>>2518670>Everything I've read has told me I should begin with two hives so I can compare them but I could only afford one.Find a local beekeeping group/store/mentor, so that you can re-queen in case your queen dies (by getting another queen, or buy getting some frame eggs only a few days old and putting in hive).
Honestly bee-having was a bit easier than I thought (3 years into the hobby now).
In my climate the bees have died off over the very damp cool winters though, so I have had to restart hive each year. (Don't buy Flow hive if you live in damp cool winter climate.)
Bee variety matters more than I thought, Italian breed western honeybees were super chill in my experience, I could stand right behind the hive (not by hive entry point) with no issue for hours without suit or smoke. Other bee breeds I picked up didn't do that as much.
Scientific beekeeping is a good blog/internet resource.
"Honeybee democracy" is a very well researched yet still very trippy exploration of how bee colonies make decisions, suggest you give it a read and you will get a new appreciation of bees, and how they are like the Zerg.
