All the buzz fit to sting

[TheRedneck]

Posticides sound plausible to me. Luckily, we try to use as little pesticides/herbicides as possible. I like to eat straight out of the garden, so spraying poison on the plants is a bad thing.

Crazily enough, sounds like, from what I am reading, that good old pine is one of the best woods to use. I had already swapped some oak out for poplar, but it looks like I'll be using that for cabinet drawers in my shop. I'm keeping an eye open on FB Marketplace for some wide 1x pine boards for the hives. Should be some rough-cut pine I can pick up on the cheap.

TheRedneck

The thing is that you don't know what your neighbors are using on their crops/plants and bees travel far, isn't that right?

I've heard up to 2 miles.

They would have to travel about a mile for here, in any direction, before they came across much poison or GMO crops. Not a lot of poison gets used in this area; people seem to prefer more natural remedies. After that, there are some commercial fields, and I don't know what they use. I'm pretty sure they no-till and use Roundup, but after that I never asked.

Considering the amount of wildflowers and gardens in this area, I doubt mine would need to travel over 1/2 mile. They're pretty safe from poison in that range. Even f they do venture farther, I reckon they'll still get most of the pollen from closer sources (like my garden!).

TheRedneck

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Anyway, if a dummy like me can do it, I know you can. It's not too late in the year to get started yet either. I know you're a little hampered physically, but when do you think you'll have your first full hive finished?

Thanks for the vote of confidence.

As to when, right now I'm working on a cabinet for my new wood lathe. I managed to find a good deal on one, with table, and I have this crazy idea of trying to turn some wooden vases/bowls/boxes to sell at trade days locally. A lathe is mighty handy for building my own stuff anyway, and I can maybe turn some oak firewood stock into something to make a few extra dollars along to fight inflation (Let's go, Brandon!). That table won't hold all the accessories, so I'm adding some drawers.

Then I need to make a quick and dirty table to hold my jointer. At some point, I also need to put new rails on my front porch and I really need a new chicken coop. So I'm pretty busy with all that. I still think I can have a couple hives built by winter, with time included to clear out the 5 feet of grass and weeds and wildflowers that are in my way.

That's why I am shooting for next year. I learned a long time ago not to overload myself.

TheRedneck