]

Martin,

If you're ever passing the information place again, could you ask them if they have a similar place in Chiang Mai area.

Thanks

[Martin]

Will do, 'pond life'.

I don't know whether it is part of a department of the national or provincial government, or what, but I would expect that there is something similar in the Chiang Mai region, as there seems to be more beekeeping up there.

I saw something that indicated that the Northeastern Association had had a visit from some members of the Northern Association of beekeepers.

Also there was a glass case full of a display of "Florea" brand bee products, and the labels had a Chiang Mai address. Maybe you can follow that up.

I think that one hive would produce enough honey for one family, 'Mr Squigle'.

My uncle told me that it was OK to rob the hive of honey in the late Spring, but to be prepared to feed some sugar to help the bees over a 'June gap'. That was in the UK, where there is usually plenty of good foraging for the bees on the Spring flowers and later on in the late summer on something else. But the first can end before the second has come.

In the Thailand conditions, it will be different, of course. But the basic premise that the beekeeper is taking away some of what the bees have stored up as their winter feed, or against any other period when they can't find enough food to forage, will apply.

My guess is that the European beekeepers can get more from a hive because their bees have to survive the long, cold winter, and lay in more stores.

I remember my uncle telling me that one of the great advantages of beekeeping is that you can attend to them at your own convenience; and, provided they are not struck by some disease, the stock in a hive will survive even without any attention at all. So a hive in the garden isn't going to 'tie you down' in the way that some gardening activities do.

[Martin]

Update:

Tuesday started badly. “She Who Must Be Obeyed” wanted nowt to do with us having bees. So I capitulated and said that we could go on Thusday and ask for my deposit of 500 baht to be returned in the form of that much honey. But their English and my Thai wouldn’t stand the strain, so she would have to explain.

Later, I had an idea, and suggested that we still buy one hive of bees, but give it to ‘Wat Pha’. That is a little one-monk forest temple that we help to support and where we go nearly every week on ‘Buddha Day’ for the morning breakfast ‘service’. That was felt to be a possibility, as the monk had previously seen a lot of bees dying nearby and had ‘preached’ on being careful to buy less-harmful sprays and to spray in the evening when the bees had gone home.

So, on Wednesday, we went to Wat Pha to ask the monk and he was agreeable.

On Thursday, the owner of the beefarm in Khon Kaen was out, but his daughter chatted with Thong till he came back. I kept out of it, but she seemed to allay some of Thong’s misgivings. Then the owner allayed the rest, and sold us all we needed along with two hives (as, he reckoned, a colony on its own is lonely). Thong still took the 500 bahts in honey, of course. Little extras that come out of my pocket, rather than her housekeeping money, are never spurned! While we were there, we got a phone call to say that the eldest lad (who is a newsreader/DJ in Udon) had been taken to hospital with a high fever and tonsillitis. As there wasn’t time to go to see him and to Wat Pha, the bees had to come home and be housed in our garden for a couple of days.

This morning (Friday), I opened the covers over the hive entries at dawn and the first bees ventured out. Being a person who is so fascinated by work that he can sit for hours and watch others doing it, I did just that. Gradually, those first guard bees flew a bit further away (once they were sure they knew the way back). But it wasn’t till mid-afternoon that I saw the first forage seekers going off and coming back. In the meantime, I had a go at feeding sugar. I didn’t know it, but a villager had brought a contribution of about 40 kg of raw sugar to Thong’s big party when the lads were ‘monked’. Only about half had been used and Thong had squirreled away the rest.

(Apparently, when those ‘siplors’ and trailers are hauling raw sugar down to Bangkok, a bit can ‘fall off the back of a wagon’ whilst it is parked up in a village before starting its journey!!)

I had forgotten to ask yesterday about how to feed sugar, but five minutes on the Internet sufficed. ‘Googling’ bees+feeding+sugar led to “John’s Beekeeping Notebook” at http://outdoorplace.org/beekeeping/feeding.htm.

I used his ‘plastic bag feeder’ method with a syrup of two mugs of raw sugar to one mug of water. It turned out like slightly-watered-down molasses and the bees cleared the lot quite fast.

So far, so good. I’ll update again in a week or so.

[Martin]

I have updated the saga, with some photos, on the 'Beekeeping' thread on the Isaan forum.

[MrSquigle]

We called into the bee farm a couple of weeks ago, bought 12 bottles of the sunflower and a couple of the bigger bottles of mixed and longan. Only had the squeeze bottles left of sunflower, all big sold. I thought the sunflower tasted the best of all.

We seem to go through a lot of honey in this house, 2 small bottles already gone.

Nice old guy, he showed us the hives out back and showed the kids inside it, bees chasing them about and also showed us his crocodiles.

I will study up some more on it and will definitely get some when we move.

He also showed the seperator for the honey, how do you seperate it if you only have one or 2 hives, big machine like that would seem overkill.

Do you know what kind of area 1 hive requires to make a good amount of honey each month.