Hello...looking to learn!

[Boz]

Hello everyone, I just joined the forum and I am less than a novice.  I have a second cousin that is a beekeeper, but because of distance, I have never been to his hives.  I have always been intrigued by bees and beekeeping.  I have wanted to start beekeeping as a hobby for the past five years and even ordered a starter kit that has been sitting in my attic.  I just saw an article in my local newspaper about a local beekeeping association in my county...so I decided to stop procrastinating.  I made contact to see if I could find a beekeeper in my area that would be willing to mentor me.  
During my search on the web I found this forum and WOW...what great information.  I will use the winter months to find a mentor and to learn from this site.  Just wanted to say hello...not write a book.  Sorry if I am long winded!

[eivindm]

Welcome aboard, Boz!

There are a lot to learn from the experienced beekeepers here (I have learned a lot). According to the member list, you are the 9th member here from your state.

eivindm

[Anonymous]

Boz,

Welcome to THE forum!

Any question that you have about bees (and even some not about bees)can be asked here. Everyone will try to answer to the best of their ability. Just remember that there are as many different ways and styles to raising bees as there are different types of shoes worn by the people who raise them.

[Anonymous]

Might also add a welcome to the list. Great Idea of finding a mentor. It is hard to go it alone as a new bee, I know from experiance. You can read in books and look at and ask questions here and get the right answers but if you don't really know what you are looking at it is some times hard to ask the right questions.
I would be out of the bee keeping bussness now if it wasn't for joining a club and the members coming to my rescue.
Again welcome to the forum.
  Al

[beemaster]

I totally agree about styles of beekeeping. The trick is to see or read as many different methods as you can and then GO WITH the one that makes the most sense to you.

You should read a ton of posts during the next several months concerning Wintering hives and harvesting honey - that should give you a realistic idea of what to expect at the end of your first season in beekeeping.

Please use the search engine feature in the forum for general posts concerning topics that you are interested in and always feel free to post questions in any of these forums for help from the hundreds of members!

I hope you get the confidence from these many posts and the help from a mentor to get you started. Having a real experienced beekeeper nearby always is best when facing issues the first time around the beeyard. Once you've had bees awhile, common sense usually can get you through swarming, pests, weather and preditor matters - but beekeeping is a fun hobby, a relaxing hobby if approached properly and even profitable on larger scales but only when mother nature cooperates, just as with any farming crop.

Welcome to the forum, it's great to see you are wanting to learn before jumping into the hobby - many people do it bass-ackwards and that almost always leads to trouble. Keep posting!!!!