You may be intrigued by the honeybee or maybe you just like the thought of having your own homemade honey. This is a good bee keeping for beginners that should help you on your way.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to keep your own bees? It is not as hard as you might think and it can bee a very rewarding hobby. This is meant as a good bee keeping guide for beginners who are looking to have only one or two hives.

How to get started with bee keeping

The very first thing you need to do is research. Bee keeping can be a lot of work and must be monitored closely for your hive to be successful. Make sure that the area where you wish to place your hive has plenty of flowering plant life around it and that it has shelter from wind. Make sure to give the bees a water source if there is not a natural source close by, this will help to keep the bees out of neighbors yards. The water source should have floating items such as wood chips that the bees can land on, this will help prevent drowning. Remember that the first year should be treated as a learning period and a large amount of honey should not be expected.

What sort of equipment and training does one need?

For equipment first and foremost you need a bee hive. The hive should consist of the following:

  • A stand to keep the hive off of the ground
  • Wooden frames that hold sheets of beeswax foundation that have hexagonal shapes imprinted into them.
  • A hive body chamber that can hold ten frames of beeswax.
  • A queen excluder which is used to keep the queen in the brood nest. This should be placed above the body chamber.
  • A shallow chamber that has combs where bees store excess honey. This is the honey that is harvested and should be placed above the queen excluder.
  • Next should be an inner cover which prevents the bees from attaching comb to the outer cover.
  • Lastly, there should be an outer cover which gives protection from the elements.

You will also need a smoker, the smoker helps to calm the bees to help make harvesting the honey easier. You will need a hive tool which is specially designed to get frames apart. You should set up feeders on the outside of the hive with sugar water which is used to feed the bees in early spring before flowers begin to bloom. You will also want to have a veil and gloves to help avoid being stung.

Many colleges and universities offer training sessions on how the keep bees. These sessions usually include training on bee biology, how to set up your hive, where to find bees, how to keep multiple hives, and hands on training on how to handle the bees. These training sessions will usually include training on how to harvest the honey and how to make things like soap from the beeswax.

Where to get the bees

There are multiple ways in which to get your bees. The best way is to purchase two colonies from a local beekeeper. This will allow you to switch out bees between the colonies if one colony is not performing as well as the other.

Another way is to buy packaged bees. Packaged bees must be installed into the hive. To install your bees remove half of the frames from the hive, spray the bees with sugar syrup to make them stick together, suspend the queen in the center of the frames, pour the bees on top of the queen, over the next few days the bees will eat through the “queen candy” and release the queen. If the queen is not producing eggs after a week then the queen must be replaced immediately.

Catching a swarm is another option, this may sound hard, but it is actually fairly easy once you find one. The first thing you need to do is find a large bucket and to cut a screen to fit over the top. Next spray the swarm with sugar water and lastly, gently shake them into the bucket. Make sure to place the screen over the bucket so that they cannot fly out. Place the bees into the hive in the same way that you would packaged bees except there is no need to separate the queen.

Here are a couple online sites where you can purchase bees:

http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.2668675/?msource=kw1690&gclid=CJTtstL3qqQCFR7X5wodpkOJ6Q

http://www.masonbeesforsale.com/?gclid=CLze_6b4qqQCFdFO5wodsn5g7A

Bee keeping can be very rewarding but, it can also be quite difficult. Always remember to research what you need and how bee keeping is done thoroughly prior to purchasing your hive and bees. Remember your hive will not produce much in the first year so don’t get discouraged.

References

http://www.bees-online.com/GetStarted.htm

http://www.thefarm.org/charities/i4at/lib2/bees.htm

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