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One Hundred Dollars a Month

I am your typical housewife living in high maintenance suburbia. I have a handsome husband, 2 kids and a flock of pet chickens. I try and feed my family with $100 a month. With the help of coupons, gardening and bartering I am able to squeeze the most out of our grocery budget and still manage to have a little fun along the way.

Information on Top Bar Bee Hives with Pictures

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top bar hives

Well, my friend Jane and her family have finally done it.

The got bees! After a long talk with the Handsome Husband about it, I’ve decided not to get bees. Mostly because I am a total afraid of getting stung and then there’s that whole part about me being allergic to them, so I’ll just have to get my bee fix vicariously through Jane.

Who knows, maybe she’ll even send me some of her Virginia honey for Christmas if I’m lucky {wink, wink}.

honey bee comb

So if you are interesting in getting some honey bees for yourself, head on over and check out her blog post Transferring Langstroth Nucs to Top Bar Hives. Jane and her family are documenting their bee keeping journey for all to see.

Buzz, Buzz.

Mavis

P.S. Do you dream of keeping bees too?

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Bee Keeping: Yes or No?

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honeybee{photo credit}

I’ve been toying with the idea of getting bees, but I’m allergic to them {by allergic I mean swelling and hives, I do not need to carry an EpiPen}.  So you’d think that’d stop me from considering bees any further, but nooo, it’s almost like a challenge–a sick one, but a challenge just the same.  I started researching the whole bee-keeping game and found out there are two different types of bees: Honey bees and Mason bees.

On the up side, Honey bees, I’m sure you know, produce, um, well, honey.  Delicious golden liquid sugar.  They also provide a long season of pollinating, which directly translates into 4000 lbs. of Mavis grown goodness.  On the flip side, they are slightly more aggressive and territorial.  Honey bees are a bigger investment in both time and money up front.  And, of course, they sting, which would leave me choking down a couple of Benadryl and a load of regrets.  But, did I mention that they provide honey?

{photo credit}

Mason Bees, on the other hand, do not sting.  They require almost zero upfront cost, because from what I can tell, building your own mason bee house {or sweet talking the HH to do it for me} takes very little effort and supplies–and after that, it’s a build it and they will come principal.  They are also immune to the common viruses that kill off honey bee hives.   They don’t produce honey or have a queen {all females can reproduce}, so they aren’t aggressive or territorial in anyway–keeping my breathing passages free and clear.  The cons, as I just mentioned, are that they don’t produce honey and their pollination season is relatively short.

I was surprised to learn that while Mason bees don’t sting at all, Honey bees also rarely sting {probably due to the fact that a sting costs them their life {sheesh, those are some high stakes, I kinda feel bad for the bee born with anger-management issues}.

What do YOU think? Am I playing with fire to even consider Honey bees?  Or do you think having plenty of flowers would be enough…instead of honey? Should I just let nature take care of things?  Do you think I will need to attract extra bees to my garden this year?

Conflicted,

Mavis

the bee keepers handbookThe Beekeeper’s Handbook

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To Sting or Not to Sting – Thoughts About Keeping Honey Bees

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{photo credit}

I’ve been thinking about keeping bees again.  Although I’m allergic to bees, I still think it would be pretty darn cool to harvest our own honey.  I mean after all, we already have chickens and a large vegetable garden, wouldn’t bees seem like the next step?

Plus, I’d get to wear a rather stylish bee keepers costume too.  You know how I love my costumes.

{photo credit}

Clearly honey bees would be much cheaper than getting  a goat, or a cow {not that we’d ever get one of those but still, I could use those as examples while trying to convince the HH to let me have a few {thousand} bees… right?

I could give honey away as gifts.  Maybe even sell it at the Farmer’s Market.

If I raised my own bees I could probably even stop buying sugar.

So I’m wondering, have YOU had any experiences with raising bees?  Is it hard? Easy?  Rewarding? Have you ever been stung?

How many bees would I need to get 2  gallons of honey each year?

I just picked up the book Keeping Bees  by Ashley English.  Amazon currently has it for only $11.17 and the reviews rock.  I think I could seriously become a bee farmer.  Do you think that’s crazy?

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.

Mavis Butterfield Etsy