Archive for September 2011
Beekeeping and Honey Bees – Harvesting the Honey
Beekeeping is a very popular hobby and obviously the main reason for setting up, maintaining, and stocking a beehive is to harvest the honey. You will know that it is time to harvest the honey (the month depends on your location in the world) when you look into one of your hives and find that the frames of comb are full of honey and that the honey bees have covered it with wax caps. It’s time to remove the super and keep it in a bee proof room prior to extraction.
When the super is full of capped honeycomb you are going to have to remove the honey bees from that super. There are several commercial chemicals available on the market that will make this easier. All the bee-keeper has to do is apply the chemical to a fume board or pad and place it on top of the super. When the honey bees detect the chemical they head to the bottom of the hive to the brood chamber or a part full super below the full one. This leaves the super full of capped honeycomb and bee free for you to harvest.
This product does not harm the honey bees; the honey bees simply find the scent offensive and move away from it. Another method bee-keepers use to clear honey bees from a super is by using a crown board with a Porter bee escape fitted. There is also the Canadian clearer board and the clearing cone; there is also WBC cone escape if required. Using the escape method can take 24 to 48 hours.
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Now that you have removed the super you need to prepare the frames for extraction. The first step in this preparation is to remove the wax caps that the honey bees have used to seal the honey into the comb. Many bee-keepers use between nine and twelve frames in their supers, some modern hives take more frames. By using the correct number of frames to suit your type of hive you give the honey bees enough room to draw the comb out to the edge of the frame, they then cap it right on the very edge. This makes it easier to remove the wax caps by cutting flush to the frame. Bee-keepers use a metal knife to remove the caps, the knife works best if the knife blade is hot, after all it’s easier to cut warm wax then it is to cut cold wax. You can keep the knife blade hot by keeping it in hot water.
A tall jug or pitcher that covers the knife blade is ideal. If the container is metal and can be kept on the heat then so much the better. Some bee-keepers like to use their bread knife to remove the wax caps from the honey comb while others prefer an electrical knife that is designed just for bee-keepers. Another method of removing the caps is by using an uncapping fork.
Once you have removed the caps from the comb the honey is exposed, you can then use a straining cloth or bag or you could secure a piece of cheesecloth over an empty pot or container and put the wax cappings on the cheesecloth the honey will drain through the cheesecloth and the bee’s wax caps will be left on the cheesecloth. This wax can be processed in a solar wax extractor or in a steamer/melter. Once the caps are removed from the honey comb the honey is ready to be extracted.
This can be done by resting the frame on its top bar (upside down) in a tray or suspend the frame upside down over a tray. The honey will drain out of the comb. The honey comb cells have a slight up turn towards the top bar. This is to prevent the honey running out when being deposited by the worker bees. This is not very a very efficient method but is used as a last resort for some if they can’t get access to an extractor.
It is perhaps better if you borrow a centrifugal extractor from a fellow bee-keeper or your local group, club or association. There are many models of extractor I would suggest you seek advice. You can of course make cut comb honey in 16 oz, 12 oz or 8 oz rectangles. Rectangular cutters are available or you could use a hot knife and cut your own rectangles.
My name is Bob Prior-Sanderson. I am a successful bee-keeper and I publish eBooks about the long lost secrets of beekeeping by the old masters. Website: http://www.firstlessonsinbeekeeping.com
When You Might Not Need A Beekeeping Guide
Are you wondering if a beekeeping guide is necessary or not? If you are, I invite you to continue reading this article. Actually, it seems acceptable that not having knowledge of useful information contained in a beekeeping guide could justify the need for such a guide. Consequently, if a person has all the knowledge included in a guide he/she might not be in need of the guide in question. Thus, I will try to make an overview of information that is contained in a beekeeping guide. In fact, if this information is already known to the beekeeper than apparently, one can say that the guide is not needed.
One Hive
To begin with, one thing that is needed to keep bees is a hive. Because there are different types of hives, a beekeeper that already knows which type of hives he/she wants is likely not to be in need of information about the type of hives available. However, even if a person does not know what hive to take, in the US, a commonly used hive is the Langstroth beehive. You may find indications about the different parts of the hive and some historical facts about Langstroth the inventor in a beekeeping guide. However, approaching a beekeeper association can provide a beekeeper with valuable information.
The Beekeeping Supplies
Secondly, a beekeeper might have to acquire beekeeping supplies. If a person knows what equipment to have and how to use it, then apparently a guide teaching that could be giving redundant information. Nonetheless, tools that are useful in beekeeping are the netted veil, the beekeeping suit, the smoker, the hive tool, and the uncapping fork for instance. Once again, one factor that can help to determine if a beekeeping guide is unnecessary is a beekeeper’s knowledge of what is taught in the guide.
Thirdly, inspecting the beehive is something that a beekeeper might do regularly. As one can guess, a person who keeps bees and performs the beehive inspection well does not necessarily need a guide to teach him/her what that person already does. The same can be applied to actions such as the harvesting of the honey, the moving of a beehive, the replacement of the queen if need be, and the feeding of the bees. Unless a beekeeper is efficient in all the actions pertaining to beekeeping, he/she could find tips in a guide. Nonetheless, if a beginner has access to an experience beekeeper, the visual knowledge that can be acquired in this situation might be of greater value than the one contained in beekeeping guide.
As human beings the process of learning is something that is hardly completed. Effectively, finding a source with information that we don’t already know is not impossible. In fact, a new beekeeper might find beneficial to have a beekeeping guide to have some help in her/his beekeeping journey. Actually, even an experienced beekeeper could still learn from other experienced beekeepers. Thus, ruling out the need of a guide is not as simple. Additionally, because beekeeping involves living creatures that can inflict pain having a good understanding of how to keep them seems to be important.
Next, if you want to have a series of beekeeping lessons sent to your email address, I invite you to subscribe to my email mini course at: http://www.guidetobeekeeping.info Note however, that with the lessons will come some promotional messages.
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Honey Bee Colony Structure
Article by Nancy Ketner
There are several different bee types necessary to the survival of any colony. Bees are social insects. They live together in groups and work together for the good of the colony – taking care of young bees and cooperating in foraging for nectar and making honey. In bee “society” there are three distinct types of bees. There are the drone, the queen and the worker. As honey bee colonies live for years, all of the bees work together to survive the next winter and then the winter after that.
Worker bees are all females without developed reproductive organs. They do all of the work necessary to keep the colony going. A colony can have between 2,000 and 6,000 worker bees.
The Queen is a fertile female. Her job is to produce eggs for the colony. When a queen bee dies or leaves the colony, workers choose a small number of worker larvae. These larvae are fed “royal jelly.” The royal jelly causes the larvae to become queens. If not fed this diet, those same larvae would become workers. There is normally only one queen in a hive. She produces chemicals called pheromones that regulate the behaviour of all the other bee types in the hive.
Drones are male bees. During the spring and summer months, a colony may have no drones or it may have 500 drones. The job of the drone is to leave the hive and, while flying, mate with queens from other colonies.
Workers build hexagon shaped beeswax cells in which the queen lays her eggs. As the brood (young bees) develop, they go through four stages. These stages are the egg, larva, inactive pupa and young adult. Each stage takes different times to develop, depending on what type of bee the egg is to become.
As soon as the workers leave their cells they automatically begin cleaning. Their job is to clean cells, circulate air in the hive by beating their wings, feed larvae, practice flying until they are proficient, get the nectar and pollen from bees that have foraged for it, and guard the hive entrance as well as to forage. The different jobs the workers do depend on the workers ages.
During the winter months, honey bees cling together in a tight ball. The queen starts laying eggs in January in the middle of the nest. By the end of winter the stores of food in a colony will become low but in the early spring, when nectar flow begins, bee populations grow rapidly.
This is when swarming occurs. There will be several queens in a colony that’s crowded. The mother of the daughters will fly away, sometimes taking more than half of her workers with her. They will cling to a tree branch or wall while scouts find a good nest site. Within a day, a nest site will be found and one of the young queens will inherit the original colony. And so the cycle of the beehive begins again.
About the Author
My name is Nancy Ketner and I have been fascinated by Bees for as long as I can remember. Beekeeping can be a daunting hobby to start. Understanding Honeybee Colony Structure and the Bee Craft you need as a beginner can be difficult. I started Beekeeper Central as a free resource for others who wish to explore Beekeeping as a hobby or small business venture so people can get the most enjoyment they can from Honey Bees.
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