Beekeeping Supplies

Abhishek Agarwal asked:


1. What it takes to start bee keeping

Bee keeping is not a very expensive venture and for anyone with a little space it is possible to start this business with just about $300 for one hive. This is enough to get started with and you can expand later if space permits. However, the very first thing that you should do is to find out whether you or any family member of yours is allergic to bee stings, if not you can go ahead and get your first bee hive. Another point that you should clarify from the local cooperative office, is whether you are permitted to keep bee hives in your area. If you can do so, then you will have get registered as a beekeeper with the beekeeping organization.

2. Select a suitable place to cultivate your bees

Once you have your beehive, you can keep it away from the home somewhere in the corner of your back yard in a spot which you feel will be suitable to have your beehive.

You will have to have the necessary equipment for maintaining your beehives successfully. You can find out about the equipment that you will need from the Federation of American Beekeepers or Cooperative Extension office of your locality. Most of the equipment is available online and through Ebay. You could search on the internet and get all the information and equipment that you need and order it to be mailed to you.

3. Play it safe with bee hives

You will have to ensure that you have the proper beekeepers tackle and do not get stung by bees. Make sure that all those who will be handling the bees have this gear available to them whenever required.

4. Place an order for your bees at an apiary

Order your bees only after you have all the equipment and the bee hive in place. The apiary where you order the bees from should be one that is well established. Winter is usually the bet time to order your bees, which means around January or February and you will get your shipment of bees by March or April. The U S postal service carries the bees for apiaries and will inform you once the bees arrive so that you can come and pick them up. Mail carriers do not like to carry a box full of bees that are agitated with the journey all over the countryside. You should pick up the bees as soon as possible as they are not going to remain healthy for too long in the confines of a vehicle.

5. Bees are packed in a “House”

Bees are normally shipped in wooden cases specially made for this purpose. The package will have a sign saying “house” on it. These wooden frames are covered with a screen which allows air circulation and also protects those who have to handle this package like the people from the postal service, from being stung.

There will usually be a few dead bees lying on the bottom of the container, but do not get perturbed. This usually happens as you cannot expect all the bees to take the journey well. You will find the remaining bees clutching on to the sides of their container.

6. The queen bee

The queen bee is kept separately along with a few nurse bees, and her container will be covered with a piece of sugar candy. The rest of the bees for your bee hive will be put in a container together and these will form the remaining hierarchy. In this container there will be a bowl of sugar syrup which is for the bees to feed on while traveling. The bees will need a drink once you get them home, for this you should spray the container with a fine spray of water. Now your bees are home and you can get started on your bee hive.



beekeeping supplies

Jack Stanley asked:


Beekeeping is one of the oldest forms of food production dating back as far back as 13,000 BC. The history dates back to ancient Egypt where it was modernized for that time until around the 1860s when the first system of beekeeping was brought to the United States by a 19th Century native Pennsylvanian named John Harbison. According to history beekeeping was practiced for the harvesting of honey, which is the mainstay of a beekeepers financial sustenance. Other items that are harvested from honey are royal jelly and propolis, which were derived for the use of medicinal purposes. The use of beehive products has changed little since ancient times.

Many different kinds of bees were brought over from places in Europe and even as far as New Zealand. Before the 80s rolled around beekeeping was in fact a hobby and not a means to make a living that was primarily done by farmers or relatives of a farmer who lived in a rural community where you could set up a bee farm and maintained it from time honored traditions passed down through the generations.

In the Asian culture beekeeping was done to produce honey and beeswax (which was used in candle making and other products), but when an American scientist named L.L. Langstroth took beekeeping to the scientific level in 1851 had innovated the bee space and the removable hive frame. It wasn’t until 1857 that it was discovered that bees could be manipulated into building a straight frame hive by providing them with some wax for a foundation. Bees would proceed to use the wax foundation to build a honeycomb the octagon shaped holes that was used to store larvae and later honey once the bees had developed and hatched. Over the next few years’ different techniques had been developed to continue modernizing beekeeping, but the most practical invention wasn’t until 1873, which was the smoker, which was a helpful safety device for many beekeepers. Beekeeping is an art form, which takes a lot of time and practice to master because a skilled beekeeper will learn everything there is to know about beekeeping. Essentially you will be schooled into this way of life so that everything about beekeeping is like second nature to you so you basically eat, sleep, and breathe the art form of beekeeping.

Beekeepers have a term called Apiculturists because that’s what the Department of Agriculture calls them when they’re categorized for what they do. Beekeepers are just small offshoots of the agriculture world since it’s pretty much a world of their own with the fact that what they do began as a hobby had slowly transformed into a way of life for people to earn a living at. Beekeepers that are knowledgeable in biology and entomology can prove to be valuable to the beekeeping market for those who are trying to improve even innovate and create their own unique system of beekeeping which can be passed down to up and coming beekeepers who want to learn how to do successful beekeeping.



beekeeping supplies

Jack Stanley asked:


There are two bacterial diseases that beekeepers must be on the lookout for they are American Foulbrood and European Foulbrood.

The American Foulbrood, also known as AFB, is the most serious of the bacterial diseases of honeybee brood and is caused by the bacterium Paenibacillus larvae. This disease is started and can be transferred only in the spore stage. The reason for the seriousness of the disease is the spores can remain alive and last for an undetermined length of time on beekeeper’s equipment. It is highly contagious and spreads easily via contaminated equipment, hive tools, and beekeeper’s hands. The best way to handle the American Foulbrood is to avoid it at all possibilities.

To detect the disease examine the larvae. Normal healthy larvae are white, but the infected broods turn chocolate-brown and melt into a gooey mass on the floor of the cell. The colonies will display a “pepper box symptom” as the disease progresses. The “pepper box symptom” is when the bees are capping the cells, the brood capping are perforated and sunken into the cell. When the larvae are brown and have not formed a hardened scale, the symptom of ropiness can be demonstrated. To do this, poke at stick into this mass, moisten it and withdraw it from the cell. The contents will draw out like melted cheese, the ropiness, if AFB is present. As the dead larvae dries, it becomes a black scale that sticks tightly to the cell floor. These scales are difficult to remove and are site for re-infection. A single scale can contain one billion spores. It only takes 35 spores to trigger the disease. These scales are difficult to see and easily missed when purchasing used equipment. If you are around a colony that is extremely infected with American Foulbrood, it will emit a foul odor like a chicken coop. The colony dwindles and eventually collapses as more and more brood become infected and dies.

The beekeeper has an advantage if new equipment and tools can be purchased, install packaged bees and maintain them in total isolation from other apiaries, hive collections. Of course this is not realistic or practical, but it always makes good sense to practice sanitation, such as washing hands and hive tools regularly. Avoid using hive equipment of unknown history, and avoid feeding bees honey from an unknown source.

It is possible to breed bees that are genetically resistant to American Foulbrood and other diseases. One of the most important characteristics is the disease resistant bees is the ability to detect and remove from the colony abnormal cells of brood. The resistant queens are available from nationally advertised queen breeders. You will find the advertisements in the “American Bee Journal”, “Bee Culture”, and “Speedy Bee”.

European Foulbrood, also known as EFB, is another of the bacterial diseases that effect the honeybee brood. There are some differences between the European Foulbrood and the American Foulbrood. The colonies infected with the American Foulbrood sometimes recover from the infection. The symptoms can sometimes be mistaken for those of the American Foulbrood, but there are some important differences. Instead of being a normal healthy white, the larvae with European Foulbrood are off-white, progressing into a brown, and are twisted in various positions in the cell. Larvae with European Foulbrood usually die before they are capped whereas with American Foulbrood die after they are capped.

The sanitation precautions recommended in the section on American Foulbrood also apply to the European Foulbrood. Bee stocks that are bred for resistance to diseases can be expected to minimize outbreaks of European Foulbrood. There are times at the onset of a strong nectar flow that the disease will go away on its own. The beekeeper may be able to control the disease by stimulating a nectar flow and by requeening the colony.

There is a preventative measure that can be used on either the American Foulbrood or the European Foulbrood, and is periodical treatments of the veterinary antibiotic TerramycinJ. It is fed as a mixture in either powdered sugar, sugar syrup, or in vegetable oil extender patties. It is very important to never feed the antibiotic within four weeks of a nectar flow to avoid contamination honey for human consumption.

The use of TerramycinJ in European Foulbrood infected colonies may actually be counter productive because the medication permits those infected larvae to survive when they would have died. These survivors then are in the colony as a source of recontamination. If the infected larvae die instead, the house bees eject them from the hive and with them the source of the infection. The bacterium does not form long-surviving spores that will stay on the hive surfaces.

There has been recent evidence of the disease becoming resistant to the antibiotic. One of the suspected causes is the use of the oil extender patties as a method of medicating the bees. If the bees do not consume the patties rapidly, it leads to the antibiotic staying in the hive for weeks or even months. Until the use of the oil extender patties in the 1990’s, resistance was not a problem. Beekeepers are now being told to remove uneaten patties after a month.

Sacbrood is a virus infection that is like a cold in humans. There is no known cure at this time. The best preventive measure is sanitation. Comb replacement and requeening the colony is the best response to the infection.

Beekeepers do not consider sacbrood a serious threat, however one larva killed by the sacbrood virus contains enough virus to kill over one million larvae. More research needs to be done on the sacbrood virus. It is unknown how the virus is transmitted to the larvae in nature, why severe outbreaks occur only during build-up season, or how the virus seems to return year after year.

Symptoms of sacbrood are partially uncapped cells scattered about the frame or capped cells that remain sealed after others have emerged. Diseased bees inside the cells will have darkened heads, which curl upward. The dead prepupa resembles a slipper inside the cell. Diseased prepupae fail to pupate and turn from pearl white to pale yellow to light brown and finally, dark brown. The skin is loose and flabby and the body watery. The dark brown bee becomes a wrinkled, brittle scale that is easily removed from the cells.



beekeeping

Jack Stanley asked:


Large beekeepers can not turn a profit if they limit their market to their local community. Beekeepers who have several colonies must be able to sell their product at larger grocery stores and supermarkets if they want to remain financially solvent.

In order for beekeepers to sell their honey to a larger market their packaging must meet certain USDA standards.

The first thing beekeepers have to decide is what kind of container they want to use to hold their honey. The standard size of containers used to sell honey are measured in pounds. The typical amount of honey offered to the customers can be as small an amount as a half pound or as large as five pounds of honey. Some stores perfect to sell honey that is measured in gallons, these stores offer their customers the option of purchasing a container of honey as small as a half pint or as large as one gallon. If, as a beekeeper, you are attracted to novelty containers you can choose from a variety of fun containers such as skeps, bears, and plastic squeeze bottles.

Once you have settled on the perfect bottle for your honey you have to design an equally perfect label. Before you start designing a label for your honey check with your state government, most states have several laws and requirements about how labels appear on products. Make sure that the word honey is written in bold letters across the label. The word should stand out and really catch the casual shopper’s eye. Most graphic designers recommend that the honey should run parallel with the container’s base. Do not authorize a label if the design does not incorporate your name (or your farm’s name) and your address. If you use a packing or distribution company their name and address must also be included on the label. The final thing that needs to be clearly printed on the label is the net weight of the honey. If the honey you are marketing weighs between one to four pounds then the weight has to be written in both pounds and ounces. The print size used to show the net weight is not random, the font size is determined by the size and shape of the container.

If you are a beekeeper who harvests your honey more then once a season you might be able to write what flavor of honey you are selling. You might have honey that is flavored with clover, alfalfa, or apple blossoms.

Labels that have words such as unfiltered, natural, raw, and areanic refer to honey that has not been processed.

Beekeepers who have USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) grades printed on the label have passed a set of USDA grade standards. Honey that has a USDA grade of A has passed the exacting government standards. Honey that has a USDA grade of D has passed only a bare minimum of standards. The USDA grades honey based on the amount of moisture in the honey, clarity, flavor quality, and defects.



beekeeper

Jack Stanley asked:


Like all hobbies, beekeeping requires some basic equipment before someone can establish a successful hive. This equipment should be bought before you get a call from the post office asking you to come pick up bees.

The most obvious piece of equipment you will need is the actual bee hive.

Your beehive should be have five supers. The supers are a very important part of the beehive because they are where the bees will be storing their honey. These five supers should be between the bottom of the hive and the hive cover. These supers are very important because they are where the bees will be storing their honey and raising their offspring. Once you have an active hive each of these supers will contain nine to ten frames. You can choose if you want a hive with shallow supers or deep supers. The advantage of deep supers is that they enable beekeepers to buy only one size foundation. The disadvantage is that, when full, a deep super can weigh one hundred pounds. Once you have a hive for your bees make sure you place is somewhere that has a flat surface so that the hive wont tip over in a strong wind. Also make sure that you place it somewhere that humans and pets aren’t likely to disturb it.

A spacer is a piece of equipment beekeepers use to keep an equal amount of space between the frames while they are in the super.

The next piece of equipment you will need is a smoker. The smoker is what you will use to encourage the bees to leave the hive when you are getting ready to harvest the honey. The smoker is surprisingly simple in its design. The smoker consists of a funnel, a combustion chamber, and bellows. Many beekeepers claim that old, clean burlap is the best material to use in the smoker because burlap is easy to ignite and smolders and smokes. Other beekeepers prefer to use dried corn cobs. Once the fire has been lit in the combustion chamber the bellows will keep it going. The funnel directs the smoke into the hive, encouraging the bees to leave.

Another tool you will need is a metal hive tool. The metal hive tool is used to pry open the hive, separate the hive bodies, and to scrape the frames clean. Think of it as the all purpose tool of beekeeping.

No beekeeper is ready to receive their shipment of bees until they have a bee brush. A bee brush is used to gently brush bees out of the way so that the beekeeper can examine the frames.

When it is time to harvest your honey, you will need a fumer board. A fumer board is a board that is covered in bee removing chemicals and is then used to encourage the bees to leave a super and let you take their honeycombs.

If you don’t mind getting using used equipment you can find some great prices on beekeeping equipment on EBay. There are several catalogs and websites that offer beekeeping equipment, and many of those offer beginners packages.



beekeeper