The Anvil Shed, The spot to shoot the breeze.

Sounds like a nice little adventure. If you've not been out that way before (and even if you have) I bet you will love it. Enjoy sir.
 
I've always wanted to try beekeeping.
How are they around animals?
My tortoises are outside during the Summer and I can't have bees going after them (and me).
 
SteveFord said:
I've always wanted to try beekeeping.
How are they around animals?
My tortoises are outside during the Summer and I can't have bees going after them (and me).
Click to expand...
Your normal honey bee is mostly interested in making honey and collecting pollen. If you don't bother it, it won't bother you. If you wear a bright Hawaiian style shirt near them, you will probably get a bunch of them buzzing around you, looking to see if you are a honey source. They still won't bother you, but most people will freak out. If you start messing with their hive, expect them to come out in force to defend it. If you are near a bee hive, stay calm, don't bother them and stay out of their flight path.

Hornets, yellow jackets, and wasps, play by different rules. They are not honey bees. If you live where the Africanized (killer) bees have invaded, I understand they play by different rules also. I have no experience with them.

O.B.
 
SteveFord said:
I've always wanted to try beekeeping.
How are they around animals?
My tortoises are outside during the Summer and I can't have bees going after them (and me).
Click to expand...
Honey bees die after stinging, unlike wasps and hornets, so they don't sting unless they have to. I've watched more experienced beekeepers move a swarm by hand with no protection. Turtles should be ok...

I guess in a lot of the southwest, the bee populations are Africanized. They are a much more defensive species and they do kill things, so you should probably look into that.

I should also say that I have more experience with building hives than I do beekeeping. This is a top bar hives. I started building them a few years ago fir my dad. He had limited success, as he was pretty sick, but his neighbor took the hives over and she is having success as they are producing well. I have 2 queens and their swarms coming 4/1. They are being brought up to New England from N.C. in a temperature controlled truck. With the up and down Temps, I've got things flowering all over my yard... can't wait to get them here....
 
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SteveFord said:
I've always wanted to try beekeeping.
How are they around animals?
My tortoises are outside during the Summer and I can't have bees going after them (and me).
Click to expand...
I love turtles... let's see some pics of the tortoises. Are tortoises considered turtles?
 
For most of the world turtles are considered to be aquatic or semi-aquatic, tortoises are terrestial (no webbing, elephant-like rear legs).
Here's one of my buddies, Tromper, a male Leopard Tortoise who I've had for 30 years or so, he's probably in his late 30s now, maybe another 100, 120 years to go.
e8v3BGM.jpg


He looks pretty bloodthirsty but that's from a strawberry and he was trying to climb into my lap:
E2BpSZc.jpg

If you work with them they become very personable animals in short order.
 
Some of them.
I'm down to 3 tortoises, one monitor lizard and a bunch of boas and one python.
Enough to keep me busy, not enough to be overwhelming.
Here's my supervisor at work (he makes sure I'm doing things correctly):
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He got loose a few years ago, the neighbor found him sleeping under his car and the cops showed up at the door with him in a duffel bag.
Hey, did you a lose a snake?
Judging by all the pictures they took I'm pretty sure I'm all over the local PD's internal web site.
 
A Gopher Tortoise, maybe?
Habitat destruction is really making things hard on the animals and the amphibians as a whole are are not doing well at all.
We get skin cancer, they die off.
 
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