Any other brewers here? I've been going at it for 5 years now. My setup has been paid for completely by buying and selling homebrew stuff on CL. Sound familiar? I can make 5 gallons of awesome (or sometimes horrible) beer for around 30 bucks.
My newest hobby this year is beekeeping. I'm like 400$ in so far, and I have no honey. I have 30,000 bees though, so I have that going for me. The odds of my single hive making it is like 40% unfortunately.
I find beekeeping fascinating, my wife and children do not. So I have no bees.
A friend of mine started beekeeping this year and he's making mead from the honey.
Woody wrote: A friend of mine started beekeeping this year and he's making mead from the honey.
Combine the two!
In reply to Woody:
that's partially my intention as well. I might get honey at the end of the year. usually it takes a couple of years. add the extra year for the fermentation of the mead...I'm in it for the long haul. I dont really like mead though 
I'm not really sure why I have the bees. I liked the idea, and I've wanted to try it for years. I bought a house with 2 acres, so the timing was right. Now that I have them, they've definitely grown on me. My wife had no interest and thought i was a little crazy when I picked them up. She walks down every day just to watch them now.
Several homebrewing members, myself included. Beekeeping... Id like to but live in the suburbs with many kids around. Did you see the Flow hive?
We keep bees. Well, they keep us. We have a feral colony inside a tree. I had a beekeeper check it out, and he said it's a healthy colony.
I've been watching the Flow hive since they started with both there funding campaigns and thought about getting one to start bee keeping but need to have more plants around so they'll stay here. I'm in the sticks but a block from town and have three school yards across the street so not much food for the bees.
Keep us up to date.
My wife does event planning and logistics. This sometimes requires her to go on site. So a couple months ago she was working the big brewing convention here in Philly. She came home one night and said, "we should try brewing beer"
I figured with an opening like that I either had to turn in my man card or run to the closest home brew store for supplies. We bottled our first batch today ;)
44Dwarf wrote: I've been watching the Flow hive since they started with both there funding campaigns and thought about getting one to start bee keeping but need to have more plants around so they'll stay here. I'm in the sticks but a block from town and have three school yards across the street so not much food for the bees. Keep us up to date.
The flow hive seems to be popular with people wanting to get into bees. Beekeepers tend to hate it. I don't know enough about beekeeping to have an educated opinion, but I do know that its 3x the price of a normal hive, and doesn't really do anything a normal hive does, except drip honey. Not sure how it can distinguish when the honey is capped (good honey) to when its uncaped (bad honey).
If I were you, I wouldn't be too concerned about the plants you have around. I have 2 acres of plants, bushes, flowers. I've seen maybe 5 bees in my yard. They fly 3-4 miles around. They will find food. As soon as they leave the hive, they shoot up 40ft in the area, and take off. I tried telling them that my yard has some good stuff too, but apparently they arent interested.
Professional Brewmaster here. I don't homebrew anymore really because... that's what I do for work. Plus, I get to brew on a nice 18gallon More Beer pilot system when I do feel like playing around with some wild idea.
Very nice setup! Just don't light that bench on fire.
Brian wrote:Woody wrote: A friend of mine started beekeeping this year and he's making mead from the honey.Combine the two!
I actually considered once upon a time.
In reply to Beer Baron:
I've been wondering, what is the name of your brewery, and do I have to come to Ohio to get the beer? Always happy to support fellow members...
On topic, I used to home brew, and have been wanting to start up again. Mostly we just use the kits from the store though. My local beer distributor just opened a massive home brewing section though, and are actually looking for people to come in for demonstrations or speaking or what not. They've got kits, ingredients, the owner is more than happy to order anything bizarre or special interest as well. Once I get another stainless pot, I'll be getting back into it, because I think it's fun to do, and definitely worthwhile.
I've met a few local brewers who do fantastic work, but it seems like the ones getting into all the bars around here took the mainstream approach. No flavor, poor body, but mass appeal. BLAH. Gimme the weird IPA, the dark lagers, the Old Bay infused, not some Budweiser knockoff.
As for bee keeping? Not my cup of tea, but it is interesting to me. When I lived in CA I saw people with hives seemingly everywhere, and it could be fun. I just don't have the room, and do have a child learning to walk. Not a good combination.
HONEYBEER? 
revrico wrote: In reply to Beer Baron: I've been wondering, what is the name of your brewery, and do I have to come to Ohio to get the beer? Always happy to support fellow members...
Zauber Brewing Co. (Will likely shift to just "Z Beers" by the time we're distributing, because people can't pronounce "Zauber" and don't order what they can't pronounce.) We're draft only in a couple counties around Columbus, Ohio. We are trying to raise capital to increase production capacity. Right now, demand is ~50% greater than I can supply. Bottling/canning would make us lose money by eating into higher-margin kegs.
I've met a few local brewers who do fantastic work, but it seems like the ones getting into all the bars around here took the mainstream approach. No flavor, poor body, but mass appeal. BLAH. Gimme the weird IPA, the dark lagers, the Old Bay infused, not some Budweiser knockoff.
Rant on: I honestly think the term "Craft Beer" has become a worthless title. Everything these days is craft. It just has to be independently owned. Craft beer is mainstream now; for good and ill. But when everything is special, nothing is special.
Marketing sells a beer more successfully than quality. Quality just has to be good enough and consistent to not get in the way of the experience that is sold by the marketing.
Personally, I'm not a huge fan of weird or over the top. I don't want hollow and mediocre either. My personal philosophy is: the best beers should never demand attention, but should always reward it. I want to craft beers that an uninitiated person can enjoy, and a true aficionado can geek out over. Think of performers like Prince, Queen, Led Zeppelin, or David Bowie... their stuff is superficially simple and poppy - anyone can listen, turn their brain off, and use it as background - but if you really pay attention, there's incredible depth and artistry.
N Sperlo wrote: HONEYBEER?
Can be quite good if you don't go overboard with the honey. Back in the eighties and nineties when I was home brewing I made a honey brown ale several times. I think I used a couple pounds of good quality honey for five gallons. Pretty high ABV as I recall.
Gary wrote:N Sperlo wrote: HONEYBEER?Can be quite good if you don't go overboard with the honey. Back in the eighties and nineties when I was home brewing I made a honey brown ale several times. I think I used a couple pounds of good quality honey for five gallons. Pretty high ABV as I recall.
One of my favorite ipas uses a good bit of honey. Bells hopslam. Unfortunately the cult following of beer limits how much or it i can find. The last store was 4.00. Can, limit 2 per person.
Beekeeper myself.
Brewer here too. I recall there being a thread here where people were posting their brew recipes and conquests.
Well the thing with flow hive is your not stripping the wax off the cells so your not inspecting the hive and not making another product from the hive. So that may be why pro bee keepers don't want to buy in to it.
lnlogauge wrote: The flow hive seems to be popular with people wanting to get into bees. Beekeepers tend to hate it. I don't know enough about beekeeping to have an educated opinion, but I do know that its 3x the price of a normal hive, and doesn't really do anything a normal hive does, except drip honey. Not sure how it can distinguish when the honey is capped (good honey) to when its uncaped (bad honey). If I were you, I wouldn't be too concerned about the plants you have around. I have 2 acres of plants, bushes, flowers. I've seen maybe 5 bees in my yard. They fly 3-4 miles around. They will find food. As soon as they leave the hive, they shoot up 40ft in the area, and take off. I tried telling them that my yard has some good stuff too, but apparently they arent interested.
That, or we don't like the way it wrecks the comb, doesn't differentiate what frames it wrecks, promotes hive robbing, and totally screws up your ability to inspect the hive.
We've been thinking about getting into the bee thing lately. We just think it's a cool way to try and have a positive impact on the environment without smelling like patchouli all the time.
The flow hive looked like the perfect setup for someone starting from scratch, but I've seen more than a few negative opinions from experienced folks. It seems like the actual honey extraction is the most complex and gear-intensive part of the whole operation, and the flow hive claims to have that part solved. Explain a little more about what I'm missing there and why it's a bad idea.
We have about three acres and under Florida law would be eligible to have like 20 hives. No way do I need that kind of hassle, but I've been told that in Florida, two hives is a good number for a hobby-level setup and that they can provide you with near year-round honey if things are going well and the winter is mild.
We've got a hive in our back yard. Our garden loves it. I don't harvest a lot of honey from it, but I enjoy checking in on our little buzzy friends. Mostly I try to make sure the bees have a good place to live and in return they bring life to the place.
A friend bought a flow hive. It's fun to watch it fill with honey, but really I'm just a sucker for hives with windows so I can watch.
Wow, I'm surprised at the number of beekeepers here. I thought I was the only one.
I've been asked about my user name several times over the years, but I don't know if I've explained my connection. I'm at least a fourth-generation beekeeper and I designed and conducted a research project to test non-chemical controls of the nonnative parasite that has severely weakened honeybees in the US.
My suggestion would be to get 2-3 hives to start. If you go queenless, you can give that colony a frame of fresh eggs from one of the other colonies and they will make a new queen. Having multiple colonies also allows you to identify problems earlier by comparing colony health. I'd also start moving toward Small Cell. I think Dadant sells 4.9mm foundation. Finally, I'd recommend Buckfast or Russian bees. Most people start with Italians because they're very docile and most dealers sell them. Russians and the English Buckfast seem to deal better with Varroa. I had Buckfast and they did well. I got 94lbs of honey from one colony.
Apis Mellifera wrote: I designed and conducted a research project to test non-chemical controls of the nonnative parasite that has severely weakened honeybees in the US.
You talking the varroa mite? There have been many research projects on non-chemical control and treatment methods. Scraper entries, screen bottom boards, removing drone brood, etc. Did you do anything different and did it yield significant differences?
If you go queenless, you can give that colony a frame of fresh eggs from one of the other colonies and they will make a new queen.
Only if caught and started fast enough. Without the pheromones of the queen the worker bees start to change and then you get laying workers. At that point, you're basically done. I'd say generally speaking replacing a lost queen with a new one is a far better alternative. But it's got to be obtained quickly.
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