Homestead Handbook Beginning with Honeybees

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Back to basics, then. If you're going to keep bees, you'll need a home for them. The modern beehive was invented by Rev. L.L. Langstroth in 1851, and it was so simple and ingenious that it's hardly been changed since. Before Langstroth, most bee owners left their colonies in boxes, hollow logs, or straw skeps. Once a year, the owner gathered his or her harvest either by killing the bees and taking all their honey . . . or by brusquely ripping out a portion of the honeycomb (a procedure that didn't exactly please the hive's inhabitants).

Langstroth's hive design made nondestructive manipulation of the hive possible, because it incorporated two novel features: movable frames and uniform bee space. All the interior sections can be easily taken out and moved about. These pieces are all separated by 5/16 of an inch, the size of passageway honeybees naturally prefer, so the insects won't stick the hive parts together with extra comb or propolis (the tree-sap-derived "glue" they use for caulking jobs).

With a modern beehive, then, you can harvest honey, search for the queen, and even move bees and eggs from a strong colony to a weak one — without damaging the hive or angering the bees. Now, that's sweet!

Here's the layout. At the base is a bottom board, with a little landing pad extension out front. On the hive's top is an inner cover (a flat board with an oval opening) and an outer cover (the real lid). In the middle of the hive are open wood boxes called supers. The larger ones, called the deep supers or brood chamber, are stacked on the bottom and used for raising eggs and larvae (brood). The smaller ones, called the shallow supers or just plain supers , are used for storing honey. (Some beekeepers do use deep supers for honey. The only drawback is weight: Full of honey, a deep box weighs 60 pounds!)

Inside each super-deep or shallow-are ten frames . . . and each of these removable rectangles contains a thin sheet of beeswax that's been imprinted with little hexagons the size of worker bee cells. Such sheets, called foundation, give the bees ordered starting points for drawing out either egg or honey cells.

You can build your own bee equipment (other than the wax foundation), but don't . . . not when you're starting out. Buy it knocked down from a bee supply company and tack it all together (it's easy — even fun!). A one-hive starter setup, including the hive parts you'll need, smoker, hive tool, bee gloves, and hat and veil, will set you back around $90. Then you'll have most everything you'll need to get going, except for one thing . . . the bees.

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