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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alastair" data-source="post: 13876" data-attributes="member: 13">The easy option would be to let someone else keep bees on your property, although wanting honey and a fee might be a little optimistic. People where I have hives get 1 kg of honey per hive per year. Some have asked for money, I don't do that, there is just not enough money to be made in beekeeping these days. If someone insists on money I move the bees elsewhere, not from malice, just from economic reality. Some landowners where you are will be getting paid money if the bees are making high grade manuka honey, meaning the beekeeper could afford it. But in Cable Bay depending just where you are the honey will be a mix.You are not crazy to start with no experience, lots of people do. But the statistics are that around 80% of new beekeepers lose all their bees and give up  within 2 years. This is because they think it is easy, and so do not do their research. To keep your own bees not so much time is needed to care for the bees, but a lot of time needs to be spent on research in the first year or two.Re top bar hives (TBH's), they were promoted as natural because most TBH keepers let the bees build their comb from scratch, rather than on comb foundation, as is mostly done in most other hive types. TBH's became a fairly popular fad in NZ ten'ish years ago as they were promoted as natural, good for bees, etc... But they have now gone out of vogue and near impossible to find one, because of the high failure rate with them, caused by the basic design not working in accord with the way bees like to do things. The "natural" claim is based only on the bees building their own combs (natural combs), rather than on beekeeper supplied comb foundation. However bees can be allowed to build natural comb in any hive type if the beekeeper chooses to do that.The reason bees make a lot more honey in other hive types such as the Langstroth hive, is simply because the Langstroth hive design is much more in accord with the bees natural way they like to run a hive, and allows them to reach their potential and do well.</blockquote>

Verification: What type of honey is New Zealand famous for?

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