Introductions

[Calum]

Hi,
I thought it would be good to have a thread where people can introduce themselves. So I will start with me!
I grew up in Gairloch in Ross-Shire, after studying in England and Northern Ireland and some adventures further afield I settled down to live in south Germany.
Been living in Lindau on the southern end of Lake Constance for about ten years now.

I started beekeeping in 2007 with 3 colonies that I bought for about 600 pounds (including the hives).
That first year I got 110kg honey. After buying the rest of the gear you need when starting out, I broke even that year (in this area we sell honey for 4pounds /0,5kg & I used the local clubs honey extractor).

I moved on to 5 then 9 and now 16 colonies. I hope to sell about 10 colonies and build up over the summer to 18 colonies.

I am a member of the local club (http://www.bienenzuchtverein-lindau.de), it has 55 beekeepers with 520 hives, we are on of the smaller of 8 clubs in a 20 km radius.

oh yes and my name is Calum

[Jon]

Hi Calum

Where did you study in NI? I was at QUB from 79-83.

OK Here goes.
I was born in Co. Tyrone (Same as Flann O'Brien, Gav) and trained as a special Ed teacher after leaving University in Belfast.

I taught at home for a while before moving to Spain with my other half Colette at the end of the 80s.

We spent most of the 90s in Mexico where we helped to set up a project for abandoned children and young people who have a learning disability.

I still travel to Mexico every year for an evaluation visit.
From a beekeeping and suntan point of view, I try and make sure it is during the winter.

This has had the side effect of making me fluent in Spanish, even though I was only interested in studying science, especially biology, at school.

My father has been a beekeeper for 60 odd years and my grandfather also kept about 30 colonies; which was a lot of extra beekeeping work for a full time farmer in pre war rural Ireland.

Too much swanning about abroad meant that I started beekeeping later than I ought to have, although in mitigation, I did get to act as sidekick to my dad when I was still in short trousers. I started with a nuc and a swarm about 5 years ago, and currently have 13 colonies, although several of them are only nuc sized at the moment. My bees are not pure AMM but they are very black and clearly "AMM type" as I have had a few samples analysed in DrawWing. I intend to keep selecting and am keen to establish a breeding group if I can rope in a few neighbouring beekeepers. I sent my £20 off to BIBBA last year and hope to get some good advice there.

Jon

[Calum]

Hi Jon,
I was at UoU in Jordanstown in the mid to late ninties.
Some great memories from my 3 years over there.

Calum

[Neils]

Another non-Scottish Introduction I'm afraid (though we did watch Braveheart last night, does that count at all?)

I started beekeeping last year and currently work an allotment apiary with a guy I met on the beginner's course. Between us we have 3 colonies although that might more accurately be 3 hives, time will tell.

I have an all or nothing approach to stuff like this so I joined my Local association (Bristol) committee at the AGM in November and am taking my BBKA basic and module 1 General Husbandry exams this year. I'm no-where close to breaking even on the financial front but that's not really the point of it right now although I do want my beekeeping to be finance neutral by the end of this year if at all possible.

In real life I'm a self employed IT contractor mainly doing Database work, hence the development of the Beekeeping Database which I hope (starting to look rather optimistic now) to have at least a basic version ready by the end of March.

My aim this year is to get the bee database up and running, move my colonies to 14x12 Brood Boxes and increase to 2-3 hives.

[Calum]

Hi Nellie,
I don't think Braveheart counts, but I think defining yourself too absolutley on the basis of where you happen to have been born or grown up is a terrable thing.
Way too many people have chips on their shoulders because of that, and never give a thought that they belong to the lucky minority in the '1st' world and not the majority in the 3rd world. Thats just the luck of the draw.

All or nothing is the only feasible approach to beekeeping. Regarding costs, does your local association have its own wax press and extractor?
Here you get 30% rebate (from the state Bavaria) on everything you buy over 50€ during the first three years - makes things a little less painful.
What bees do you have?

[Neils]

What bees do you have?
Yellow and black ones? :D

I believe they'd tend to be described as "local mongrels"

I'll take that 30% discount please, shelling out nearly £300 having just lost my full time contract has been, shall we say, interesting.

But that has been my first lesson of year 2. When you're buying kit, make sure you've actually still got bees to put in all that expensive kit you just bought. I ordered for my colleague too and it's looking like I might be trying to raise a nuc for him too. If worst comes to the worst, I'm sorted for frames for the next couple of years.

[drumgerry]

Hi all. My beekeeping story so far isn't a long one. Got my first two colonies in 2004 and kept them in Aberdeenshire until moving over to Moray in 2005. Colony numbers peaked at 5 and then down to 1 going into last winter. It wasn't the strongest colony and, as I feared, it didn't last till Spring. So I am, for the moment, beeless. Luckily I've managed to source a nuc of local bees and I'm going to build back up from that.

I've always been keen on all things organic and I tried to translate this to my beekeeping. I tried to use Apiguard as my main varroa treatment together with a midwinter oxalic trickle. I also experimented with small cell foundation and top bar hives. The results haven't been altogether satisfactory it must be said. So I think I'll revert to more conventional methods - apistan/bayvarol + oxalic + drone brood cull and see if I fare any better. My plan is to focus on building up my colony numbers over the next few years and I hope to move them to OSR and heather to maximise that. Then hopefully if I have any winter losses it won't be a catastrophe. If, in the process, I manage to obtain a honey surplus all well and good but that's not going to be my main objective.

Great to see this forum taking off - I hope that lots of people participate and make it a great resource for everyone.

Gerry