It's not silly but you do need to know what you are doing.I have read on various forums that it is silly to keep bees in domestic gardens.
I have 3 colonies at the bottom of my own garden, but I do have reservations about it.
I really only ever intend to keep nucs in the garden but one of them has collected about 100lbs of honey so the forage is obviously very good.
Beginners run into problems very quickly as they often don't handle bees very well, wear heavy gloves which antagonises the bees, and crucially, are not on top of swarm control.
That nice pure bred queen disappears some time late April or early May with half the colony and you are then into russian roulette re. the temperament of the colony headed by your new queen. In a worst case scenario you entertain the neighbours with a series of cast swarms landing in the nearest gardens 1-2 weeks after losing the prime swarm. One of our beginners had at least 8 swarms from the two colonies in his garden. If they start to hand out OBEs for filling Belfast's chimneys with bees, he will be first in line. One of them went into his friend's chimney so seems to be some karma involved.
I open my garden colonies far less than my other colonies and one of them swarmed on July 1st. The swarm went back home an hour after settling in my garden and the clipped queen managed to climb back up the leg of the stand as well as I found her inside. Fortunately my next door neighbour was on holidays as this swarm would have had about 25,000 bees in it.
Most non beekeepers are terrified of bees.
Have you checked if there are any bee improvement groups in your area? They are all over the uk and many of them, but not all of them, favour the native bee.As for AMM bees, I have listened and read about them, can't buy any queens so as far as I am concerned it is all blue sky and words.
The idea that queens are always available on demand encourages some of the sharks who are only interested in making a fast buck out of beekeepers. OK, I know it is about supply and demand but many of the better beekeepers rarely buy in queens or buy in just one or two to do their grafting from.
It is not hard to rear your own queens but it takes a certain mindset.
Trog, when was the last time you bought a queen? I bet it is not something you do every year if at all. In my own case I have never bought one but am happy to swap. I would consider buying in an unrelated queen from time to time if I though it would help the genetics.
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