It's all about that buzz
Do you live in the KC metro and you want to keep bees?
Classes / Meetings:
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North East KS Beekeepers Association
Buy Bees / Equipment:
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Kansas Bee Company
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Sunny Day Beekeeping
Books:
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The Beekeeper's Bible
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The Beekeeper's Handbook
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Honeybee Democracy
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The American Bee Journal (magazine)
Buy Bee-Friendly Plants!:
READ: Please take local classes and do plenty of research before you start beekeeping. In Missouri/Kansas the time to buy equipment, sign up for classes and pre-order bees is Jan/Feb, classes are usually in Feb/March, bees arrive in April/May/June. After June it is too late to start keeping bees for the year, start planning for next year.
If you're just really excited to do something and it's the wrong time of year buy an Beekeeper Kit and paint the boxes in a way that inspires you! You can also buy unassembled boxes and build them yourself to save some $$. Only paint the outside of the boxes. Use exterior paint and maybe some outdoor use paint markers.
Here are some fun facts about bees and beeswax!
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Beeswax is strong enough to hold 40x its weight in honey. The wax comes from glands on the bees’ abdomens and is produced by “middle-aged worker bees”.
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Bees communicate through smell (pheromones). For example, worker bees release a pheromone when they want other bees to come look at something - it smells a lot like lemongrass!
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It takes the lifetime of 12 bees to make just one 1tsp of honey. It really is liquid gold.
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Honey bees have five eyes - two compound eyes consisting of thousands of lenses each and three ocelli, or ‘simple eyes’.
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Bees hang together in a chain, known as festooning, and use their bodies to measure and align the wax comb.
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Bees can't see the color red, but they can see in the ultraviolet spectrum (which humans cannot). Bees can also easily distinguish between dark and light – making them very good at seeing edges.
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Honey bee wings beat 230 times per second. Their top speed is 15-18 mph while traveling to a food source and about 12mph when returning with nectar, pollen, propolis, or water.
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Any young female bee egg has the potential to become an adult queen bee. A worker larva is turned into a queen when it is fed extra nutrient rich royal jelly and given more room to grow!
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Approximately one-third of the food we eat is the result of honey bee pollination. Thanks for work’n so hard, bees!
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Beeswax helps to lock in moisture, making it a great defense against dry skin, lips or hair. It has been used in beauty products for thousands of years.
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Honey can be used as a substitute for sugar in many food and drink recipes. Use the ratio of ¾ honey to 1 sugar.
