Beekeeping

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Beekeeping Video: Top Bar Hive Beekeeping

  This is an excerpt from the full length (85 minute) DVD “Alternative Beekeeping Using the Top Bar Hive and The Bee Guardian Methods“, available at BackYardHive.com

Beekeeping with top bar hives is getting more and more popular, as it is thought to be a more natural way to keep bees, more in tune with the way they would live in their natural environment. In other countries around the world, particularly in Africa, top  bar beekeeping is still very common – the Langstroth hive being more expensive to make.

This top bar beekeeping DVD was filmed in the beautiful Colorado mountains. It includes footage from a top bar beekeeping workshop held by Corwin Bell, and shows hands-on techniques, close-up footage of hives, combs, cells and bees, and lots and lots of practical tips and techniques for the natural beekeeper.

I think it is beautifully filmed (as you can see from the extract above), so it is also a delight to watch.

It is primarily aimed at beginner beekeepers – although experienced beekeepers will really enjoy it too – and goes from explaining the features of a top bar hive, getting your hive set up, sourcing your bees, working with your bees, right through to harvesting your honey – and lots more in between.

You can read a full list of the contents and learn more about the DVD by visiting BackYardHive.com

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Beekeeping Video - Life Inside A Top Bar Hive

I found this amazing video showing bees working in a top bar hive. It starts with the colonisation of the empty beehive, then shows 3 months (condensed into 2 minutes!) of activity. You’ll notice the number of bees suddenly drops – this is because they swarmed.

Fascinating!

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How To Create An Artificial Swarm

Bees’ natural instinct is to swarm, and you want to prevent this if possible. If preventing a swarm is not possible, then one option is to create an artificial swarm. To know when to do this it is important to know about the timing of a swarm.

When you find queen cells which are close to sealing (containing larvae or royal jelly), you can create an artificial swarm. If they are already sealed, you are too late! As with all things beekeeping, there are several ways to do this, but here is one of the simplest methods.

To do this you will need a spare hive, including hive stand, floor, brood box, frames, crown board and lid. (If you are not sure what these all are, see components of a modern beehive.) Be sure to have them ready before you start.

Move the original hive to one side onto another hive stand

Put your new floor and empty brood box on the stand on the original site

Open the original hive, find the queen and place her and the frame she is on in the centre of the empty brood box. Make sure that there is plenty of unsealed brood on this frame, and NO queen cells

Fill the new box with frames of foundation, and put on the crown board and lid

Replace the frame you removed from the original hive with a frame of foundation, and replace the supers (if there were any), crown board and lid

Your artificial swarm has now been created. The queen is in the new hive, but as it is on the original site, all the flying bees will return to it. This mimics what happens naturally in a swarm, as the queen leaves the original hive with the flying bees.

The original hive, in its new position, is full of nurse bees, brood and stores, but is queenless and has no flying bees. But it has several queen cells which will (hopefully) soon produce a queen. Because it now has no foraging bees, it is a good idea to feed sugar syrup to this colony  for the first few weeks. This should get it off to a good start, and hopefully you will have 2 strong colonies before the winter sets in.

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10 Amazing Bee Facts To Buzz About!

Beekeeping is rewarding for lots of reasons. For some the main reward is honey, but often what really draws you in as a beekeeper is that bees as a species are just so fascinating. So here are 10 interesting honey bee facts – but believe me, there are many more!

1. Honey bees are the only insect that produces food eaten by man.

2. The average worker bee produces about 1/12th teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.

3. A hive of bees will have to fly a total of 55,000 miles to get enough nectar to make 1 pound of honey – equivalent to flying twice around the planet earth.

4. Bees will fly up to 6 miles from their hive to collect pollen and nectar.

5. Bees have 2 pairs of wings, which move incredibly fast – about 200 beats per second. This is what makes honey bees buzz!

6. At its peak in the summertime, there will be about 60,000 worker bees in a colony, 2,000 drones and just one queen. The worker bees are all female, and do all the work.

7. Drones are the male honey bees. They are noticeably larger than worker bees, have no stinger and do no work at all. Their only job is to mate with a queen bee. Only one drawback – after they mate, they die.

8. The queen bee only leaves the hive once to mate, with up to 20 drones. When she returns to the hive, her only job is to lay eggs – up to 2,500 eggs per day when the colony is at its busiest in the summer months.

9. The queen controls the colony by releasing pheromones which get passed from one bee to another through contact. If these pheromones become too weak, it is taken as a signal that the queen needs to be replaced (or ‘superceded’).

10. The new queen comes from exactly the same eggs as worker bees – but because she is fed a different diet (of ‘royal jelly’) she develops into a queen rather than a worker. Definitely a case of “you are what you eat!”

Why not experience these fascinating creatures for yourself, and start beekeeping today?

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Make Your Own Beauty Products - Beeswax Cosmetics Recipes

Beeswax is a fantastic by product of honey production. As well as being used for candle making, it makes wonderful lip balms, hand lotions, hand creams, and moisturizers. If you are interested in using your extra beeswax to make your own cosmetics, here are some beeswax cosmetics recipes, courtesy of RachelsSupply.com (where you can get many of the essential oils and containers needed).

BEESWAX COSMETICS RECIPES

Moisturing Vitamin E Cream

4 oz. sweet almond oil

1 oz. beeswax

2 oz. water

10 drops Vitamin E oil

10 drops lavender essential oil

Melt the oil and the wax in a double boiler. Remove from heat, add water, and stir thoroughly. Add your Vitamin E, essential oil and stir continuously until cool.  After you have added the essential oil and the cream is still warm enough to pour, carefully pour it into Salve Jars or Metal Tins.

This cream is very moisturizing and emollient. It is nice for rough, dry, or chapped complexions and should help promote healthy looking skin.

Antiseptic Balm 

2 ounces Beeswax

3 ounces Sweet Almond Oil

1 ounce Jojoba Oil

20 drops Wheatgerm Oil

20 drops Myrrh Essential Oil

20 drops Tea Tree Essential Oil

Makes enough to fill 4 each 1 ounce salve jars or 1 ounce metal tins.  A rule of thumb is 2 parts oil to one part beeswax. Simply heat the Sweet Almond and Jojoba oil in a saucepan and add Beeswax. If you want a thin consistency ( such as a cream or Vaseline ) add only a little bit of Beeswax. Want it thicker like wax? Just add more Beeswax. Allow the base to cool down to see what the consistency is like. If it’s too thick, add more Sweet Almond oil and reheat. Too thin? Add more Beeswax.

As the base is cooling add the essential oils to enhance the healing effect of the balm.  After you have added the essential oil and the lip balm is still warm enough to pour, carefully pour it into Salve Jars or Metal Tins.

Use this instead of antiseptic ointment, this is far superior!

Coconut Butter Body Moisturizer 

2 tablespoons beeswax

2 teaspoons distilled water

4 oz. cocoa butter

4 tablespoons sweet almond

2 tablespoons coconut oil

Melt the beeswax over low heat with the water. Spoon in cocoa butter and blend. Gradually blend in oils. Pour into glass jar. The lotion will thicken as it cools.

This is particularly good for wind and sunburned skin.

Skin Cream

2 1/2 ounces beeswax

4 ounces lanolin

2/3 cup baby or mineral oil

3/4 cup water

1 teaspoon borax (sodium borate, CP)

Fragrant oil (optional)

Melt the oil, lanolin and beeswax to 160 degrees F. Heat the borax and water in a separate container to 160 degrees F. Be sure the beeswax is melted and the borax is dissolved. Add the water mixture to the oil mixture while stirring. When a white cream forms, stir slowly until the mixture cools to 100 degrees F. Pour the cream into small, wide-mouth jars.

Beeswax Hand Cream

2 ounces beeswax

1 cup sweet almond oil

1 cup water

10 drops essential oil (if desired, for fragrance)

Heat the beeswax and sweet almond oil until the wax melts. In another container, heat water until warm. Both mixtures should be warm, but not so hot as to be uncomfortable to the touch. Place warm water in a blender. Cover the blender, leaving open the small opening in the cover.

With the blender running on high speed, slowly pour in the beeswax-oil mixture in a thin stream. When most of the oil has been added, the mixture should begin to thicken. At this point, add the essential oil. Continue to add oil and blend until the mixture is sufficiently thickened. Turn off the blender. You should have a thick cream. Spoon into salve jars or metal tins.

IMPORTANT SAFETY TIP: Beeswax melts at 143-148 degrees. It is pliable at 100 degrees. All waxes will ignite explosively when they reach their flash point temperature. To melt beeswax safely, place it in the top of a double boiler, or place the container of wax in a larger container of hot water.

Do not melt beeswax in a microwave, as it could become hot enough to ignite. Do not cover the beeswax while melting in a container of water, as steam may condense on the inside of the cover resulting in water in the wax.

MEASURING TIP : To measure a small amount of beeswax, grate it before melting.

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Beekeeping Video: Harvesting Honey

Your supers are full of honey, now is the time to reap the rewards of all your (and your bees!) hard work. Harvesting honey is really exciting, but can be a bit difficult if you are not sure what to do or are ill prepared.

So to make sure you are on the right track, here is another great video from David Meldrum of the Essex County Beekeeping Association showing exactly how to harvest honey using a centrifugal honey extractor.

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Candle Making With Beeswax

The main product of your bees should be honey, but there are also other great ‘by products’. Probably the most important of these is beeswax.  This has many uses, including for cosmetics, furniture polish and soaps but also of course candle making. If you have bees and are wondering what to do with all your beeswax, then how about trying candle making at home yourself?

Most candles that you will buy are made of paraffin or petroleum based wax, but beeswax candles are much more natural. They give a light warm glow, have a lovely scent, and do not emit any toxic fumes. And, with your own wax from your beehive, they are of course much cheaper!

If you keep your bees in top bar hives, you will have much more wax than in Langstroth type hives, and the perfect way to make use of this is by making beeswax candles.

So, where do you start? There are 3 ways to go about candle making with beeswax.

1. Rolled candles.

Rolled beeswax candles

This is the simplest way to make your candles, and is easy to do if you are taking your beeswax straight from the honeycomb. You simply place a wick on the edge of the flat sheet of beeswax (extending the wick about 2 inches on either side of the sheet), fold the sheet approximately 1/8 of an inch over the wick, and then slowly roll up the beeswax sheet, keeping gentle pressure when rolling.

After you have rolled the entire sheet, press the edge down so it does not unravel. Remove the wick from one end, and that’s it – your first beeswax candle!

2. Molded candles

The second option is to make candles using a mold. The wax needs to be melted down first, so this is a great way to use the wax cappings left over from your honey harvest.

Use a double-boiler (or a pot inside a pot). Do NOT try to melt the wax in a single pot – it is highly flammable and will go on fire! Put the solid wax in the smaller pot, and place this in the bigger pot partly filled with water. Put this on the stove until the wax has melted. At this stage you can add any scented oils or dyes you require. Place a wick in the centre of the mold, and then pour in the melted wax. Be careful – melted wax is hot!

3. Dipped candles

Dipping is the third way to make beeswax candles. After melting the wax as above, dip the wick in it. The wick will then be coated with wax. Allow the wax to cool between dippings for about one minute, then dip it in the melted wax again for the second layering, and so on. Keep doing this until the candle is the thickness you want. Then, once it is totally cooled, use a sharp knife to trim off any excess wax and make a straight edge for the bottom of your candle.

  Candle making is a really enjoyable hobby, and a great way to use that surplus beeswax from your hives. Beeswax candles are very popular, so it can also be a great way to generate some extra cash from your hobby.

If you would like to learn more about making your own candles, click here now.

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Beekeeping Video - Installing A Package Of Honeybees

There are several ways to get your first bees, and one of the most popular is to get a ‘package’ of bees. If you decide to get your bees this way, then this beekeeping video should be a great help!

It shows David Meldrum and the students of the Essex County Beekeepers’ Association as they “install a package” or set up a new hive in Andover, MA. Watch as David talks his students through the process, showing exactly step by step how he transfers the bees to their new hive.

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Beekeeping Video - Honey Bees Life Cycle

As a beekeeper, it is very important to understand the life cycle of the honey bee. You do not need to know the exact scientific details, but knowing the basics is essential for the everyday management of your bees –  so that you can tell if the bees are healthy and the colony strong, and if not what is wrong and what intervention is needed.

Here is a great video from ScienceOnline which explains really clearly about the life cycle of the honey bee, and has some fascinating close up shots of the bees at work.

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Beekeeping Video: How To Feed Your Bees With Sugar Syrup

Here’s a great video from Georgia beekeeper John Pluta, showing exactly how he mixes sugar syrup to top up feed his bees in the spring and fall.

In the summer time, your bees should have a plentiful supply of nectar and pollen from flowers and trees. But in the fall, after you have harvested the honey, you need to be sure that they have enough stores to keep them going through the winter. The way you do this is by feeding them sugar syrup, which they take down into the hive, store and cap, in just the same way they do with nectar to make honey.

In the spring time, when the bees are starting to get active but before there is a plentiful supply of nectar, the bees may also need top up feeds to keep them going until there is sufficient available for them outside the hive. This top up feeding is an essential part of beekeeping – without enough food, your bees will simply starve. Aside from pests and disease, this is one of the biggest risks your bees will face, and it’s part of good beekeeping management to make sure that this does not happen.

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Raw Honey Versus the Honey Most People Know

Those familiar with the Bible have most certainly heard of Canaan. It was known best as the land of milk and honey. What do milk and honey have in common? Both of these elements in their purest states are unpasteurized.

Pasteurization was named in 1862, and was realized as a way to kill bacteria that accelerate spoiling of consumable goods. This is done by heat treating the edibles. The majority of goods found in the market today have been pasteurized in order to extend their shelf life.

Unfortunately, this process can also cause the disruption of nutrients that are found in the natural byproduct of the animals. For years we have been stripping these nutrients in an effort to reduce spoilage and possible disease contamination, but most recently an effort has been made to go back to products found in a more natural state in order to reap their full benefits.

Some foods are clearly labeled as pasteurized, while others may need closer inspection of the label to determine what they are. One of these foods that needs extra consideration is honey.

There is a lot of work done by the bees in the manufacturing of honey. To begin, the worker bees will fly out as far as four miles from the hive in search of some local nectar. When the bee finds a flower, she will gather nectar and store it in her “honey stomach.”

Upon returning to the hive, the contents of the worker bees secondary stomach is removed or sucked out by a house bee. The house bee chemically breaks down the polysaccharides of the nectar into some more simple sugars. This makes the nectar more easily digestible and results in honey that is spread throughout the honeycombs.

The bees have processed this sugar in a way to make it  less vulnerable to bacteria within the hive as well. The bees will go one step further in their preservation process by fanning the honey with their wings to reduce it’s moisture content – making it even less susceptible to bacteria. Honey is then sealed with a protective beeswax and kept until it is ready for consumption.

In this still pure state, the honey is packed with nutrients, antioxidants, and is an amazing energy source. In the United States, it is quite common for honey manufacturers to pasteurize the honey that is collected in an effort to destroy bacteria and prevent fermentation by unseen yeasts. This is done to help increase the shelf life of the sweet syrup, but as a side effect it removes additional nutrients that are beneficial to humans.

How do you know the condition of the honey you have purchased? Unprocessed honey will be be labeled at 100 percent raw. You can obtain a fairly long shelf life with raw honey as long as you keep it stored under ideal conditions.

The bees have worked hard already to provide a product that is most beneficial in it’s pure state. Next time you go shopping for honey, do have a good look at the label.  Even better, keep your own bees and then you can be sure to have truly raw honey.

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Beekeeping Courses

Beekeeping is quite easy when you know how, but to start with there is a lot to learn and it can all be quite daunting. While it is true that the best way to really learn how to do something is to actually do it for yourself, it definitely is a good idea to get as much information as possible about your new hobby before you start beekeeping. One of the best ways to do this is by taking one of the many beekeeping courses available.

There are dozens of beekeeping courses held all around the country, especially in the spring time (the best time to start keeping bees). To find one near you, search on the internet for beekeeping courses in your area – you’ll be surprised how many you find.

Rather than doing the work yourself, if you ‘tweet’, then follow us on Twitter – links to all the beekeeping courses we come across are posted here. Or, if you are on Facebook, become a fan of the BestBeekeeping page (details of beekeeping courses are posted here too).

Alternatively, get in touch with your local beekeeping association, which should have details of all local courses being held, and will be only too willing to help beginner beekeepers.

As well as being a good way to learn, actually going to beekeeping classes is a great way to meet others interested in taking up the hobby. You would be surprised how many great friendships have been formed on beekeeping courses! And it is very useful to have someone with experience to clarify any issues you are unsure about.

In the meantime, why not sign up for our free beekeeping course? It includes lots of information for the beginner beekeeper, including the first steps you need to take before getting bees, what equipment you’ll need, the best place for your hive, bee pests and diseases to watch out for (and how to avoid them), and how to harvest all that delicious honey!

It’s free, so why not subscribe now?

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Top Bar Beekeeping - Good For The Bees

Top bar beekeeping is beekeeping using top bar hives (or Warre hives, which are simply vertical top bar hives). There are two main types of beehives used by hobby beekeepers – ‘conventional’ modern beehives, based on the Langstroth hive, and top bar hives. Although Langstroth type hives are still the most common, top bar beekeeping is becoming more and more popular.

So what is so good about top bar beekeeping? The strongest argument is that it is good for the bees.

The fundamental difference between the top bar hive and a Langstroth hive is that the top bar hive is frameless, so the bees always have to draw their own honeycomb. There is no pre-printed, one size fits all wax foundation used.

The disadvantage of this is that the bees have to make more wax (and so as a consequence will make less honey). But there are real advantages.

In top bar beekeeping, bees will make the comb exactly as they want it – not just the way the beekeeper wants it. It must be remembered that the Langstroth hive was invented to make life easier (and the bees more productive) for the beekeeper, not for the benefit of the bees. Bees are perfectly happy in a more natural setting (such as a hollow in a tree), and advocates of top bar beekeeping argue that the top bar hive is much closer to what nature intended.

Also, the foundation wax used in frames for Langstroth hives is recycled wax from other beehives. While recycling is normally good, in this case the recycled wax will often contain high amounts of chemicals and pesticides – particularly since most of it comes from commercial beehives.

In a recent Pennsylvania State University study, 87 types of pesticides were found in beeswax, with up to 39 different detections in a single sample. None of this contaminated wax is introduced to the hive in top bar beekeeping, as all the wax is ‘freshly’ made by the bees.

Another advantage of top bar beekeeping is the shape of the top bar hive – trapezoidal, with sloped sides. This allows the bees to make their comb in a ‘parabolic’ shape that comes naturally to them – again, as they would in the wild.

Top bar beekeeping is not for everyone. If your main aim is maximize honey production, then Langstroth hives will be more suitable. But if you are interested in becoming a ‘natural’ beekeeper, then top bar beekeeping could be for you.

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Beekeeping Video - How to Check Your Hive for Sealed Brood, Eggs and Larvae.

Beekeeping videos are a great way to see exactly what experienced beekeepers are looking for when they open their hives. Here’s a video from well known Illionis beekeeper David Burns.

In mid March he checked this hive and there was no brood, but now, as you can see in the video, the queen is working very hard & there is lots of brood – exactly what you want to see at this time of year.

As always, please leave your comments below.

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New Post has been published on https://bestbeekeeping.com/blog/vanishing-of-the-bees/

Vanishing Of The Bees

Here’s a great video from YouTube. It’s a trailer from the movie “Vanishing of The Bees” and spells out the consequences of losing all our bees through Colony Collapse Disorder. Personally, I think it is a very moving piece of film, and a real wake up call.

Watch it and see what you think – and don’t forget to leave a comment below!

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New Post has been published on https://bestbeekeeping.com/blog/bee-safety-%e2%80%93-7-tips-to-avoid-getting-stung-when-beekeeping/

Bee Safety – 7 Tips To Avoid Getting Stung When Beekeeping

Bee safety is an important issue for beekeepers and non-beekeepers alike. Beekeeping has several safety issues, but the biggest concern, particularly for beginner beekeepers, is of course bee stings.

Despite the popular misconception, fuelled by media stories about ‘killer bees’, bees are not aggressive creatures. They do not attack for no reason, and only sting in self defence.

But if you work with bees you have to accept that there are times when you will get stung. However, sensible bee safety means avoiding bee stings as much as possible. As a beekeeper you also have a responsibility to make sure you are not putting others in danger of being stung.

So here are a few basic bee safety tips to help keep those stings to minimum.

1 Wear proper protective gear

Ideally wear a full bee suit, but at least a veil, and gloves. More experienced beekeepers sometimes do not wear protective clothing. Experience makes your bee handling skills better, and after multiple stings you’ll find that you hardly notice them anymore! But as a beginner, always take full precautions.

 2 Wear light colored clothing

Bees are much more likely to see you as a threat if you are wearing black or dark clothes. You should also avoid woollen type fabrics as the bees can get caught in them which just makes them angry. Of course, wearing a white bee suit will solve both these problems.

 3 No perfumes

Do not wear any perfumes, aftershaves or other scents, as these can make the bees more aggressive. Natural odors are fine!

 4 Work your hives at the right times

Open your hive around midday when many of the bees are out foraging. Late evening is not a good time as the hive will be full of bees and you will cause more disturbance and stress. Do not open the hive when it is very cold or raining. Especially when it has been raining for a few days, the bees will be frustrated at being stuck in the hive and can be a little bad tempered.

 5 Don’t rush

When working your hive, take your time and avoid sudden jolts – smooth gentle manipulation will cause less stress.

 6 Avoid sudden movements

When bees are buzzing around you, do not flail your arms about – it just irritates them and makes them more likely to sting. Let bees land on you and then gently brush them off.

 7 Let the bees win

Sometimes your bees will become too aggressive to continue working with them. This can be because of the weather, or some other stress beyond your control. If this does happen, close the hive as quickly as possible and turn and walk away. Do not try to continue working with angry bees – come back another day when the bees have calmed down and try again.

Do not let the fear of stings spoil your enjoyment of beekeeping. Keep the stings to a minimum by following these 7 basic bee safety tips.