Afraid of bees, you say? You have nothing to worry about. Honey bees are NOT poisoning our food, and while honey bees are incapable of promising to never cause human civilizations to collapse -I am sure they would feel pretty bad about doing anything that might contribute to our demise.
That said, it's time you consider getting a couple of beehives in your backyard. You see now is the time to place orders for bees from the apiaries who raise bees. Orders are filled in mid-March to late April. You have to order them now in Winter so they will know how many to grow.
Why have a beehive? Glad you asked. Because they make honey. That's why. No, really, it is and they do.
This pic is a new hive in my backyard just 4 weeks old in 2014:
See how happy they are? Notice your reaction when you look at that picture. You can have something like that in your own backyard. It's really easy to do and it doesn't cost too much to get started. I built that beehive myself so all I had to buy were the bees and the lumber. I also bought some plexiglass so I could make a window to look inside the hive without opening it. You can see the window on the left side of the picture. You could have a window in yours too. If you wanted one.
This year (2014) we took about 110 pounds of honey out of one of my mature hives (not this one in the pic above). 110 pounds! That's a little more than 9 gallons. There was more in there but we like to leave some in there for the bees.
This pic was taken in October 2014. It was the last harvest of the year from that 9 gallon hive. We took out three gallons on that trip. There are a few jars missing in the pic because we had already given some to the neighbors when we snapped the photo.
Yup. It's as good as it looks too. See those big jars on the back row? Those are about three pounds each. That would cost me around $20-$25 bucks each at the grocery store. That could be sitting on your counter one day. All you have to do is get some bees.
Discuss.
That said, it's time you consider getting a couple of beehives in your backyard. You see now is the time to place orders for bees from the apiaries who raise bees. Orders are filled in mid-March to late April. You have to order them now in Winter so they will know how many to grow.
Why have a beehive? Glad you asked. Because they make honey. That's why. No, really, it is and they do.
This pic is a new hive in my backyard just 4 weeks old in 2014:

See how happy they are? Notice your reaction when you look at that picture. You can have something like that in your own backyard. It's really easy to do and it doesn't cost too much to get started. I built that beehive myself so all I had to buy were the bees and the lumber. I also bought some plexiglass so I could make a window to look inside the hive without opening it. You can see the window on the left side of the picture. You could have a window in yours too. If you wanted one.
This year (2014) we took about 110 pounds of honey out of one of my mature hives (not this one in the pic above). 110 pounds! That's a little more than 9 gallons. There was more in there but we like to leave some in there for the bees.
This pic was taken in October 2014. It was the last harvest of the year from that 9 gallon hive. We took out three gallons on that trip. There are a few jars missing in the pic because we had already given some to the neighbors when we snapped the photo.

Yup. It's as good as it looks too. See those big jars on the back row? Those are about three pounds each. That would cost me around $20-$25 bucks each at the grocery store. That could be sitting on your counter one day. All you have to do is get some bees.
Discuss.