I have been a Daily Kos member since August of 2006. I have had times of participation and times of quiet. I have had disagreements, and I've made great friendships. I've always been amazed at the ability of this community to come together to help each other, and to help common causes.
It is with that in mind, that I have decided to come to you and ask for your assistance.
I have been kicking around the idea of keeping bees for several years now. It's not a secret that bees need our help right now. Beekeeping isn't nearly as profitable as some might think, and less so as supermarkets are selling cheap, processed honey that often contains HFCS. It's not the profit I'm looking for. I may not even spend much time harvesting the honey, that will likely be a consideration next year, not this.
I live in a mobile home community and selling the idea of beehives to the park manager would be difficult at best. As luck would have it, my daughter and son-in-law recently purchased a large parcel of property to build a home in the future. I saw an opportunity, and approached them about putting a couple beehives on their property. They were all for it as they love to garden and their vegetables are usually quite sorry. They're hoping that having bees nearby will help. So, now I have the space, but am running out of time this year for the funds to buy my first hive. I currently see about $200 that I can scrape up. That will buy my bees, and one box. Enough to get started, but not enough to keep them going.
The people I'm working with sell bees and hives at varying levels of funds. I ultimately would like to buy the "complete bee hive" as a starter because it also contains things such as the tools, protective equipment (jackets, gloves and headgear) as well as enough boxes to get the hive going, and a one year warranty on the bees. This will also enable me to be more worried about taking care of the bees than hoping they don't build too fast before I can afford the next box, as it takes about one month to build up and fill a box. This ultimate package would cost about $680. For some folks, that seems like a drop in the bucket. For me, it's more than half my income for the month. I'm on disability and while I generally have enough coming in for monthly expenses, there isn't much to spare for my bees. I'm also hoping that keeping bees will get me out of the house more, and give me a reason to wake up.
If you could spare $5 or $10, I'd greatly appreciate it. My bees will appreciate it. And Mother Earth will also appreciate it. I've set up a paypal account for this purpose and the address is beesquaredbees@gmail.com
Thank you. I'm not very good at begging, but this is important.