Posts Tagged ‘Beekeeping’

Beekeeping as a hobby can have many benefits.  This article will show you some of the many benefits that becoming a beekeeper can have.

Learn how beekeeping can improve both your life and the lifes of others.Help Pollinate the World’s PlantsBees are responsible for pollination a large number of the world’s plants including many crops.

Beekeepers are becoming increasing important to making sure that plants get pollinated as the world’s wild bee populations continue to decline.Relieve Your Stress With A Beekeeping HobbyBeekeeping has been known to be a stress relieving activity.

Beekeeping is very similar to gardening in many ways and simply being out in nature and enjoying what you are doing can be a great way to reduce stress in your life.Improve Your Health Through BeekeepingYou can use the products such as beeswax and honey that are produced by your beekeeping efforts to improve your health.

Pure honey is well known as having many health benefits and the best part is that the honey you make will be much fresher and purer than any that you could buy in a store.Create Bee Gifts For Your Friends and FamilyOnce you start to get results from your beekeping efforts, the beeswax and honey that you have produced will make great gifts for your friends and family.

You can make cosmetics, candles and bottles of honey.If you are interested in learning more about how to become a beekeeper, visit http://www.thebeekeeper.info – A Complete Web Resource For Beekeeping Beginners

For most of us, modern life has evolved far away from our roots in nature. Most of us live and work in a man-made, artificial environment. Very few of us have the advantage of working in a natural setting, and few of us even have the privilege of communing with nature on a regular basis.

 And yet, in spite of the barriers of modern civilization, which reduce our contact with the natural world, we all recognize the importance of nature. For the natural world is the bedrock upon which our artificial world of modern civilization rests. Though we may exist in an entirely artificial environment – leaving our air-conditioned homes to travel in air-conditioned vehicles to and from our workplace cubicle – we are just as dependent upon the workings of nature as a 17th century farmer who had to sweat in the sun and grub in the dirt for his living.

 For many of us, finding a way of reconnecting with nature provides a counterweight to the artificiality of modern life, giving a balance to our lives that seems missing without some means of communing with nature. Gardening and camping are examples of popular activities that provide an interface with nature. Another such activity that unfortunately is often overlooked is beekeeping.

 Beekeeping provides an intimate connection with nature. Watching your bees as they explode in population in the spring as they prepare for the summer’s honey production, and then winding down in the fall, ready to face the winter with the stores they’ve industriously accrued, is endlessly fascinating, no matter how many times you’ve watched the cycle repeated. And fortunately, it’s not necessary to live in the country to enjoy the hobby of beekeeping. Hundreds of hives are kept on the balconies and rooftops of most cities; there are even professional beekeepers whose hives are all located within the confines of a city.

 Of course, the production of honey is one of the major benefits of beekeeping. In most seasons, a well-managed hive will produce enough honey to allow its keeper to share in the bounty and still leave the hive plenty for winter stores. And the honey that the hobbyist beekeeper can produce is nothing like the over processed and over filtered substance sold as honey at most supermarkets. Those who have never tasted pure, unprocessed honey straight from the comb (or even better, still in the comb), will be truly delighted at their first taste of honey in its natural state. There is usually quite a demand for raw, local honey, providing a ready market for any beekeeper that wishes to expand the hobby into a part-time business.

 But there is more to beekeeping than the benefits that accrue directly to the beekeeper. Beekeepers – whether professionals with thousands of hives, or hobbyists with only a hive or two – also provide a critically valuable service to society. For a variety of reasons, some of which are not completely understood, feral, or wild honeybee colonies have been dying out in recent years, making beekeepers very important people. Agriculture is highly dependent upon the pollination provided by honeybees, with about a third of the food humans consume requiring pollination by bees. If the bees disappear, so does that food, making every honeybee colony – and every beekeeper – a valuable resource.

 Perhaps more than any other single activity or hobby, beekeeping offers an endlessly fascinating exposure to the workings of nature. And when considering the other benefits of beekeeping: the opportunity to produce nature’s purest and most delectable sweet, the chance to profit from the pastime for those who wish, and the important contribution made to society by those who care for such an important insect, it’s truly a shame that more people don’t pursue the intriguing hobby of beekeeping.

Now every one knows that you are not doing nature a service by providing the bees a place to live by setting up a bee hive, they are quite capable of doing that themselves. Your main intention is to harvest honey, and a lot of it. The best way is to set up a bee hive and regularly inspect it for the produce.
By inspecting the supers in the hive you will know that it is time to collect your share of the honey hive when you notice the supers have honey comps and are closed with caps of wax. All you need to do is to take out the honey combs and get to the honey – easier said than done!
Now harvesting the honey fro the bee hive will not be such a problem for the experienced bee keeper. You will need to wear special be keeping gear that will prevent you from getting stung by the ferocious little creatures that can get pretty aggressive if someone tries to steal their food.
Bee keeping gear consists of light colored clothes, because bees are attracted to bright colors. You must also stay calm if they swarm over your face mask. You will also need some additional tools such as a scraping tool and a smoker.
When you are sure the supers are full, you can proceed to encourage the bees to leave the super. Some chemicals available in the market will make this task easier. One very popular chemical that is used to scare the bees away is called ‘bee go’. This is applied to what is called a fumer board when the bees get a scent of the ‘Bee Go’ the bees move to the base of the hive. This leaves the hive free from any bees ready for you to take out the honey combs. Fisher Bee Quick is another good chemical that assists in removing he bees from the hive without harming them. They just find the scent very offensive and move to the bottom of the hive.
Once you have safely removed the honey filled honeycombs from the hive you need to extract the honey from it. You must first remove the wax caps from the cells. These wax caps seal the honey within the combs. You can use a metal knife to remove the wax caps, this is better achieved if the knife has been slightly heated on a fire as it melts the wax a little. It is, in fact, better to warm the knife by dipping it into a basin of hot water.
The honey will begin to drip from the comb once the caps are removed. It is best that you place the comb on a cheese cloth that has been placed over a pot to collect the honey. The honey will strain through the cloth leaving the caps behind.

Many parts of the world are responsible for producing the honey and beeswax and are used in medicine and as food.Some of the place around the world include Asia, Africa, the United States and Europe.Beekeeping techniques vary from place to place.  Many cultures have specific ways of doing beekeeping because the products of the beekeeping may be used in religious ceremonies and other events.Western cultures on the other hand typically produce honey and other beekeeping byproducts for commercial purposes and export the products to places that can not produce them in large quantities.Many of these import countries do not have the technology available to do commerical beekeeping on a large scale.Therefore beekeeping can be a very profitable endeavor.The beekeeping industry in the United States alone is a million dollar industry.The beekeeping industry today employs some sophisticated techniques for ensuring that the bees produce as much quality honey as possible.

In order to produce successfully results, it is very important that beekeepers understand the biology of bees and stay on top of the latest news in the beekeeping industry.

For example, your results can be greatly affected by the type of flowers available to the bees for pollination and the setup that you use for your hives.

Many commercial beekeepers belong to beekeeping associations in order to stay on top of this rapidly changing industry.

There are also a number of websites across the web that are devoted to following the beekeeping industry.

If you are interested in learning more about the beekeeping industry or how you can become a beekeeper go to:http://www.thebeekeeper.info – Articles and Tips for Experienced and Beginner Beekeepers

ese larvae with a substance from their heads to turn them into queen bees.
Some of the larvae in the other cells are nurtured into drones – to mate with the queen bee when she swarms. When the queen bee is ready to hatch she begins to emit a very unique sound that warns the other workers that the new queen is emerging. The workers and the other bees developing in their cells will leave with the new queen in swarms of thousands. The queen bee will fly high up in the sky while the drones will try to catch up with her and mate with her. The first to reach her will mate and then die. This is the first and last time the queen will swarm.
When the mating process is over the workers will kill the remaining ‘virgin queens’ in their cells. They will not harm the remaining queens until the emerged queen has successfully mated.
The queen after mating will retreat to a tree where she will be engulfed by thousands of workers who strive to protect her. When the others have found a suitable place to build the hive she will proceed to begin to lay her eggs. In the meantime the first queen proceeds to lay her own eggs.

When the bee keeper removes the honey from the honey combs he has to process the raw honey immediately to prevent it from crystallizing. Once the row honey comes into contact with the oxygen in the air it reacts and begins to crystallize immediately. This does not happen in the honey comb as the wax caps over each cell in the comb keeps the honey away from the air.
Apart from processing the raw honey to prevent crystallization, the bee keeper has to kill some very potent bacterium in the honey to prevent poisoning. This is the bacteria that cause the symptoms of botulism in humans. These symptoms are better known as ‘food poisoning’ and are removed by heating the raw honey for some time at temperatures between 150 to 170 degrees centigrade.
Honey is naturally sweater than processed sugar and is stored in its natural color. Sugar made from sugarcane is bleached to remove the natural brown color of sugar. This is why table sugar is white and crystallized.
Honey is a whitish substance that is very gooey in nature in its raw form. It is only the pasteurizing process that causes it to get that yellowish color. When the honey is processed on a hot fire it begins to caramelize, very much the same way sugar does. Honey has a very long shelf life and cam be kept for years after processing. People buy honey for it’s medicinal value as it has many vitamins and an extremely high amount of antioxidants and digestive enzymes. The healthy properties of honey cannot be enumerated in this short article.
Honey is fast taking its rightful place in society by replacing many substances that aggravate diabetes. For instance corn syrup is being replaced by honey as corn syrup is a known cause of diabetes. Corn syrup is a product of man through many automated and mechanical processes where as honey is only processed to remove bacteria from its constituents. Any sweet produced by man is a sure cause of diabetes. Natural sugars are not.
Honey has a lot of medicinal values too. For instance it is used as a topical application to treat conditions like MRSA, this is a type skin infection. Honey is also known to be very good for the treatment of laryngitis. A bit of honey mixed with a bit of lemon will sooth your throat as it does contagious conjunctivitis.
Beekeepers across the world like to stick to the organic way of processing honey because they do not believe in using harmful chemicals to purify their produce. These chemicals if used will destroy the many benefits of honey in its natural form. This is something the large manufacturers of honey cannot guarantee, many of them do use harmful chemicals to process the honey they sell. This is the reason people stick to local farmers for their supply of honey.

1. Seasonal activities of the bees
Bees can make honey only during the warmer months when there are a lot more flowers blooming and there is plenty of pollen for them to feed on, but during the cold winter months there is less honey produced by the bees. Bees like humans can sense the changes in weather and environment.
2. The life of the bees as compared to humans
Bees have lives very much like that of the humans. They organize themselves and their work according to their designations and have a method in all that they do. The only difference between the queen bee and women is that the queen bee is permanently pregnant with her first nuptial flight and stays in her hive producing eggs until the sperm runs out. The queen bee mates with 2 or 3 drones and this impregnates her for the next two or three years. The queen bee lays around 2000 eggs per day and lives for around two years after her period of producing young is over. After this a new queen takes over the hive. Mating is seasonal and the pattern differs from one species of bees to another.
The queen bee, like the dignitaries among the humans, is protected by worker bees and drones who keep buzzing around her to protect her from any kind of harm. These worker bees and drones will give their lives to protect the queen bee. The queen bee’s buzz is very different to that of the other bees and is a high pitched buzz. The other bees recognize this sound and keep swarming around her constantly.
3. Close knit colonies of bees
The entire bee colony is working towards a single goal which is to protect their w queen, bring up the young and make honey. Their final deliverance from all the hard work is their death, which they sometimes bring on themselves by the never ending work that they do. The queen bee also lives only to continue the linage and lay eggs to multiply the numbers in their colony and their hive. Most of the bees in the bee colony are females, but only one will make it as the queen. Beekeepers still find the ways of the bees and their behaviour a mystery and never really fathom the life of a bee. Technology and science is trying to learn more about the colonies of bees and maybe learn a lesson or two from them in living together compatibly instead of working at cross purposes in the same family most of the time.

1. Cross pollination and the consistency of honey
Beekeepers rely on the several thousand varieties of bees to cross pollinate their flowers and create new species of flowers and also several different consistencies of honey. The beekeepers keep a track of the bees and their cross breeding so that they know where the bees originated from and their origin. This way they also know the consistency of the honey that various bees produce.
2. Origination of bees
Bees generally originated from Asia, Africa and Europe and were brought to America centuries ago by immigrants from all over the world. The only place where there are no bees is the Antarctica. Bees are related to wasps, but unlike the bees wasps do not pollinate flowers like the other species of the same category which are beetles, butterflies and flies.
3. The two categories of bees
Beekeepers learn to manage their bees with the two categories which are males and females. Generally there are only a few males and the females that are more in number fight for control of the bee hive with each other.
4. African bees are not aggressive
People feel a fear when they hear about the African bee and think it is a poisonous killer bee, but this is not so and the African bee is not dangerous at all. These bees are the most popular with the bee keepers and also in most of the beekeeping industry too. Clover honey is produced by the African bee and is the most popular and most utilized honey. These bees never attack anyone, but will do so only if they are defending their hive and the safety of the queen bee is a concern. The queen bee lives inside the hive permanently once she becomes pregnant and will never be seen again. Beekeepers remove parts of the hive but never touch the area where the queen bee lives.
Though bees may be of a passive nature by and large, it is quite annoying to have them buzzing around you while you are out at a picnic. This is because there sense of smell is stronger than their eye sight and they come because of the smell of food. It is their sense of smell that guides them to the flowers and pollinates them. Sometimes the food people consume could smell very much like flowers and the bees go for this. Bees sometimes hover around trash cans because of certain foods that are dumped in them. So farmers should be careful when dumping food in the trash cans because this could lead the bees to the trash cans instead of their natural habitat.

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”.