Keep Bees, Naturally!
(Page 3 of 6)
February/March 2008
By M.E.A. McNeil
How Not to Get Stung
RELATED CONTENT
You can build an inexpensive top-bar hive and start keeping bees next spring! In the top-bar system...
It’s funny how we can sometimes lose sight of the simpler ways of doing things. Top-bar beekeeping ...
A hive of bees will produce honey and help pollinate your garden and orchard, but beekeeping is als...
Beekeeping as a business and building your own beehives....
The sweetest of all harvests goes to those folks who keep honeybees, and the time to prepare to und...
You will need to look inside the hive from time to time to see what’s going on, sometimes to feed your bees sugar water to supplement lean nectar supplies, and certainly to harvest some honey in late summer. Hiving and feeding your bees can feel complicated and scary at first, so suit up completely in a zipper-sealed bee suit until you feel comfortable and confident (many experienced beekeepers suit up, too). When working with the hives, take your time and practice slow, fluid movements, which are least likely to upset the bees. You will calm the bees by first using a smoker to puff pine-needle or leaf smoke in and around the hives (it masks the bees’ alarm pheromone), but even calm bees will crawl around on their keeper. Fortunately, calm bees seldom sting.
The Sweetest Harvest
You can harvest your honey with the beeswax comb intact (comb honey), or you can use a hot knife to cut the caps from the comb and remove the honey. Extracting the honey and returning the empty comb to the hive is easiest on the bees (they ingest 6 pounds of honey to make 1 pound of wax). Electric extractors quickly spin the honey from combs using centrifugal force, but they are expensive. Bee clubs often share an electric extractor, and sometimes organize honey harvesting parties.
As frames are replaced, you will harvest more bounty from your bees in the form of beeswax for candles, soaps and lotion. Should you decide to sell some of your honey, you will find that prices are significantly higher for local, raw honey. Some people buy it for health reasons, including to relieve allergies, although proof that it works depends on anecdotal evidence.
Keeping Your Beehives Healthy
It is always wise to set hives up off the ground on bricks or concrete blocks — especially in areas where fire ants or hive beetles may stage an invasion. In addition, many beekeepers like to have a screened bottom board and an access slot in the back of the hive’s bottom box big enough to slip in a thick piece of cardboard. If the bees have varroa mites, you can catch about 15 percent of them by using pieces of paper coated with cooking oil or petroleum jelly (the mites that fall off the bees’ bodies get stuck and can’t crawl back up). The slot also comes in handy should you opt to “fumigate” hives with essential oils or other natural pest-control products.
But the most important component of a healthy beehive is you. It will take little effort on your part to bond with your bees, which begins the day you slip your new caged queen into the hive, dump in her ready workforce of bees, and hope they like her well enough to chew through the sugar plug on her little cage to set her free. Or, you may begin with a smaller “nuc,” or nuclear colony, which consists of a laying queen and the first of her brood. After one week, check new hives to make sure the queen is laying, and then let the bees work in peace. As long as you see bees coming and going from the hive with bulging pouches of pollen on their legs, assume that all is well. The first young bees will begin hatching within a month.
Page:
<< Previous 1 |
2 | 3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
Next >>
