A colony of bees arrived in my bee friendly backyard within the last month, and has made its home in the side wall of our garage between the insulation and the wood.
Becoming a Bee Keeper
I rent on the 1600 block of Chapala. I’m interested in beekeeping, and I think my landlord may allow me to become a beekeeper on the property if I make a good case and am responsible for them.
I suspect the landlord would just as soon exterminate the bees unless I can present options, so I’m writing to this community for support and advice!
My old housemate completed the SBBA bee keeping course and I’ll reach out to him tonight for advice too. My Dad and uncles kept bees in Australia for many years.
I try to do my part to support bees and have cultivated an organic veggie garden which seems to have hundreds of bees in it at any time due to lots of year round basil blossoms.
The block is approx 7400sqft, with the backyard maybe 2500sqft including the garage and a parking/asphalt area.
Aside from the hive I believe I have observed several species of ‘European honeybee’ looking bees, as well as hover flies, carpenter bees (male and female), paper wasps, mud daubers, ladybugs, butterflies and other interesting looking insects in my garden.
To Bee or Not to Bee
I’m certainly open to becoming a bee keeper and registering a hive with the county if it sounds reasonable to the experts here.
My main concerns are my urban location, proximity to neighbors back door (maybe ~30ft), and whether I would be doing the bees a disservice by trying to keep them etc.
I have read through some of the SBBA forum posts and sbba.org and understand SBBA provides a donation based service for ‘bee rescues’/relocation.
I also read that sometimes swarms can be ‘captured’ using a trap, and transferred to a wooden beehive, but do not know if this applies to ‘settled’ bees as well. I’m still in the process of reading, but I’d like to get ahead of this before the landlord ‘discovers’ the bees!
I regularly stand within 6 feet of the ‘garage hive’ and the bees will rarely show any sign of bothering me, so they don’t seem ‘spicy’. I’m more wary of them. There has been only 1 bee (this afternoon) that flew by close to my face, but I think she was just on the way to my garden.
Can you please recommend resources or advice for
1. Whether this urban location is appropriate for beekeeping
2. Whether ‘settled’ bees can be transferred to new wooden beehives
3. How regularly you need to check your bees
4. Anything else I really should know before proceeding!
Thank you very much for your time!