The Beekeeper's Handbook Discussion Part 2

Hi book groupers! How are you? Have you had time to read through Chapter 10 yet? If not, there's still plenty of time. We're just getting warmed up. If you've missed the other posts about the group, you can read about it here and here. We're reading The Beekeeper’s Handbook by Diana Sammataro and Alphonse Avitabile. Our first assignment was to read the Introduction-Chapter 5 and then we’d discuss over the course of two weeks. Every two weeks we’ll read another section, discuss, and so on and so forth. Our discussion dates are as follows:
November 18th: intro-Chapter 5
December 2nd: Chapters 6-10
December 16th: Chapters 11-15
December 30th: Appendixes and wrap up, next book and schedule.

Let's get started! I thought the reading for this week was very technical. I'm almost regretting diving into such technical skills. I feel like I need more time to properly digest all this information, but here we are so let's do it!

Questions:
1. Have you ever installed bees before? What was your experience? Did you purchase them via the mail? Or did you purchase through a store and pick them up? What was your experience like with purchasing? Did the queen make it? Did installation go smoothly? Which type of installation did you use?
2. What has your experience been with feeding bees? Did you know all the information about feeding bees, i.e. only use white granulated sugar? Did you know to not overheat the simple syrup? Do you have a preferred feeder type?
3. What are your seasonal management practices? Do they line up with the book? Do you do something different during different seasons? How hands-on are you with your bees? Or how hands on do you plan on being? What research have you done on keeping bees and the support they need? Will you be able to kill a hive if needed? What's the yearly weather like where you are? Will you need to winterize your bees? If so, what's your plan? Do you have any natural predators where you live?
4. Have you had a chance to requeen? What was that like? How did it go? Did you purchase a new queen or did you let the colony make a new queen? Have you had a hive swarm before?
5. If you haven't had bees yet, what are you most looking forward to? What are your plans (if any yet) for purchasing, feeding, management, set up, and queens?

Like I said above, this was a lot of information. I'm learning lots but also feel almost overwhelmed with all the information! I know that with practice, a good mentor, and lots of reading it will all fall into place so I'm trying to keep that in mind. But boy, that's a lot of info!! I have a lot of questions! So feel free to answer them or pose your own questions. I'll be back later with my own comments and answers to the questions. Be on the lookout for those in the comments section. Happy reading!