Posts Tagged ‘How To Keep Bees’

There are many great reasons for keeping honey bees. From harvesting honey, to collecting beeswax, and even crop pollination, bees serve many helpful purposes. Here are a few helpful tips for keeping honey bees on your property.

This Great Bee Keeping Guide “Modern Beekeeping” Teaches You All You Need To Know so as to keep Your Own Healthy Bees and Produce Your Own Great Honey! Click Here To Download Adam Mills’s Modern Beekeeping Guide.

1. Feed Your Bees: While the bees are getting used to their new hive, or during cold weather months, you will need to provide food.  You will need to mix sugar syrup and administer it to the bees through use of a Boardman feeder, or by placing the syrup inside the top cover near the opening in the inner cover.

This type of feeding allows your bees to have access to the syrup, without attracting pests or intruders. It is important to note that bees consume a great deal when they are first establishing a hive, so make sure to check the syrup level often. Once the bees begin to produce honey, you will no longer need to supply syrup, however you should leave some honey in the hive as a food source during the winter and early spring months.

2. Make Sure Water Is Handy: Bees need to have a proper water source, especially during warm weather months. Bees use water to cool down their hive during periods of hot and humid weather, and also use it as a dilution material during honey production. That being said, you should never place a container of water too close to the hive because bees can drown quite easily.

3. Be Considerate: When keeping honey bees, you should always be considerate of others. Remember, you want the bees, your neighbors do not necessarily feel the same way.

A wooden fence around your hive can prove quite beneficial. Make sure you set the fence up in the same direction as the hive opening so the bees can fly over the fence and above nearby homes.

For More Bee Keeping Tips, Click Here To Download Adam Mills’s Modern Beekeeping Guide.

Some time ago I downloaded this ebook from Adam Mills and started to read it one summers evening. The first thing I found was that there was a warmth and enthusiasm to the writing which I found engrossing. This Great Bee Keeping Guide “Modern Beekeeping” Teaches You All You Need To Know so as to keep Your Own Healthy Bees and Produce Your Own Great Honey! Click Here To Download Adam Mills’s Modern Beekeeping Guide.

Harvesting honey is an exciting and fun process. This is the time when all of your hard work pays off, and you finally get to enjoy this sweet treat. However, before you begin, there are a few things you should know to make the process easier. Here are three simple tips for harvesting honey.

Prepare Your Area: As we all know, honey is extremely sticky. Every item you handle will become sticky (counter tops, tools, doorknobs, etc.) so you should contain the stickiness by working in a clean barn, on the porch, or in the garage rather than working in your kitchen. Keep a bucket of water handy to rinse your hands and a clean towel to dry off with. Set up all pieces of equipment and tools before handling the comb, and lay down a few drop cloths or newspapers on the floor.

Harvest In A Confined Area: Harvesting honey should be done in a closed room.  This keeps the honey clean, and it helps to keep the bees from stealing it, and bringing it back to the hive.

Warm The Honey: Warm honey flows much easier than cold honey. This will allow you to spin the honey out of the comb faster, which results in more honey being extracted from the comb. Warm honey also flows through strainers and filters much faster, without clumping up. Honey should be heated to about eighty degrees Fahrenheit (twenty-seven degrees Celsius) for optimal flow. Use caution to ensure you do not heat the honey too much or else you may melt the wax comb.

For More Bee Keeping Tips, Click Here To Download Adam Mills’s Modern Beekeeping Guide.

From midsummer in a good year, many hives will be approaching a crisis point. The worker/gatherer bees, numbering anything around 50,000 in a decent colony, will have brought back home huge quantities of nectar and pollen, and the vacant cells are overflowing.

The Queen has increased by many thousands the number of her brood, and now finds herself encroached upon, and pushed for space in her domain. The hive is extremely crowded, all the combs are fully occupied, and the “fanner” bees, who have the unenviable task of keeping the colony cool, are finding it difficult to cope, and returning bees cluster around the entrance, unwilling to enter this situation.

To add to the pressure, a newly hatching brood due in a week will add to the congeston even more. Something has to be done about this state of affairs, and it has to be done at once. Inactivity (except in winter) is anathema to the bee, and not tolerated in their world.

So the bees prepare to swarm. Of course, the bees who remain with the hive to form the nucleus of a new colony must have a Queen. The original Queen will go with the swarm. Ever efficient, the bees cater for any unexpected accident by preparing for many new Queens. The workers construct special cells by sacrificing other cells around them. These special cells are larger, with thicker walls.

The existing Queen then lays into these specially prepared cells eggs, which would usually hatch into worker bees. However, the nurse bees feed these eggs with richer food, and more of it, enlarge the cells more as the larvae grow. Until the cells are capped, with the new virgin Queens emerging in a week.

At this time restlessness seizes the old Queen, who rushes about, trying in vain to assert her authority, even threatening the young Queens-to-be, and order breaks down. The temperature rises to a point where things are all but intolerable and the bees swarm from the hive. The Queen, having finally left her old home, will settle not too far away initially, in some nearby bush, tree, old log or suchlike, the bees will cluster around her, forming the familiar ball shape of the swarm. This is the time that the beekeeper, if he has been watchful, can gather them up and transport them to a new hive to start anew. Otherwise, within a short time scouts will have found a new permanent home, and the swarm will be lost.

The original hive, now depleted by more than half, now returns to it’s life as though nothing had happened. A few days later the strongest of the new Queens-to-be lets it be known that she is ready to emerge. She will cut the capping of her cell, which has previously been thinned and smoothed by the nurses to aid her exit, press against it, force it open like a hinged lid, and step out onto the comb. The nearest honey cell has her first attention, feeding hungrily. She then devotes her attention to her sisters, finding all the other Queen cells, ripping them open and killing her rivals. If she is not quick enough, or is not allowed by the other bees, she will wait to fight to the death any other potential Queens that may emerge. Alternatively she may decide not to fight for the position of Queen here and join an “afterswarm”. The bee law remains intact. A law of bee life, having very few exceptions, has been upheld. “One Queen – one kingdom”.

Learning how to keep bees may feel a little daunting at first to the uninitiated. In fact it is easier than you might think and it is just as possible in urban areas as it is rural areas. It does not take a great deal of work either – it is more a matter of regular maintenance in order to prevent possible problems.Your first consideration is your beehive. There are many different types available, but the most commonly used around the world is the Langstroth. Different beekeepers have different preferences, but the most important thing is to ensure that you decide on which hive to use and stick to it. The reason for this is that if you have more than one hive you need to be able interchange the parts between your hives.Another consideration in learning how to keep bees is when to start and to introduce bees to your beehive. There is no fixed time to do this, but it is generally accepted that the best time of year is early spring when the bees will just be starting to becoming more active and foraging for nectar.Your routine as a beekeeper will largely be determined by the seasons. In the spring and summer you will need to be checking for mites, preventing swarms and collecting your honey. It is important to collect honey regularly to ensure that the bees do not use up all their space in the hive as this can lead to swarming.During the winter months your main tasks will be concerned with inspecting the hive ensuring that it is in good condition and that the entrances are free of blockages. You will need to provide your bees with food over the winter months.As you can see learning how to keep bees is something that everyone can do regardless of your living circumstances. More and more people are discovering the joys of beekeeping and having a ready supply of sweet honey for themselves or to sell for a profit!