I have neglected my bees somewhat this year. I just have not made time to check them as often as I should. Anyway, I made three splits with Saskatraz queens that Dustin and Fur put me on. Checked them yesterday. Thanks guys. Opened them up and things were fine. Pulled out the second frame looking for the queen and got hammered. Stung 10 times. I have not been stung 10 times total in the last two years. 😀. Good thing is that all six splits have brood so that is good. I hope the Saskatraz line calms down some.

Do not have any of the Saskatraz "line" so can not speak first hand on how they are. As you know most bees in our area, SE, can be a bit ill tempered this time of year. How was their food stores? Good luck with new splits. Keep us posted as to how they act in the future.

You're doing something wrong. I use to get stung 10 times a day! LOL Plus all bees are pissy in a dearth.

You must have been raising those Eye-talian bees for them to be that calm. My mutts were lots of things, but docile wasn't one of them.

Yea, I know they are ill during a dearth but I tried to pet them to keep them calm. My mutts are not too bad. Just a little bit worse than the Italians. But, my mutts are a whole lot heartier than anything else in the yard. I really think I am going to concentrate on splitting the heck out of them next spring. I have one mutt hive that is a whole lot stronger than the rest of the hives. Gonna give the Saskatraz a fair shot first though.

I did talk with a couple of other people that got roughed up by their bees last weekend too.

I got the Saskatraz queens to use for drone “factories” to mate with queen cells from my best mutt hives. Didn’t get that far though.

Not trying to de-rail the thread but how much would you expect it would cost to get started with some bees? The thought of it has always intrigued me but I have never had a yard for it until recently. Just curious, I know, like anything, that you can spend as little or as much as you want. Just curious of a ballpark figure!

$150 for a basic hive kit on Mann Lake web site, $125 for a package of bees next spring, $100 for a basic smoker, veil, and hive tool. That would be the bare minimum to start. If you have a table saw and some sense, you can get the plans for a Langstroth hive off the internet and build most of the stuff. I would recommed buying the inner cover and frames with foundation. Or, your best bet is to find someone selling Nuc hives (easier to find than you would think) and start with a couple of nucs. The best part about bees is that Furflyin gives free advice. He taught me everything I know and most of it was on aldeer. You can go to Beesource.com and learn too. Nucs are around $150 (a nuc is a five frame hive of bees that are ready to put into a larger hive). This pretty much ensures that your new bees will stay in the hive since they usually have brood and they do not readily leave capped brood.