Beekeeping in Africa: Installation of bee hives (with particular focus on the top bar hive) Source FAO Keywords Beekeeping, beehives, baits, hives Country of first practice Africa ID and publishing year 7291 and 2011 Sustainable Development Goals No poverty, decent work and economic growth, industry, innovation and infrastructure Summary This technology describes step by step how • A small cake of beeswax rubbed against to install a top bar hive, including advantages the inner walls of the hive can encourage and disadvantages of installing hives on a bees to visit the hive. It is also important stand or hanging them. to rub wax against the tip of the v-shaped or ridged portion of the wooden starter Description top-bars. 1. Preparing the top bar hive for installation Beeswax rubbed against those areas of the top-bar will guide the bees to build Once the beehives and the site have been their combs along it. Otherwise, the acquired, the hives must be installed. Before bees may build comb across the top- this is done, they must be prepared so that bars, creating a serious problem which is bees will occupy them. difficult to correct and makes brood-nest 1. Clean the beehive: be sure it contains no control impossible. dirt, cobwebs, spiders or insect which • Sweet juices and syrup can be used to bait might arrest any scout bee visiting the bees. They can be put in a jam jar or any installed beehive in the near future. container inside the hive. Twigs or sticks 2. Bait the beehive with any of the following must be provided as landing boards so materials: a little raw beeswax, dry that the insects can safely take the syrup cassava flour, a sweet syrup such as palm without being drowned. Special care must wine or molasses, granulated sugar, be taken to restrain other insects from sweet-scented lavender, limes, cow-dung, visiting the syrup. intestinal waste, lemon grass or even, in • Granulated sugar may be sprinkled on the very dry areas, a dish of water. floor of the hive. 1.1 How to bait • Spray or sprinkle a few drops of lavender in the hive. The smell will attract • The best bait is beeswax, which can honeybees to visit the beehive. quickly attract a swarm of bees. Beeswax • Lemon grass can be rubbed on the inner is the most reliable bait, because it retains sides of the hive. its properties for a long time. All other • In the northern savannah baits cannot last long in the hive and must where beekeeping is a be replenished or replaced when the old TECA traditional occupation, supply is exhausted or destroyed. TECHNOLOGIES dried cow-dung is usually and PRACTICES for SMALL AGRICULTURAL 1/4 PRODUCERS Beekeeping

burned to glaze the inside of the clay-pot • Cattle and other grazing animals cannot hive. This is said to attract bees. Bees tip the hive over. always visit fresh cow-dung to obtain • Running water cannot carry the beehive water during dry periods of the day. away. • Water cannot be used as a bait in cities • It is easier to prevent ants from reaching and towns where water for human the hive than when it is installed on a consumption is abundant. But in the dry stand. savannah villages where water is scarce, it • A thief seldom steals a top-bar hive in a can work. tree, especially when it contains honey, After baiting the hive and treating the top because it is not easy to remove the bars, the top bars must be neatly arranged, suspension wires if they are properly leaving no gaps in between them. Check attached. whether the top bars fit the hive body. 2.1.2 Disadvantages Do not leave any gaps anywhere, because • A suspended hive can swing. The bees they will cause problems when the colony become alert and are prepared to is being moved. Let the bees use only the pounce on the beekeeper if they find entrance if possible. him. • Honey-harvesting and brood-nest control 1.2 How to treat grooved top bars are difficult to execute during the day. The groove in grooved top bars should be • It is not easy to change the location of filled with wax. First, melt down the wax the hive. When removing it from the completely. With a wooden stick, bring tree, the least false movement may some wax into the grooves of the topbars result in tipping it over and jarring the and let dry. whole contents. Sometimes the only way 2. Installation of beehives to remove it from the tree is to cut the suspension wires. A hive can be suspended, for example 2.2 Installing a hive on a stand: advantages between two trees or from sturdy branches and disadvantages of big trees. It can also be installed on a platform or a rock. 2.2.1 Advantages • It is easier to place the hive on the stand This is a decision that must be made by and remove it. the individual beekeeper. Advantages and • It is easy to move both hive and stand to disadvantages of the two methods are set another spot. out here below. • The beehive does not swing about even 2.1 Hanging beehives: advantages and if the beekeeper is working. disadvantages • Honey collection and brood-nest control 2.1.1 Advantages can easily be carried out. • It is cheaper to hang a beehive than to 2.2.2 Disadvantages install it on a platform. • Grazing animals can knock the hive over. • The lizard, an important hive predator, • The legs of the stand can easily be used does not seem to pose a serious danger. by lizards to reach the hive unless they are protected by lizard guards.

2/4 • It is more expensive and tedious to make the top cover of the hive should always be a reliable stand than to buy a metallic unobstructed to facilitate its removal and wire for hanging a hive. replacement. The stand for hive (C) has no • Easy movement facilitates easy stealing. lizard guards. The thief has no time to waste. Figure 2. Installation of bee hives (with particular focus on Figure 1. Installation of bee hives (with particular focus on the top bar hive) the top bar hive) © FAO/TECA © FAO/TECA

3. Further reading 2.3 How to install a hive • For more information on Beekeeping see To hang a hive in a tree, select a suitable the TECA category Beekeeping branch and test its strength. Remember • See also the technology: Beekeeping. How that the hive can weigh as much as 60 kg to make a topbar hive (KTBH model) when full with honey. 4. Related/Associated Technologies Inspect the tree to be sure it is ant-free. If it contains ants, avoid it. Use the suspension • Beekeeping in Africa. Site selection for bee wire to hang the hive as shown in Figure hives: TECA ID 7323 2. The hive should tilt slightly, with the • Beekeeping in Africa. Colonization of a bee entrance down, so that rainentering the hive: TECA ID 7324 hive can trickle out. • Beekeeping in Africa. Colony management I. Examining the colony and It should be parallel with and at least one controlling swarming: TECA ID 7328 metre above the ground. Study Figure 2; • Beekeeping in Africa. Colony only hive (A) is correctly installed. management II. Dividing, uniting and It is hanging from two strong and sturdy feeding a colony: TECA ID 7326 branches, and each of the four suspension • Beekeeping in Africa. Colony wires is attached separately. Hive (B) is management III. Record keeping and nest nicely hung parallel to the ground, but the control: TECA ID 7327 wires on each side are joined and hang from • Beekeeping in Africa. Honey harvesting: only two points on the same branch. The TECA ID 7329 other subsidiary branches were ignored. • Beekeeping in Africa. Honey and bee wax extraction: TECA ID 7330 In a strong wind, hive (A) will never tip • Beekeeping in Africa. Using bees for over, but hive (B) will dangle and tip over, pollination: TECA ID 7331 and all the contents may be lost. Further, • Beekeeping in Africa. Responding to

3/4 common bee diseases: TECA ID 7332 • Beekeeping in Africa. Choosing and rearing a queen: TECA ID 7333 5. OBjectives fulfilled by the project • Resource use efficiency; and • Pro-poor efficiency.

TECA TECHNOLOGIES and PRACTICES for SMALL AGRICULTURAL 4/4 PRODUCERS