If you follow me on twitter, you know that I am starting to keep bees this year. Beekeeping is incredibly interesting and I am stupid-excited about it! My bees will be arriving here at the farm on May 2 or 3 but I’ve already spent several hours in a class offered by my County Extension, read every book I can get my hands on and prepped all my equipment for the big day.
There must be something in the air because beekeeping has suddenly gotten very cool. Bees are this year’s backyard chickens, I guess. New York City recently overturned a long-time ban on keeping bees within the city limits. Even the White House has a hive! The Obamas were the lucky recipients of 134 pounds of their very own honey last year.
I would love to encourage some of you to consider keeping bees, so I’m giving away two copies of The Backyard Beekeeper: An Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Keeping Bees in Your Yarn and Garden to two of our lucky readers. This book is a great introduction to the world of bees.
All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post telling me why you’re interested in beekeeping. Easy peasy. One comment per person please! Entries close at Midnight on Friday, April 2, 2010. Two winners will be chosen at random and the winner’s names will be posted here on Saturday, April 3. The winners will have 48 hours to contact me with their mailing address to claim their prize.
Good luck!
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fun! we want to keep bees wen my hubby is retired from the military… thanks for the giveaway!
I’m interested in beekeeping because I taught myself to love honey but I’m still scared of bees. And because hexagons are beautiful.
I would LOVE, LOVE to win! I’ve wanted bees for ages and this might be just the push I need to get started. I already have a backyard flock of chickens so why not bees next!!
I have been considering getting a couple hives for my garden and also because we rip through honey! I am lucky enough to have many local sources but having it in the backyard would be awesome. I just have to figure out the bear thing….
I live very close to the Louisville River Valley and the allergies here are INSANE. I would love the opportunity to help myself and other locals who have allergy problems. Currently local honey is very hard to find. I’ve found it twice in the four years I’ve lived here. I would love to be another source.
I’ve been following the NYC beekeeping controversy for the last little while with great interest. I don’t live in the city (more hundred miles or so north, actually,) but I’ve been wondering if I’d be able to maintain a hive in a similar climate and relatively small apartment patio.
Ooooo . . . you can do beekeeing in the backyard??? I had no idea. This is something I would love to do. I had an uncle who kept hives. Our jar of honey for Chrsitmas every year was divine! I think I have to look into this!!! xoxo
I have toyed with keeping bees for years, The same way I toyed with having chickens. Two months ago I got the chickens and the coop is nearly done. I forced myself to really commit to the garden by doing it publicly and starting a blog ( kinda like going to weight watchers, you feel like you have to answer to someone if you drop the ball). I am still mulling with the idea of bees, especially after my little Zoe got her fist bee sting last fall and even though she LOVES honey is now petrified of bees. Id love to show her how special they are and how she shouldn’t be afraid and how if she loves the bees they will love her right back with the gift of their honey.
I’m definitely still toying with keeping bees, but for now I have some chicken poop to clean up. : )
“Bees are this year’s backyard chickens” is one of the best of your quotes in awhile!! Since I’m moving in a few months to a house with some land, I think it would be really interesting to try my hand at beekeeping. If I win, I promise I’ll pass the book along to some of my new African neighbors- honey production could be a great way for some of them to make a little money.
I’m interested in learning to keep bees because I’d like to contribute in the fight against colony collapse AND I absolutely love honey… I probably consume too much of it already, but I was told it helps with seasonal allergies and that’s my excuse- I’m sticking to it.
I love bees! Last year on a trip to Paris with my sister, we saw the gorgeous apiary at the Luxembourg Gardens – http://californiablue.tumblr.com/post/108457996/save-the-bees-during-a-recent-amazing-trip-to
Love it! I would love the book, because I am trying to convince my husband that we need bees. I am trying to make my tiny piece of land as productive and sustainable as possible. We just moved in at the end of last summer, and I am enjoying getting my garden ready and planting raspberry and blackberry bushes. Bees and chickens are on my wish list, it is just a matter of getting my husband to agree!
There is nothing more pure in nature than the work of honey bees!
Hey
You MUST read “A Book of Bees and How to Keep Them” by Sue Hubbell. I read it and don’t keep them but my brother in western NC does. I’m lucky to get some of his each year. The book is very informative and sweet. Ms. Hubbell is a farmer in the Ozarks.
Wendy
Beekeeping has always interested me. I only buy honey that is local – within a mile or two of me! Delicious!
The neighbors have a tree with an active hive. I’d love to know if there is a way to collect some honey or to move the colony to a safer location.
Thank you for this giveaway. We have a 16 acre farm in Bangor, Maine. We keep chickens and goats and are very intersted in keeping bees. I understand that – due to environmental issues – bees are becoming more rare and that is why people have become interested in farming them. I would love to learn more about this.
Thank you,
Jodi Renshaw
“Isn’t it funny, How a bear likes honey? Buzz! Buzz! Buzz! I wonder why he does?”
Where would we be without our bees? Hungry, for one thing! I would love to keep bees as it is one area that is missing on our tree farm. I want to see bees sipping from my flower garden. I want to learn how to check their hives while wearing the gear with smoker in hand. I would love to become a beekeeper!
I love bees and would love to win this book! Can’t wait to read about your new beekeeping adventure on the blog.
because I read and then fell in love with the book “A recipe for bees” by Gail Anderson-Dargatz, which I would recommend to anyone who is even the least bit interested in bees.
This would be a great hobby to start in one of my acres of land!
Everyone eligible to keep bees should, because we’ve done such a bang up job of destroying the bee population, we need to bring them back! I’d love to keep bees for the natural immunities local honey builds in you… not sure they get along with my guinea hens, but would be willing to try!
Thanks for doing this Susan! Just wanted to tell you how happy you are participating in agriculture of the tiniest. It really is rewarding.
i want to keep bees because i had to pollinate the cucumbers on my fire escape by hand last summer. if i ever get to move into the house i’m trying to buy, i’ll have space for bees and even more need for helpful pollinators. plus, i can’t think of anything sweeter than my very own local brooklyn honey.
I am interested in beekeeping because honeybees are in trouble, and because my brother had bees and the honey was delicious.
Dude! This is so WEIRD! I have never in my life even thought about beekeeping, and this last weekend I saw someone doing it on TV and was like “I would LOVE to do that!” It’s just so weird that you bring it up because I had no clue you were going to do this.
How awesome! I can’t wait to visit you and help keep your bees.
For gardening purposes and to harvest our own honey! I’d love to win the book.
I enjoy growing some of our family’s food by gardening, and we also use a lot of honey in our baking. Beekeeping sounds like another interesting skill to learn.
I have been wanting a hive for a couple of years now. There is a beekeeping class offered by a local beekeepers association that I hope to take in the fall. I have been reading about the differences between different hive designs and trying to understand what is really best for the bees. Lots of different opinions out there.
I think its great that so many people are getting into beekeeping. We need to replenish the bee stock and all these individual hives will help genetic diversity. My condo rules probably forbid a hive on my tiny deck ;o) I really miss the honey from my brother-in-laws hive. Local honey is great for helping with allergies. I hope some day to live somewhere with lots of land and raise chickens and bees and sheep or goats….
we would really love to have bees here for so many reasons the honey would be wonderful too. we are hoping to have start our garden this year with fruits and vegetables. our plan is to plant some fruiting trees in the fall. we would love to be a safe place for the bees to come. we are running an organic homestead here and plan on planting a variety of native plants which i’ve heard is suggested to help the bees.
i keep taking the bee books out of the library but it’d be wonderful to have my own!
~sunshine and happiness
I am a new student to self reliance and would love to learn more about beekeeping. I just planted my own square foot garden! Yay!
There are tons of reasons to be interested in beekeeping! Encouraging and supplying the all-important pollinators is one of them – we’d be lost without bees! However, delicious honey isn’t far behind on the list.
The catch is that I’m working hard to overcome a moderate bee phobia in order to make the dream a reality, but I think it’ll be worthwhile several times over!
i’m interested in keeping bees because they’re fascinating and they make yummy honey and other by products that are edible and healthy! oh i hope i win!
congratulations on your bees which will be at your farm in may. you are braver than I am I couldn’t stand to have a bee on me. I don’t like bugs insects etc.
Bees are fascinating creatures. Sadly, I saw very few bees last year, and I wonder how my garden got pollinated. Gotta love the honey, too.
My cousin keeps bees and we have been watching the process for a number of years. In our effort to produce as much of our own food as possible beekeeping is another step. They are so good for the growing process.
We put in a garden every year and hardly ever see bees. Maybe they come out while we are not watching, because we always have great vegetables. I think beekeeping would be a good idea to help pollinate our garden.
One word: fruit. Without bees, we’d probably starve. I eventually plan on putting in a mini orchard and the bees will make my trees (and future raspberries and blueberries) very happy. Me, too.
Beekeeping! I find it incredibly interesting. We love honey in our house, so having our own right outside would be grand. Also, you might be interested in looking at author Neil Gaiman’s journal–he keeps bees in Minnesota and his entries about them are always fascinating to read. (journal.neilgaiman.com/)
i’m really fascinated by bees and the way they build a home and make sweet food. i love and frequently use honey and beeswax, and after reading “farm city” i’d definitely like to try my hand at keeping bees.
totally interested in this…we have native plants in our frontyard & the # of bees is incredible, I love watching them rolling in the flowers. They’re totally loving the poppies & ceanothus right now.
aside from “saving the bees”, I’d love to have some home-fostered honey – so delicious!
My mother and I were at the state fair last summer and spoke with the most charming person about beginning beekeepeing. I think it would be a wonderful project we could take on together and learn about!
I’ve always wanted to keep bees. My dad kept bees when I was little. Unfortunately, I live in a city with specific ordinances against it. I think it’s part of my interest to grow as much of my own food as possible with my tiny little piece of ground in a city.
We’re breaking ground on our new “old” farmhouse this week and amongst my many hobby farms plans are bees. I would LOVE to win one of these books! Thanks!
I *love* honey and I love that eating local honey can help combat allergies. We also really enjoy watching them visit our garden plants in the summer.
Beekeeping seems like a great project for our little hobby-farm start-up. My daughters have always loved bees and had to be taught to be a little wary of them ie: don’t try to “help” them off of the flowers. We’d love a copy of the book to help us get started.
I’m interested in beekeeping I love honey! Can it get any simpler than that?
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