Posts Tagged ‘Beekeeping Courses’

Beekeeping is a hobby practiced by millions of people around the world. It can be an inexpensive, healthy and satisfying personal experience. It can be undertaken as a part-time or even a full-time vocation. Beekeeping also benefits gardens by helping to pollinate crops, as the bees take the pollen from plant to plant. Many people find beekeeping relaxing and interesting, as bees are rather absorbing creatures to watch on the job. Not only would it be a task of interest, it reaps its benefits of honey and beeswax. Natural unfiltered honey has high levels of antioxidants which helps relieve our bodies of stressors and reduces the chances of certain cancers. Beeswax has a variety of uses including candles, skin creams and lip balms. Keeping bees involves having hives with layers that have frames of cones. This is where the bees have their young, put pollen and produce honey. They can be bought with bees already in them, or they might be purchased separately in packages. There are three types of bees; the queen, workers, and drones. Workers are female bees that feed larvae, gather and collect pollen and honey, make wax, clean the cells in the hive, and protect the hive. Drones are male bees that function only to mate with the queen. A beekeeper inspects the bee colony to make sure the queen is laying her eggs and carries no sign of disease. The colony needs preventative medication about every two weeks to attempt to save the hive from any disease that might rampage it. In summertime, the hive gets extra frames to hold honey production and so they have more room. When all frames in a layer (called a super) are full of honey, with about half of the frame cells coated with wax, its about time to extract the honey. When winter begins to approach the keeper had two options; to kill off the colony and buy more bees come spring, or, “winter” the bees. The colony is given sugar and water for food to make it through the winter months. They can be kept either indoors or outdoors. If the bees are kept outdoors, insulation and plastic needs to be placed around their hives. Some bees will likely die, but the colony itself will be maintained, even if the hives are covered in snow. A beekeeper requires other equipment such as a smoker for calming the bees and a veil to prevent the bees from walking over his or her face, which can be a little unnerving. A bee suit and gloves might be used, but are not necessarily required. It is said that working with the bees with bare hands gives one more feel for what they are doing. Also, bare hands leads to less jarring of the hive, keeping the bees calmer. Keeping bees does involve a sting now and then. For most people, the initial sting causes some pain, and then some discomfort for a short period of time. One simply needs to watch for signs of developing an allergy to stings which may include hives on the body and shortness of breath. There is also a very small percentage of the population that has a chance of going into analphylactic shock from the bee sting. Beekeeping is becoming more and more popular by hobbyists. Beekeeping can be a fun and fulfilling practice with the right knowledge and tools.

With sufficient tools and knowledge, beekeeping can be an interesting and satisfying hobby. There are an array of benefits to keeping bees such as helping gardens, producing honey and beeswax. Beeswax can be used for candle making, skin creams and lip balms. So what does one need to start keeping bees? There are four types of equipment for beekeeping; personal equipment, beehives, extracting equipment and wintering equipment. Personal Equipment For protecting yourself and properly taking care of your bees, you will require a minimum of three important things; a wide brimmed hat with a veil, a hive tool, and a bee smoker. And it should be a wide-brimmed hat; a baseball cap isn’t enough. You need to keep the bees from roaming your head, face and neck as head stings are especially painful. A bee smoker emits a gentle puff of smoke to calm the bees. A hive tool allows you to manipulate the frames that hold cones in the hive. You can use a bee suit, bee gloves, and high boots for further protection against stings. It may help you feel more comfortable while working around the bees. Beehives Most beehives come with a bottom board and a hive cover and have five layers, known as supers, in between. Supers contain around nine to ten frames of comb. The comb is where the bees rear their larvae, store pollen and create the honey. Typically the bees will use the two bottom supers for rearing the young and for storage, and the top three layers for the honey crop. Typically, it is best to purchase a hive that has already contained bees for a year or more, as a new hive can stress the bees and reduce honey production for a period of time. But a beehive can also be built properly from new components. The hive should be checked for tightness and for enough room for worker bees to roam around. Extracting Equipment For extracting the honey crop, you will require some special tools. A bee brush helps to sweep the bees off a frame when taken out of the supers. However, if you plan to have a lot of hives, this can be tedious work. Escape boards are a faster way of clearing off a frame by directing the bees out of the super in one direction. Another method is using certain chemicals and special acid boards to drive the bees out of the honey super. From there, you can extract the honey yourself with a honey extraction device or bring the cones to an established beekeeper. Honey extractors come large or small depending on your crop, and can be hand-powered or motor-driven. Extracted honey needs to then be strained with cheesecloth or nylon and stored in containers in a warm place. Wintering Equipment The last tools you’ll need are for wintering. Wintering is a way of keeping your hives alive during winter months. Insulation is placed over and around the hives, and then wrapped in plastic to hold the insulation in place. It then needs to be covered with a lid or piece of plywood and tied with twine to prevent wind from damaging the cover. An alternative to this is to kill off the colony and buy a new one around spring. Having the proper tools can make for a pleasant beekeeping experience. Be sure to shop, compare and understand your equipment; and you’ll surely enjoy the benefits of keeping bees.

Beekeeping is a popular hobby practiced all over. People in rural areas and in the city can keep bees, and it can be either a hobby with a little return (in the form of wax and honey) for the family, or it can be a profitable business. However, not everyone should keep bees. While it’s a fun and rewarding hobby for many, it’s not right for everyone. Let’s take a look at what goes into beekeeping to see if bees are the right choice for you! For the right person, this is a great opportunity to enjoy some real, homemade honey, and possibly even earn a little bit of money. You’re going to need an acceptably sized space to keep your bees (a large back yard is a minimum for all but the most resourceful beekeepers), and food in the immediate area (a two mile radius) to help them survive and produce honey. You’ll need time to invest in keeping the hives in good shape and money to invest in hives and basic supplies for your beekeeping operation. You’re also going to need to be the kind of person who doesn’t mind being around bees! Make sure no one in your area or household is allergic to bees before you start your beekeeping operation, and remember that you might need to do a little bit of outreach to your neighbors. Many people don’t know the difference between a bee and a wasp, and might mistake your beekeeping operation for a hazard. Try explaining what it’ll do for their rosebushes and that bees sting infrequently, and things will be much easier. If you know that you’re the kind of person for whom beekeeping will be fun and enjoyable, you can start looking at what you’ll need to do it. There are plenty of places online where you can order the equipment you’ll need, but don’t jump right in before you know what you’re going to need. Decide how many bees you want to keep (if you’re planning this as a business, you’ll need more than if you just want a couple of hives in the back yard) and what you’re going to do with their produce. Honey and wax can be useful at home, or they can be sold off to local buyers for a profit, as long as you know what you’re doing and how to market them correctly. Just make sure that if you don’t feel ready for a business venture, you don’t rush into it. Poor planning has been the death of many great businesses, before they ever got off the ground. Remember, you can always stick to beekeeping as a hobby and enjoy some delicious honey while you decide how to turn your beekeeping into a money maker. Basic beekeeping equipment will require hives, a smoker, a hive tool and a bee suit with veil. Don’t buy used hives, especially if you don’t know where they came from. Bee mites and other invasive pests have become a really problem, and can come along with a set of disused hives. Remember – you don’t know why a used hive is empty, and the things that come with it could seriously threaten your beekeeping. Mites, foulbrood, beetles and waxworms, diseases and all kinds of other issues can kill a hive, and they might still be there. Once you’ve set up your hives, you’ll need to get some bees. For beekeeping purposes, they can be purchased by the pound, and will come with a caged queen. Place her in the hive before you shake the other bees in and they’ll eat the plug to release her into the colony. You’ll want to wait two weeks before disturbing your bees again, but then you should check to make sure the queen is laying and honey is being stored. When it comes to using beekeeping as a business, make sure that you’ve got a business plan before you begin. Then, stick to that plan. It’ll keep you on track and help you make money, not lose it. You’ll know when to market and when to expand your operation if you take the time to put together a business plan. Remember that you’ll have to establish a market and produce an attractive product if you’re going to sell. A beekeeping business can be a really rewarding one if you know what you’re doing, however. Keeping bees is a profitable business, a fun hobby, and a public service, too. If you’re interested in finding out more, do a little beekeeping research, then enjoy your bees!