Required reading...

I take it that means you plan to attend? Should be well within your reach being in Richmond. Sounds like a very interesting slate of topics. Though you're probably most interested in: Wyatt Mangum Speaker Top‐Bar Hive Beekeeping: Financially Sustainable
I'd be more interested in either: Sam Comfort – speaker Bee Building for Anarchists or John Adams topic...
 
Oh yeah! I'll be there. :celebrate

I'm sure all of them have loads of info worth listening to. Sam kills me how he goes in a hive with a burning leaf, a turkey feather and a tank top. Sheesh!

Even though I'll have the two Langs as controls, my set up is going to be based on Mangum's approach. If I grow, I'll grow in TBHs, 'cuz I can't afford the woodenware otherwise. It'll be good to hear him in person.

The longhive (Adams' forte) is basically a horizontal Lang, so the brood nest management will be very similar to TBHs.

And Tignor is our state Beeman, so it will be good to have his input on bee law here in VA. Plus he's the president of one of the local associations. Can't hurt to get to know everybody.


Here's hopin' for a great year! :woot
 
Good list of reading! I too started my "collection" with Beekeeping for Dummies and quickly added ABC & XYZ of Bee Culture. Since then I've heard/read on forums that the Complete Idiots Guide to Beekeeping is a bit better than the Dummies, but at the end of the day you probably can't go wrong with either. The latest resource to add and has been suggested/required reading in many Master Beekeeping Programs (at least here in Florida) is Dewey M. Caron's book Honey Bee Biology and Beekeeping. Mr. Caron has a lot of street cred with the Phd crowd and certainly "knows his onions". I will be adding it to my beekeeping resources soon.

As far as Michael Bush, his website is the same as his book and he freely admits this. His self-published book is a hard copy compilation of his open website information. Also, Mr. Bush is a great resource for the beekeeping world and I give him a lot of credit and respect for making himself available. Much of what he has done is resource the public domain knowledge base from older material that is not copyright protected. Such as Better Queens by Jay Smith and C.C. Miller's; 50 Years Among the Bees. Nothing wrong with wisdom and techniques from the 19th and early 20th centuries (much of the queen rearing techniques are still the same), but overall conditions then and now are VERY different. Still good reading and resources.

A great overall beekeeping resource is Cornell University's Hive and the Honeybee website. I recommend anyone looking for resources to delve into the highly organized resources there and dive for the plethora of pearls contained there in.
 
So a year has come and gone... I now have 8 hives that made it through. :celebrate:weee

I do have a copy of " The Practical Beekeeper", now, plus just this past Saturday I got to hear Michael Bush speak at a 9-5 seminar put on by the Shenandoah Valley Beekeepers Assoc. I thoroughly enjoyed the day, even though much of it was review for me.
I subscribed to Bee Culture, but was somewhat disappointed to find that it has many of the same articles as ABJ... just seems lame to me. :\

At this stage of the game my book interests lean towards queen rearing, comb honey production and the business end of things.
:caf
 
You are so lucky to get to hear Michael Bush! It's great that you have 8 hives coming out of winter, how many did you have going into winter?

I'm getting ready to put a swarm trap at my MIL's house. I'm hoping to expand to 4 or 5 hives this year. We'll see how it works out.
 
8 :oops: :)

It was really good - hearing him put together what I had already read several times made a lot of sense... plus he threw in five or six other thing that weren't in his books that just seemed to click for me. Hopefully it will stick. there have been two swarms 40 miles south of here already this year, that area is typically two weeks ahead of us in flowering. We are expecting a week of cold temps upcoming, and a snowstorm Saturday night. o_O

Could do with out that!
 
That's probably going to be the remains of what we're getting here right now... About 2-3" of snow on the grass, not stuck to the roads yet (lower elevation out on the plains). Supposed to snow all night and through part of tomorrow. They dropped the winter storm watch and now it's a winter weather advisory. We need the moisture so 10"+ of snow would be just fine by me. But then I'm retired so don't have to drive if i don't want to.
 
That's why I was blushing - this winter really wasn't. Remember- the bees were still flying thru New Years.
 
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