BEE HIVE CONSTRUCTION

Tips on How to Construct Your Bee Hive

Working out your bee hive construction is like some enjoyment, especially if you are fond to do such things pertaining craftsmanship. If you are not sure about yourself, you can let a skilled carpentry to do it for you. The important thing here is that you’re well informed about how to construct it the right way to get the right bee hive construction.

There are two options on how you are going to do it, assuming you do it yourself. First you can purchase a knocked down bee hive and assemble it as instructed, or second you can start from scratch to make your own equipment and parts of the hive.

Whatever your option is, please bear in mind that you should refer the design, dimension and assembly method to a standard, which is more likely the Langstroth hive design. Doing this provides you with a flexibility in the future to interchange parts and even add other ready made parts where incompatibility will not be a problem.

The Langstroth movable frame bee hive has been thoughtfully designed which includes all the practical factors such construction simplicity, easy to use, facilitate swift hive inspection, and interchangeability of frames. There are available Langstroth designs that you can purchase to be used as reference. 

The following are an example on how you can assemble tow parts of your hive, the supers and frames.

General tips

• It is suggested to using flat cedar or pine lumbers for all parts of the hive construction
• You can make a knot if it is needed but it should not be made at the edge of the lumbers or where you plan to make a handhold.
• Consider the dryness of the lumber. If it is not completely dry you should provide some allowance for shrinkage.
• Exception of materials to be used is for the hive top cover and the bottom board floor, where it should be made of plywood which is less affected by moist and temperature changes. 
• Wood pieces must be cut with precision following standard dimensions. The depth of a handhold should be precisely 16 mm or 5/8 inch.
•  Bee spaces should be exactly 8 mm or 5/16 inch. A bee space is the exact distance between combs in the hive.

Assembling the supers

Super is the structure that holds the frames. It has a standard outer length of 50.7 cm (20 inches) and a width of 41.8 cm (16.5 inches) where the depths may vary in three common dimensions:

• Standard: 24 cm (9,5 inches), for brood and supers
• Dadant:16.8 cm (6 5/8 inches), for brood and supers
• Shallow: 14.7 cm (5 13/16 inches), only for supers

Recommended nails to nailing supers, the bottom board and top cover are the 50 mm (1 1/8 inches) long nails. If available you can use an electric staple gun for your ease. Screws are good substitutes for the nails if you wish maximum durability.  

Assembly methods may vary, but here is a good recommendation which you might follow:

1. Nail metal rests to end pieces, using 16 mm (5/8 in.) common nails (no tacks please)

2. Assemble with the help of clamps

3. Nail through the top end into the side pieces

4. Take out the clamp, turn around the super, clamp and nail the other end

5. Take out the clamp, check diagonals to assure that the super is square

6. Finish it by nailing through the side pieces into the end pieces

The holding power of nails driven into the end grain can be increased if you drive the nails with an angle. To gain additional strength, the end pieces may be glued prior to nailing. You may have some metal parts to fix which include the frame rests and hive-top covers which can be made of galvanized iron, aluminum or other suitable metal

Assembling and wiring frames

It is best if you buy the frames and frame parts at your beekeeping supplier which will be able to provide you with the correct dimension. Some wooden parts of your hive, like the frames and foundation can be substituted with the plastic made ones which is considered more durable than wood. A plastic foundation sheet can also be applied to a wooden frame, where wiring for wax foundation will not be needed.

When assembling the frames remember to use only the special frame nails just to make sure that the frames are rectangle and can be correctly hanged in the supers with the right bee spaces between the hive structures. To gain additional strength and durability of the frames, the end pieces may be glued prior to nailing. 

Frame wiring tips are as follows:

1. Use #28 gauge steel wire

2. Use at least two horizontal wires for standard frames. Make sure that the wires are located across the bottom holes and the third holes up from the bottom

3. Use eyelets to avoid cutting into the wood

4. Horizontal wires must be cling tight and secured with 16 mm (5/8 in.) cigar box nails

5. For additional strength, a foundation with vertical wires may be used

Here is a link where you can download the Beehive Construction eBook provided and published by the Extension Service of the British Columbia Department of Agriculture --> eBook

THE LANGSTROTH BEE HIVE

Langstroth Hive, Your Vital Beekeeping Supplies

Are you serious to expand your beekeeping business? Then, managing an apiary for honey beekeeping is a strategy that is worth to be considered. Building an apiary of your own is quite simple, as I once told you. You can just rent a piece of land that is near to nectar sources to ease your bees to collect nectar.

Other things to consider and to attend to are the temperature of your apiary location where you should consider a place with a maximum temperature that isn’t too hot. Security of your hives as well as the safety of passing people should be taken care. And to avoid the bees leaving the hive, avoid windy places.

Now, let us talk about a beekeeper supply which is most vital to your apiary honey business. The bee hive. This is the housing of your little creatures, which are going to work for you to collect nectar and transform it into honey. And talking about bee hives, the name of Langstroth should be taken into consideration.

Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth, a Reverend from Philadelphia is the gentleman who invented the movable bee hives which today become the reference and standard of beehive construction all over the world. His invention in 1851 is considered a milestone in beekeeping.

The main advantage is that bees are encouraged to build their honeycombs into movable frames. The design of the frame is such so that the bees are not able to attach wax between frames or to the hive wall. Bees are also disabled to use propolis to cement the frames to the box sides. This movable frames makes it easier for the beekeeper to perform his delicate task, which was impossible in the past time.

The typical Langstroth hive is constructed in such way so that the frames are separated from the surrounding parts of the hive. This includes all walls, the floor, the cover of the hive and other frames. The frames are the spots where the bees build their comb. The Langstroth design has set an exact separation gap of 3/8 inch or 6.35 mm.

Removing a frame from a hive will be much easier since the beekeeper does not need to cut any combs which were the problem in the earlier hive design. Formerly, the beekeeper had to cut the adhered frames to the adjacent structures which were cemented by the bees using propolis. Removing the honeycombs easily provides practicality to a beekeeper to manage multiple hives on a regular basis in a very safe way.

The standard Langstroth hive includes (from top to bottom):

• A telescoping cover
• Inner cover
• One or more supers or hive bodies
• Queen excluder (optional)
• 8 – 10 frames of various sizes this include a cell foundation
• Brood box
• Bottom board
• Hive stand

Setting up an apiary with multiple hives is quite an easy task, since there are plenty of beekeeping kits available which include the beehives. You just decide how you are going to expand your business. You can judge this using your past experience of beekeeping. Good luck and great success!

BEE SMOKER TOOL

Usage of a Bee Smoker

A bee smoker, or just called a smoker, is a tool to produce smoke in the attempt to calm down bees. The basic principle is smouldering some fuel, which is the flameless type of combustion of the fuel.

Calming bees using smoke has been practiced since long ago in ancient times. Although it has been practiced that long, scientific studies could not satisfactorily explain why and how the bees can be calmed down by smoke.

A clear explanation is that smoke can disguise alarm pheromones. These pheromones are released by the guard bees signaling the presence of an intruder. Injured bees during an inspection of a beekeeper could release these alarm pheromones as well.  

While the smoke interrupts the defense mechanism of the bee colony, the beekeeper can freely and easily open and manage the beehives. Smoke is also a false alarm to the bees that initiates a feeding response. The bees get alert and feed themselves with honey as an anticipation of leaving the hive which they think is on fire. The distended abdomen due to honey over-eating makes it hard for the bees to bend their body when stinging.   

A typical beekeeping burning smoker includes also a below, which is a tool to deliver pressurized air in a manageable quantity directed to a certain point or area. In recent years there are some suggestions to get rid of the impractical burning smoker where you have to light up the burner and squeeze the below.

Those artificial smokes are sold in liquid form and aerosol cans. The liquid smoke is a liquid concentrate that should be mixed with a certain portion of water and put in a regular spray bottle. The disadvantage of liquid smoke is that it might stain the inner side of the hive and the possibility of being contaminating the bees.   

Let us go back to the burning smoker. There are many types of fuel that can be used in a beekeeping smoker. The appropriate type of fuel should be natural and free form harmful substances. The common used fuel is twine, hessian, burlap, corrugated card-board, pine needles, paper egg cartons and rotten wood. Other alternative fuels that are commercially sold are compressed cotton and pulped paper.

The fuel smoulders slowly due to the limited amount of oxygen in the smoker. A repeated squeeze of the below is needed to provide fresh air to keep the fuel burning. Smoulding provides thrifty usage of the fuel where one load of fuel can be lasting for hours.

In spite of the hassle of a burning smoker, some modification on its basic design has been applied. One of the modifications is adding an inner can which provide you with easier loading cleaning of the smoker. They also put some holes in the burner walls to facilitate air penetration. And to avoid burns, it is attached with an outer grid. 

BEEKEEPING STARTER KIT

Start Beekeeping with a Beekeeper Starter Kit

Starting beekeeping is really easy, assuming you have read a guide or handbook about beekeeping or gather information from other reliable resources. After you gain sufficient understanding about beekeeping, you will be ready to implement all the theories and knowledge and put them into real practices.

Fortunately, today there are plenty of beekeeping starter kits available in the market which you can start with. A typical starter kit consists of parts that are needed to construct your hive and a complete set of beekeeping protective gear plus some additional items that may be needed to make your task easier.

Most of the hive starter kits refer to the design of the standard Langstroth hive, which includes (from top to bottom):

• A telescoping cover
• Inner cover
• One or more supers or hive bodies
• Queen excluder (optional)
• 8 – 10 frames of various sizes this include a cell foundation
• Brood box
• Bottom board
• Hive stand

The telescoping cover is the outer cover is placed on top of the hive. It could be made of wood or polystyrene which fits over the hive and meant to protect the entire hive from weather. Another version of the outer cover is the migratory cover, which is made of a galvanized metal sheet.

The inner cover is a sort of barrier between the top cover and the inside of the hive which prevent the bees to glue the top cover to the upper sides of the supers. It can be made of a plastic sheet (for areas with moderate climates) or a solid cover with a communication hole (for areas with hot summer)

The supers or hive bodies are the structure that holds the frames with a standardized inner dimension. It could be made of wood, polystyrene or other plastic material and are grouped into deep, medium, shallow and comb supers providing you the flexibility to construct a brood chamber aside from storing and harvesting the honey. The supers are available in an assembled or unassembled format.

The frames and foundation are the structure that holds the honey comb and brood comb within the super. It has honey comb impressions where the bees suppose to build wax honey combs on it. The foundation should be placed at the bottom of the hive. You will usually get 8 – 10 frames of various sizes in your starter kit. Like the supers, you can choose among assembled and unassembled frames. You do not need to use all the 10 frames and use only 8 or 9 which depends on your preference.

The queen excluder is an optional part in a beekeeper’s kit. This is a divider between the brood box and the supers. It could be made of a perforated metal or plastic sheet or just a framed wire grid. This excluder is meant to prevent the queen to enter and lay eggs in the honey supers. If the queen succeeds in laying eggs in this area, it will be difficult to harvest a clean and quality honey.    

The brood box or also called the brood chamber is at the very bottom of the hive and is the place where the queen bee lays her eggs. This is the place where the broods, which is referred to the egg, larvae and pupa stages of a bee lifecycle, will develop to mature bees. 

The bottom board forms the floor of the hive. It could be equipped with an entrance reducer (optional). The bottom board is placed above the hive stand which keeps the hive off the ground and provides a landing platform for the worker bees when they want to enter the hive.

Aside from the above common hive starter kit you may also get a clothing starter kit which includes a cotton or polyester coverall jumpsuit, a mesh helmet (hat and veil) and a pair of vented leather gloves. As a matter of fact you can choose from various styles and sizes that should fit your body.

There are also starter kits that include additional items such as a beekeeping smoker and its fuel, hive tools and a bee brush. Look for the bigger smoker since it is easier to light. And last and might be the most important item is to ask for a beekeeper’s handbook if it is not included in your kit, as well as an instruction guide on how to assemble all the hive parts if you purchase the unassembled kit.

So, after you have prepared the proper bee housing from your kit, the next step will be purchasing the bees. The bees are your workers that will collect and produce honey for you. Recruiting the bee workers is another important task you should attend to if you are aiming to harvest quality honey.   

BEEKEEPER SUIT

More About the Beekeeper Suit

A beekeeper suit is related to job safety of beekeeping. Prior to working with bees, you should really understand how the bees are making use of their first line defense. Even with a clear understanding, a beekeeper should still use protective clothing just for their safety. There are a lot of people who are allergic to bee venoms after being stung by a bee. This allergic reaction usually appears after being stung for the first time. So it is worthy to check whether you are allergic to bee stings if you decide to do beekeeping.

There is a belief that the more sting you get you will get more immune to bee stings in the future. That is why some beekeepers get themselves stung for several times. Frequent bee stings will stimulate the production of antibodies against bee venom hence the body becomes resistant and prevent the allergic reaction to occur.

Even though the beekeeper has high immunity against bee stings, he still uses the beekeeping suit that includes a hat and veil as well as using gloves. Some beekeepers prefer not to use gloves, since gloves might hamper the beekeeper’s delicate work. On the other hand, bee stings on bare hands can be easily wiped off by a finger nail, just to reduce the effect of venom injected by a sting.

The most important body areas, like the face and neck should get the first priority of protection, since offended bees might be attracted to the beekeeper’s breath. If bee stings still happened at this area, it will really be painful and with remarkable swelling. A bee sting on the face will be quite difficult to be promptly wiped off without the presence of a mirror.

A beekeeper protective suit is made of smooth material with a light color, usually white. A light color suit will provide a remarkable distinction with the dark color of bears and skunks, which are the bee colony’s natural predator.

A bee sting on a beekeeping suit is easy to remove. To remove stings and venom sacs can be simply done using a tug. A beekeeping suit also protects the skin of being contaminated with the venom and enters the body. The removal of stings on clothing is necessary, since left stings might continue to function to release pheromone that provokes other bees to attack again.

Bees are able to recognize the scent of the beekeeping suit. So, it is important to wash your beekeeper suit regularly. This is to minimize the possibility of being attacked by the bees to revenge the dead of their fellow bees. A simple practice to mask the possible recognized scent, a beekeeper can wash his hands with vinegar. 

BEEKEEPING EQUIPMENT

All You Need For Beekeeping

Beekeeper equipment includes all tools and supplies which you need for beekeeping. You can obtain any kind of beekeeper equipment at your pet store. They are available in many varieties, materials and quality which you can choose from. You can buy such beekeeper equipment at an online store in the internet.   

The basic beekeeper equipment usually includes a knocked-down beehive or starter kit, a beekeeper suit or clothing, beekeeper tools such as the bee smoker and honey extractor, bee feedings, medication and pest control materials. You may also include the beeswax candle making supplies to make candles out of your beeswax, and last but not least a beekeeping guide book. Those are the basic beekeeping equipment which you should have in hand prior to start

Let us review the items of beekeeping equipment one by one

Beekeeper starter kit. This is a good choice to start beekeeping. Starter kits are available in various combinations which may be a best fit to your beekeeping plans and need. It usually comprised of a knocked-down bee hive, a complete set of the beekeeper suit, plus some optional items to some ease in doing your job.

Bee hives. These are structures where you will be placing your bees. This is some kind of house for the bees where they do their daily working activities such as nectar collecting, storing and transforming it into honey. Thus is the most important tool among other beekeeper equipment.

The world standard bee hive design was invented by Langstroth who is a Philadelphian Reverend hence it is called Langstroth bee hive. It is most likely that you will use this standard bee hive. The possibility to remove the frames from the bee hive to extract honey outside the bee hive seems to the big advantage over other type of bee hives.

In this manner, the honey beekeeper can do his task a lot easier and faster. The older type of bee hives did not provide such possibility of frame removal due to its different structure.

When buying a Langtroth bee hive please make sure that you have all the parts in hand. The basic Langtroth bee hive parts include: a telescoping cover, an inner cover, one or more supers or hive bodies, queen bee excluder, 8 – 10 frames of various sizes this include a cell foundation, a brood box, a bottom board and the hive stand.

Beekeeper suit. This is also called as a protective gear which is an “astronaut-like” set of clothing specially designed from a special smooth sting-proof material. This sort of material will be able to protect you from bee stings when you are at work with your bees. The beekeeper suit is the essential clothing which you should never neglect to use if you want to work safely. You should never take the risk to be stung by bees, especially in the head and neck area. The standard beekeeper suit includes the overall jumper suit, a hat and veil, and a pair of gloves. 

Bee smoker or the beekeeping smoker is a tool to produce smoke. This beekeeper equipment works by smouldering some type of oil such as twine oil, hessian, burlap, corrugated card-board, pine needles, or rotten wood. You also can make use of compressed cotton and pulped paper.

The presence of smoke will make the bees to leave their hives. The smoke also covers the smell of the bee pheromones released by the guard bees which are trying to alarm other bees of being threatened by some danger. In such mixed up situation the honey beekeeper can work easily and safely.

Bee feeding and supplements. There are times when you need to provide your bees with extra feedings. There are times throughout the year which assumes the potentiality of the bees to look for other food sources. This may happen if there is not enough food or honey in their storage.

This will be the time where you need a supplement in the form of syrup (sugar diluted in water). Then a feeder is needed to feed the bees. A bee syrup feeder can be put on top of the hive. In fact you can choose from numbers of feeder types which are available in your beekeeper supplies store.

Bee honey extractor. This beekeeper equipment is basically a centrifuge, to extract honey from the frames where the bees stored the honey in honey combs. It includes a drum that can hold 2 to hundreds of frames depending on its capacity.

The frames are placed in the drum in such manner to make it possible for the honey to flow out buy the centrifugal force during high speed spinning. There are also low capacity bee honey extractors available for the hobbyist with the electric powered version or the manual version. It is up to you.

The full scoop of information on beekeeping equipment can be obtained in Beekeeping for Beginners eBook as a recommended reading

THE HONEY BEEKEEPER

A Honey Beekeeper’Job

The job of a honey beekeeper is to create a sort of mutual benefit relationship between the honey beekeeper and honey bees. It is a relation between human and nature where both parts are providing benefits to each other in a win-win situation. Since human, that is you as a honey beekeeper, has the brain, you should be the one to manage that everything is in order where both sides will enjoy the outcome from such kind of relationship.

As a honey beekeeper it is your duty to provide all the needs of your fellow bees so that they can do their task smoothly with lesser problems on their side. This includes providing a safe and roomy hive which will give them enough space to do their activities of honey production. They need space for their queen to lay eggs, an isolated spot that is separated from the frames to avoid honey contamination.

You will also supervise all the bees whether everything and all the bees are alright during hive inspection. You can observe the activities of each and every bee and monitor their process of metamorphosis. Your will also be responsible for the bee’s health and cleanliness of the hive to avoid possible diseases or pests. In short, any deviation should be put back on the right track.

Hive management includes the right placement of your hive or the proper location for your honey apiary. The main objective is to ease the bees in finding and collecting nectar for their needs. At the same time you will be able to determine your honey quality by floral sources. As an example, you can find a good spot for your hives near a cotton wooded area, where the bees can easily go back and forth to collect nectar from the blooming cotton flowers, while you can be sure of getting quality cotton honey.

Another task of a honey beekeeper is to make sure that your bees are well fed during hard times, which is during winter and autumn. There are occasion where their honey storage is depleted hence they need additional feeding to replace the requirement for honey. This is absolutely important if you do not want your bees get starving and force them to leave the hive to look for other hives. 

If everything on the bees part goes fine, then its now your turn to get the benefits from your fellow bees. They will barter your effort of keeping and treating them well with their precious honey which they produce through diligence and hard work.

They have worked collecting nectar and transform it into honey more than what they need. The excess of honey which they are not able to consume will be the honey beekeeper’s portion to make use of it. Finally you get the right to take the honey, which you can extract from out the honey combs by the mean of a honey extractor     

Aside from the extracted liquid honey, the bees also award other forms of honey which should go through a series of processing methods. Other valuable bee products could be presented by the bees such us bee pollen and propolis which are known to possess therapeutic values. In fact there are a lot of honey varieties the can beneficial to a honey beekeeper. 

After both parts are feeling happy with the outcome, this relationship will go on as long as you, the honey beekeeper, are able to maintain the equilibrium between human and nature, the honey beekeeper and the honey bees. Such relationship could last for year. I am sure about it, are you?

BEEKEEPING INFORMATION

An Introduction to Beekeeping

Beekeeping is the management of raising bees in hives to produce honey. Beekeeping has been known since long ago as a profitable business as well as a great hobby. It is an amazing hobby that needs a certain level of knowledge and skills to be successful and get the benefits out of it. As a matter of fact there are lots of things that you should learn before you start beekeeping.

Before you get started you have to prepare and make available all the needed beekeeping equipment. The short list is a hive or hives, the bees, a protective gear for the beekeeper and a beekeeping smoker.

A hive is the honey factory, a natural or artificial nest where the bee colonies are doing its activities. Since the natural hives were not productive in producing commercial honey, hives has been developed artificially to get the utmost of honey production. At present hives are available in various designs that you can choose from and meet your requirement.

As a beekeeping novice it is best if you buy packaged bees. This will be the most practical way to start your business or hobby. A bee package is a colony that consists of a queen and bee workers which you can simply put into your hive. Varieties of packaged bees are available which you can purchase online. Other ways to get your bees is to buy an established colony or collect the bees by swarms, but this is for the more experienced beekeeper.

The beekeeper protective gear is the tools that are used when managing the honey. This usually includes a beekeeper suit, hat, gloves and veil. This is to cover the body as a protection against bee stings. Actually, honey bees will not sting if they do not feel being offended by something. While the beekeeper is doing his best to handle the honey carefully, there is still a chance that one or two bees are hurt, and start to sting. 

A beekeeping smoker is used to produce smoke. The objective is to control and suppress the bees, so that the beekeeper can work in a more suitable condition. Smoke will also provoke the bees to leave the hive. Another effect of the smoke is the alteration of pheromone released by the guard bees as a response to a threat from an intruder.  

Honeybees are considered as social insects. They live in a colony of thousand of hard working bees that build a nest and are responsible for collecting food and raise the younger bees. A beekeeper should be able to adjust himself to the bees natural instinct, in order to collect the honey that are of great money value and very profitable.

It is very important to collect the honey at the right time. Avoid to leaving the honey for too long in the hive, since prolonged time will alter the honey’s color to be darker. It will also leave no spare room for the bees to store new honey. From the consumer’s point of view, light colored honey is more preferred than the darker one.

On the contrary, harvesting the honey too soon is also something you should avoid. Too soon harvesting can cause too much water content in the honey and there is also a possibility that honey might spoil or become fermented.

The right harvesting time is indicated by the bees. So watch the bees. The clear sign is the presence of a wax cap on top of the honey cell. The best time of the day to collect the honey is on a sunny morning, the time where the bees are busy.  

Prior to starting your beekeeping activities, check whether beekeeping is allowed in your area. Although the presence of bees in an area provides tremendous benefits to the community, but checking if you need a permit is worthy. A benefit of the presence of bees is that destructive and aggressive insects like hornets and wasps are kept away from that area.

Another benefit is that bees are known to be useful for many plants. Bees are playing a vital role in natural plant breeding. With these benefits provided by bees, it is best to place your hives in open areas with lot of plants and some trees, far from the housing and recreational areas. In this way you definitely get the best results from your beekeeping, and you will gain a lot of experience and skill as well.