to raise or not to raise honey bees
Wed, 07/23/2008 - 05:56 — carolinelovesbees
I have been thinking of raising honeybees on my property for personal source of honey and pollination. After looking through your site, I think maybe that is not a good idea. Wondering what the opinion is on this. Would honey bees really compete with the wild pollinators if I live on 10 acres in a rural area AND I have a lot of native plants and flowering plants as well...?
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If you just want local honey
If you just want local honey it's far easier to call a local beekeeper. You can possibly find one by calling your county office and asking for a list of beekeepers or even tracking down your local beekeepers association. Beekeeping is an expensive hobby/job. You'll only ever make your money back if you devote yourself to all aspects of it, such as swarm removal, cut outs, and possibly farm pollination. What you get back in honey and wax just isn't enough for housing the hive, you need a good hive for maybe 3 years just to break even usually.
I've been keeping honey bees for many years. Thankfully my neighbors are nice about it. I was smart and didn't tell them. Others are not as lucky. People complain about bees in there pools, not that it stops them from going in them, people try to sue you off and on because they were stung by a bee, not that they can prove it ever came from your hive, and I've even seen people petition to ban beekeeping in the town all together, not that it effects people who already maintain bees on there property. These people have no respect for where there food comes from. They don't realize for plants to reproduce a third party is usually involved.
Environmentally and Biologists will tell you native bees are better pollinators hands down. And they're right but they're also comparing the 4,000 or 5,000 native bees to the 1 species of Honeybee. Apis mellifera has been studied to death while most of the native have been overlooked by comparison. They're not native to the US but are used in pollination because there hives are always at a steady population of 20,000 to 80,000 bees. I can't say that I've ever studied the population of native bees in decline over honey bee competition. But I think the greater issue is loss of habitat. Most of the native bees are very select in there nesting habits and require idea conditions to make a nest. Most are only active for 4 to 6 weeks of the year to get the next generation started. 11 months later the process starts again. Some species emerge in spring, others in summer. Some require tubes in dead wood or plant matter while others.
I have 5 fully grown hives of honeybees in my yard and I still see the ground nesting bees here. I didn't start getting the tube nesting ones until I started putting out nesting blocks for them. The native bees can still live with honeybees around they just won't be in as great of numbers or as divers an array of species.