What You Need to Get Started With Beekeeping
If you own a smallholding of any size—from sprawling twenty-acre gardens to tiny plots with every inch put to use—honey bees are the perfect addition. Bees can thrive in both rural and urban areas, requiring minimal additional resources or attention compared to other livestock. Investing in honey bees is an easy way to improve your land’s productivity and gain some delicious rewards!
Installing a couple of bee hives in your garden or orchard won't take up much time and effort - merely two hours per week. However, the returns are more than worth it! Bees will provide you with delicious honey, and useful beeswax…plus their pollination services for all areas surrounding your property; from gardens to hedgerows and beyond.
The holding's hives
To provide a home for your bees, you must have an adequately-sized hive prepared. There are two main varieties of hives - Langstroth and Top Bar. These designs each contain several stacked boxes made from either wood or plastic. The Langstroth type has frames with pre-pressed wax hanging inside the boxes; this is used in popular National Hives as well as other models.
Once the wax sheets have been established, bees begin to construct brood combs and honey-combs on them. The bottom portion of the hive is where the queen bee resides in her brood chamber while 'supers' for housing the honey are placed atop. To maintain a pure supply of honey free from eggs or young bees, a mesh ‘queen excluder’ is employed so that she does not enter into these production areas.
The Warré hive, a type of Top-bar hive, features removable bars located at the top of each stackable box without frames. This gives bees the freedom to produce their own wax combs which dangle from each bar. Rather than using a queen excluder, this innovative design allows for brood to hatch out in batches and reuse older comb situated on the upper part of the hive as honey storage!
When selecting where to install your beehive, make sure you choose a quiet location away from any pathways and neighbours. Ensure the area is sheltered from cold winds while also receiving full sun for an ample part of the day. Allow room around the hive for accessibility purposes but think about positioning it close to a fence or hedge approximately 1.5m away in order to restrict bee activity at ground level; this will significantly reduce them coming into contact with people passing by!
If you are living on a larger rural smallholding, the edge of an orchard or woodland is ideal for setting up your hives - just make sure they aren't placed beneath the tree canopy so as to avoid being drip-fed onto. Additionally, keep in mind that bees and horses don’t mix; be sure to put some distance between your hives and any pony paddocks!
For ideal hive conditions, keep your hives off the wet ground and on a stable stand. This can be as basic or complex as you like--ranging from a wooden plank bench to an arrangement of concrete blocks. To offer additional protection from high winds, animals, and vandals, consider strapping the hives in place for extra support.
To make sure that each of the hives and frames is easily moveable, it is essential for every honeycomb to be upright. To begin with, establish a single hive but if you decide to expand your beekeeping operation in the future then place new hives in alternate directions so as not to confuse the bees. Ensuring that each comb-covered frame or bar has been levelled correctly will ensure maximum ease during extraction.
Getting bees
If you're looking to purchase bees, the best option is to acquire them from a trustworthy local supplier or apiarist. It's essential that they have expertise in advising which type of honey bee is most suitable for your climate and environment since there are many kinds available. Bees typically come as nuclei -- mini colonies with everything necessary ready to grow and set up residence.
A colony of young bees is composed of a queen bee, numerous worker bees, and immature bees spread across four to six frames. These colonies are typically available in late spring which provides enough time for the newly-formed hive to build up adequate stores throughout summer so they can survive through winter.
Although they may be free, it's not recommended to start with a swarm of bees as there is no way to know its origin and therefore whether it carries diseases or parasites. Additionally, the colony will lack sufficient food resources to get properly established in their new home.
Essential equipment
When beekeeping, your first priority should be to ensure that you are properly protected. Invest in a highly protective full coverage bee-suit and veil, thick boots and rubber gloves with secure overlaps so that the bees won't find their way inside your clothing! Additionally, bring along a soft brush for gently removing any clinging bees from your clothes or frames when taking them out of the hive. By covering yourself appropriately before tending to the hives, you can prevent painful stings and enjoy this fascinating activity peacefully.
To inspect your honeybees' colony or collect their honey, you will need a hive tool and smoker. The hive tool acts like a small lever which is used to carefully separate the frames before extracting them from the beehive, as they can often become stuck due to wax and resin accumulation.
By using a traditional smoker, which resembles a large metal spray gun and contains slow-burning fuel that generates thick, cool smoke, beekeepers can puff the smoke into their hive before opening it. The resulting effects are beneficial to both parties as the bees will become calmer and docile while simultaneously feeding quickly in response to the soothing cloud of air. Furthermore, there are now liquid smoke sprays available on the market for those who possess plastic hives instead!
When the weather takes a turn for the worse, or when you are starting up your own bee colony, it is important to understand that bees need nutrition and sustenance. Sugar syrup feeders are easily attainable and come in many different styles. As you become more conversant with beekeeping techniques, advanced equipment like queen cages and markers may be just what you need!
Equipment
As the temperatures rise in early spring, that is when the bee-keeping season commences. Inspecting the colony and putting up supers for the bees to store honey are key tasks now. Furthermore, modifying or cleaning out hive floors plus monitoring for Varroa mites also should be done. With all of these steps taken care of, you can look forward to a successful bee-keeping year!
Reevaluate your hive every week for the duration of summer to guarantee that there is sufficient space for the bees, eliminating any potential swarming. In especially warm climates, consider furnishing a water source like a large shallow puddle with some stones scattered about so that none of our buzzing friends perishes from drowning.
During the fall, honeybees require additional sustenance to strengthen their stores for wintertime - particularly when the climate is unfavourable. Additionally, it's important to install entrance guards on hives in order to protect against wasps that might attempt thievery and mice that could possibly build nests inside.
Winter may appear to be quiet in the beekeeping world, as bees are usually dormant except for short flights on mild days. During this period, it should also be ensured that hives don't sustain any damage due to weather conditions and their entranceways must remain free of leaves or snow accumulation. If temperatures rise earlier than expected, some sugar-syrup feed can help provide your bees with nourishment until spring arrives properly.
Harvest
When an individual frame or super of frames is full, honey can be harvested. This depends upon the nectar flows in your local area at any given time, yet typically the most abundant collection times are June and August. On average, one hive yields 10-12kgs of honey; however it is important to leave enough for bees to consume throughout winter as well.
After honey-filled frames or combs have been removed, it's time to extract the sweet goodness! Hand-turning a centrifugal honey extractor is ideal for larger amounts of extracted honey. For smaller quantities, breaking up and straining through a fine mesh sieve overnight will do the trick. To preserve your delicacy, make sure you seal it into clean sterile jars right away.
Melt any wax-filled combs or brood comb within a mesh bag in a pan of boiling water for purification. The purified wax will emerge and solidify into a disk shape on top of the pan, while all other debris stays caught inside the bag. Once cooled, you can use this clean beeswax to create candles, polishes and even cosmetics!
Join a club
Joining a beekeepers' association is essential if you want to learn more about keeping bees. Here, you will find people who have been doing it for years that can help mentor and guide you in your journey. Many of these associations also provide courses on beekeeping so you'll be prepared by the time summer rolls around. If all this seems overwhelming, why not get familiar with bees first before investing? You may even find some experienced beekeepers willing to site their hives at your place in exchange for a share of honey! To find your nearest association, visit the British Beekeepers’ Association website bbka.org.uk.
