The Outyard Apiaries
Honeybees are like Wives. Just as soon as you think you have them figured out.... They will do whatever is NECESSARY to prove you wrong. -- Lazybkpr
“I like pulling on a baggy bee suit, forgetting myself and getting as close to the bees' lives as they will let me, remembering in the process that there is more to life than the merely human.”
― Sue Hubbell
I hope everyone understands that beekeeping is as varied as the PEOPLE that keep bees, so I also hope it is known by all that what I present on these pages is my own method. My own preferred bees, types of frames and hives, and means of treating my bees.
I do not wish now, or ever, for anyone to think that what I am presenting is how I think YOU should keep your bees. What is pictured, explained, and filmed, is my own opinion, and my own method.
I came to MY method by helping, by watching, by reading, by studying, and by keeping bees.
I ask you to do the same. It is my HOPE, that something I have posted will be of value to you. Something I do that you like, so you take that idea, or method, and modify it to work in your situation.
THAT, is beekeeping.
I also ask that you have patience with my posting. Trying not to go off into alternative methods is hard. I will try to stick to the basics as I describe my own methods. If I allow myself to go off into divergent paths and possibilities every page will be half a mile long. If you have questions, please feel free to Email me!
In the following pages you will find my methods for keeping bees. Treating those bees, splitting the bees, wintering the bees, Extracting their honey, and even building the equipment I need to keep bees.
I will continuously add pictures, Videos, Links, and new information I come across.
If there is something you would like to see, feel free to send me an Email. If I like an idea I will add it, provided of course I know something about it.
I am going to copy the First page of the introduction of C.C. Millers book, Fifty years among the bees.
Why?
Because I find it FASCINATING that nearly 130 years later, beekeepers are still doing EXACTLY the same thing!
INTRODUCTION
One morning, five or six of us, who had occupied the same bed-room the previous night during the North American Convention at Cincinnati, in 1882, were dressing, preperatory to another days work. Among the rest were Bingham, of smoker fame, and Vandervort, the foundation mill man. I think it was Prof. Cook who was chaffing these inventors, saying something to the effect that they were always at work studying how to get up something different from anybody else, and, if they needed an implement, would spend a dollar and a days time to get up one "of their own make" rather than pay 25 cents for a better one ready-made. Vandervort, who sat contemplatively rubbing his shins dryly replied: "But they take a world of comfort from it." I think all bee-keepers are possessed of more or less of the same spirit. Their own inventions and plans seem the best to them, and in many cases they are right, to the extent that two of them, having almost opposite plans, would be losers to exchange plans.
In visiting and talking with other bee-keepers I am generally Prejudiced enough to think my plans are, on the whole, better than theirs and yet I am always very much interested to know just how they manage, especially as to the little details of common operations, and occasionally I find something so manifestly better than my own way, that I am compelled to throw aside my Prejudice and adopt their better way. I suppose there are a good many like myself, so I think there may be those who will be interested in these bee talks, wherein, besides talking something of the past, I shall try to tell honestly just how I do, talking in a familiar manner, without feeling obliged to say "we" when I mean "I".
// END Introduction
So..... Well over a hundred years later, I have put up this web site, for the same exact purpose to which C.C. Miller wrote his books. Not for the purpose of laying down a methodical system of beekeeping, but to give one ideas so that he, or she can devise their own best methods and way to follow as they begin keeping their own bees. I hope, what I have done here is helpful and informative. I hope, that if you do not think my method is as good as your own, that you will STILL take away something useful!
So read, look, watch, and enjoy!
Scott
“I like pulling on a baggy bee suit, forgetting myself and getting as close to the bees' lives as they will let me, remembering in the process that there is more to life than the merely human.”
― Sue Hubbell
I hope everyone understands that beekeeping is as varied as the PEOPLE that keep bees, so I also hope it is known by all that what I present on these pages is my own method. My own preferred bees, types of frames and hives, and means of treating my bees.
I do not wish now, or ever, for anyone to think that what I am presenting is how I think YOU should keep your bees. What is pictured, explained, and filmed, is my own opinion, and my own method.
I came to MY method by helping, by watching, by reading, by studying, and by keeping bees.
I ask you to do the same. It is my HOPE, that something I have posted will be of value to you. Something I do that you like, so you take that idea, or method, and modify it to work in your situation.
THAT, is beekeeping.
I also ask that you have patience with my posting. Trying not to go off into alternative methods is hard. I will try to stick to the basics as I describe my own methods. If I allow myself to go off into divergent paths and possibilities every page will be half a mile long. If you have questions, please feel free to Email me!
In the following pages you will find my methods for keeping bees. Treating those bees, splitting the bees, wintering the bees, Extracting their honey, and even building the equipment I need to keep bees.
I will continuously add pictures, Videos, Links, and new information I come across.
If there is something you would like to see, feel free to send me an Email. If I like an idea I will add it, provided of course I know something about it.
I am going to copy the First page of the introduction of C.C. Millers book, Fifty years among the bees.
Why?
Because I find it FASCINATING that nearly 130 years later, beekeepers are still doing EXACTLY the same thing!
INTRODUCTION
One morning, five or six of us, who had occupied the same bed-room the previous night during the North American Convention at Cincinnati, in 1882, were dressing, preperatory to another days work. Among the rest were Bingham, of smoker fame, and Vandervort, the foundation mill man. I think it was Prof. Cook who was chaffing these inventors, saying something to the effect that they were always at work studying how to get up something different from anybody else, and, if they needed an implement, would spend a dollar and a days time to get up one "of their own make" rather than pay 25 cents for a better one ready-made. Vandervort, who sat contemplatively rubbing his shins dryly replied: "But they take a world of comfort from it." I think all bee-keepers are possessed of more or less of the same spirit. Their own inventions and plans seem the best to them, and in many cases they are right, to the extent that two of them, having almost opposite plans, would be losers to exchange plans.
In visiting and talking with other bee-keepers I am generally Prejudiced enough to think my plans are, on the whole, better than theirs and yet I am always very much interested to know just how they manage, especially as to the little details of common operations, and occasionally I find something so manifestly better than my own way, that I am compelled to throw aside my Prejudice and adopt their better way. I suppose there are a good many like myself, so I think there may be those who will be interested in these bee talks, wherein, besides talking something of the past, I shall try to tell honestly just how I do, talking in a familiar manner, without feeling obliged to say "we" when I mean "I".
// END Introduction
So..... Well over a hundred years later, I have put up this web site, for the same exact purpose to which C.C. Miller wrote his books. Not for the purpose of laying down a methodical system of beekeeping, but to give one ideas so that he, or she can devise their own best methods and way to follow as they begin keeping their own bees. I hope, what I have done here is helpful and informative. I hope, that if you do not think my method is as good as your own, that you will STILL take away something useful!
So read, look, watch, and enjoy!
Scott