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Beekeeping for Beginners

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Beekeeping for Beginners BEEKEEPING FOR BEGINNERS U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE • HOME AND GARDEN BULLETIN NO. 158 BEEKEEPING FOR BEGINNERS Keeping honey bees is a fascinat- Beekeeping Equipment ing and profitable pastime that can be enjoyed in several ways. You may The basic equipment you need for want to kee2> bees for the delicious beginning beekeeping should cost no fresh honey they produce, for the more than about $25. This equip- benefits of their valuable services as ment should include the following pollinators for your crops, or per- items : haps just for the fun of learning Hive^ to house your bees. about one of Nature's most interest- Frames^ to support the honey- ing insects. combs in which your bees will store You can keep honey bees success- honey and raise young bees. fully almost any where in the United Smoher^ to blow smoke into the States with relatively little trouble hive, to pacify the bees when you and a minimum of expense. This want to work with them. bulletin supplies you wâth the basic Hive tool^ with which to pry information you should have to get frames apart, to examine the hive started. As a beginning beekeeper, or harvest the honey. you will need only— "F6^7, to protect your face and neck • A few dollars' investment in from bee stings. materials. GloveSy to protect your hands. • A suitable location for bee- Feeder^ to dispense sugar sirup until bees can produce their own Mves. food. • Elementary knowledge of the habits of honey bees. Colony Life Honey bees are social insects. The honey bee (Apis mellifera This means that they live together Linnaeus) is man's most useful in- in a colony and depend on each sect. In the United States alone, other for survival. honey bees produce about $50 mil- Most of the bees in a colony are lion worth of honey and beeswax workers (sterile females). Some are each year, and they pollinate more drones (males), whose only func- tion is to mate with the queen. than $1 billion worth of valuable Usually there is one queen bee (fer- agricultural crops. tile female) in the colony; she lays old and mates in the air with one or more drones. When she returns to the hive, she begins to lay eggs. During her lifetime she lays thou- sands of eggs—sometimes as many as 1,000 in a day. She puts each egg into a separate cell of the honey- comb. Three days after an egg is laid, it changes to a larva. Worker bee "nursemaids" feed and care for the larva until it changes into a pupa. Equipmenf used in beekeeping. Then they seal the pupa into its honeycomb cell and leave it to finish the eggs that maintain or increase developing. Twenty-one days from tlic colony's population. the day the egg was laid, an adult Worker bees number from 1,000 bee emerges. to about 60,000, depending on the egg-laying ability of the colony Bee Strains queen, the space available in the liive for expansion, and the avail- The Italian strain of bees is the able or incoming food supply. most common one in the United Worker bees live about 6 weeks. States. These bees are liardy, indus- They collect food and water for the trious, and relatively gentle. entire colony, do the housework, The Caucasian strain is also and guard the hive against intrud- widely kept. Bees in this strain are ers. Tliey also "air condition" the more gentle than Italian bees, but hive and maintain a constant hive the queens are dark colored and are temperature and humidity—what- therefore difficult to find in a clus- ever the conditions outside. Al- ter of bees. (It is important to be though worker bees do not mate, able to find your queen bee. You tliey may lay eggs if the colony loses may need to replace her after a year its «pieen. But their eggs will not or two, if she doesn't lay enough keep up the colony population, be- eggs to keep the colony strong.) cause they develop only into drones. The number of drones in a colony varies with the season of the year. There may be none during the winter, but several liundred during the summer. They are driven out of the hive in the fall, when worker Jbees can no longer collect food. BN-30050 The queen bee normally flies from From leFt: Worker, queen, and drone the hive when she is about a week bees. 3 Caucasian bees use an excessive The best time to establish a new amount of propolis in their hives. honey bee colony is in springtime. They collect this gummy substance Fruit trees and flowers are in bloom from buds and injured tree parts, then and should supply the colony and they use it as a "cement" in with sufficient nectar and pollen. their hives. Frames that become If you begin with a new swarm or heavily propolized are difficult to package of bees, instead of Avith an remove. established colony, it is usually a Some specially bred hybrid bees good idea to provide them with (crosses between two or more bee sugar sirup that is a mixture of half strains) are available. They are usu- sugar and half water. You can put ally more productive than stand- this sirup in a feeder in the entrance ard strains. But after a year or two, of the beehive. The sirup will keep the offspring they produce may the bees from starving until they bear no resemblance to the original can make and store their own honey. hybrid bees. I£ you keep hybrid bees, it is a good idea to replace your queen each How To Build a Beehive year. This should assure a uniform- Factory-made beehives and ly strong colony. frames are best. Their parts are of Getting Started standard size and are interchange- able. The best way to get started keep- If you prefer to build your own ing bees is to buy a bee colony beehive, use a factory-made hive as already established in a well-con- a model. Reproduce all parts exactly structed hive that has honeycombs and keep all dimensions the same, built into removable frames. so that the parts will fit together If you already have a hive, you well and be interchangeable with can buy a package of 2 or 3 pounds corresponding parts in other hives. of bees with a queen, from another Of special importance is the space beekeeper or from a bee supplier, you leave between frames in your and put them into your hive. Be hive. It should be about one-fourth sure the bees you huy have a certifi- inch. If the space is less, it will be cate of inspection to indicate that too small for the bees to pass they are free of hee diseases. through, and they will seal it off Another way to begin keeping with propolis. If the space between honey bees is to capture a live swarm frames is more than one-fourth and establish it in your hive. (Bees inch, it will be too wide and your are usually gentle when swarming.) Or you might transfer a colony, bees will build honeycomb in it. with its combs, from a cave or tree Neither of these is desirable. to the hive. But it's probably best The diagram on page 6 gives not to try these two methods until plans and dimensions for construct- you have worked enough with bees ing a 10-frame beehive—the most to be relaxed around them. common hive size. Beehive cutaway to show interior and placement of movable frames: Bottom, full-depth Jiive body,- middle and top, shallow hive bodies. Wliere To Keep Beehives vailing winds—particularly in winter. When your Jiive is stocked with a Be sure there is a constant supply bee colony, put it where the bees are of fresh, «)ol water nearby. unlikely to sting anyone. For more information, write for If you live in a warm area, put Leaflet No. 530, "Shade and Water for the Honey Bee Colony," the hive in the shade. If you live available free from the Office of in an-area tJiat has extended periods Information, U.S. Department of of freezing temperatures, expose it Agriculture, Washington, D.C. to the sun and protect it from pre- 20250. ftabb«! A. Corntr of lO-frsM« hiv* fceJy, ili>wi«| construction niii position of fromos B. Pert of *ni of hivo bo4y, thoNÍii|i rokbot, «rtiich fhould bo MoJo of tin or (oUoRiiod CROSS SECTION OF HIVE BODY AND FRAME Outsid« cov»r 1.1 .V1 „r .11 Insid« cov«r m ( -^ II 'wi CROSS SECTION OF SHALLOW SUPER Shallow sup«r Ou«en excluder WireT ^i Brood chamber - .71"- Reversible bottom board SIDE,ENO,ANO TOP ELEVATION OF FRAME Plans and dimensions for a 10-framc beehive. What Bees Need produced by flowers. It is the raw material of honey and tlie bees' Bees need four basic niateFials: main source of food. Nectar, j)o]len, proi^olis, and water. Several hundred kinds of plants They make honey out of nectar. produce nectar, but only a few kinds They make pollen into beebread are common enough, or produce (food for young bees). They use enough nectar, to be considered propolis to seal cracks and water- major sources. proof their hive. They dilute honey with water before eating it, and The best sources of nectar for they use water in their hive "air con- producing surj^lus honey vary from ditioning system." place to place.
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