What Did I Get Myself Into?
In truth, I knew more about raising chickens than keeping bees. At least I had seen that demonstrated albeit a long time ago.
What did I really know about bee?
I knew that:
- there was a queen bee that laid all the eggs
- drones were male bees
- all the rest are worker bees
- they made honey and honey comb
- lived in beehives
- a group of bees is called a colony
So the reality was, at that time, I really didn’t know anything important.
At this point, I believe that most people would feel overwhelmed and move on. However, I did have an advantage that most do not. I have a Doctorate in a practice-based discipline. What this means is that the training involved in this type of degree gives you the tools to do meaningful research, the ability to apply research to actual conditions (meaning that research is not a cookbook), and to draw conclusions based on observation. This is how I plan to move forward.
The research begins…
This was the first document I found: Seasonal Apiary Management for Missouri. I found this article to be interesting. It seemed to be a checklist of sorts, highly detailed, yet not very informative. It did introduce terms and concepts that I did not know about.
Namely:
- The concept of feeding bees sugar water in the spring and fall
- Nucs
- Honey Supers
- Brood boxes
It was obvious there was much more to the story. And in the end, this document did help me with a rough timeline for what I ultimately decided to do.
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