Encyclopedia
Beekeeping is the practice of intentional maintenance of
honeybee hives by humans. A
beekeeper may keep
bees in order to collect
honey and
beeswax, or for the purpose of
pollinating crops, or to produce bees for sale to other beekeepers. A location where bees are kept is called an
apiary.
History of beekeeping
Beekeeping is one of the oldest forms of food production. Some of the earliest evidence of beekeeping is from
rock painting, dating to around 13,000 BC. It was particularly well developed in
Egypt and was discussed by the Roman writers
Virgil, Gaius Julius Hyginus, Varro, and Columella. A pioneering beekeeping popularizer in the
19th century United States was Amos Root.
Beekeeping was traditionally practiced for the bees'
honey harvest, although nowadays crop pollination service can often provide a greater part of a commercial beekeeper's income. Other hive products are pollen, royal jelly, and propolis, which are also used for nutritional and medicinal purposes, and wax which is used in
candlemaking,
cosmetics, wood polish, and for modelling. The modern use of hive products has changed little since ancient times.
Western honeybees are not native to the Americas. American,
Australian, and
New Zealand colonists imported honeybees from
Europe, partly for honey and partly for their usefulness as pollinators. The first honeybee species imported were likely European dark bees. Later
italian bees,
carniolan honeybees and caucasian bees were added.
Western honeybees were also brought to the
Primorsky Krai in Russia by
Ukrainian settlers around 1850s. These Russian honey bees that are similar to the
Carniolan bee were imported into the U.S. in 1990. The Russian honeybee has shown to be more resistant to the bee parasites
Varroa destructor is an external parasitic mite [i] that attacks honey bee [i]s
Apis cerana [i] ...
and
Acarapis woodi.
Before the 1980s, most U.S. hobby beekeepers were farmers or relatives of a farmer, lived in rural areas, and kept bees with techniques passed down for generations. The arrival of
tracheal mites in the
1980s and
varroa mites and
small hive beetles in the
1990s led to the discontinuation of the practice by most of these beekeepers as their bees could not survive among these new parasites.
In
Asia, other species of
Apis exist which are used by local beekeepers for honey and
beeswax. Non-
Apis species of honeybees, known collectively as
stingless bees, have also been kept from antiquity in
Australia and
Central America, although these traditions are dying, and the trigonine and meliponine species used are
endangered.
Art of beekeeping
The control of a colony mainly consists in taking care of the state of the “demography” of the hives.
A colony of bees is composed of a single
queen, many workers , drones , and a brood . A hive is the box used by beekeepers to house a colony.
A colony of bees tries to accumulate a surplus of provisions during the more favorable seasons in order to be able to survive the more unfavourable seasons and reproduce. This period is the winter in the Northern hemisphere; in the Southern Hemisphere and in Africa this period is the dry season, or Summer.
The population of the colony varies according to the seasons. It is important for the colony to have a large population when there is a lot of forage available, in order to achieve the greatest possible harvest. The population is minimal in the winter in order to reduce the consumption of provisions. The colony should not be too weak, however, because the bees which overwinter have to revive the colony again in the spring. If the population is too small over winter, another problem may be encountered: honeybees need to cluster together in winter in order to maintain the temperature required for their survival, and with reduced populations this is much more difficult to achieve.
Types of beekeepers
There are several types of beekeepers:
- Hobbyists — They have a different day job but find beekeeping fun as just a hobby.
- Sideliners — Basically, sideliners have other income but moonlight as "beekeepers" for extra money.
- Commercial — Beekeeping is their only source of income.
The modern hobby beekeeper is more likely to be a suburbanite: he or she tends to be a member of an active bee club, and is well-versed on modern techniques.
Some southern U.S. and southern hemisphere beekeepers keep bees primarily to raise queens and package bees for sale. In the U.S., northern beekeepers can buy early spring queens and 3- or 4-pound packages of live worker bees from the South to replenish hives that die out during the winter, although this is becoming less practical due to the spread of the
africanized bee,
In cold climates commercial beekeepers have to migrate with the seasons, hauling their hives on trucks to gentler southern climates for better wintering and early spring build-up. Many make "nucs" for sale or replenishment of their own losses during the early spring. In the U.S. some may pollinate squash or
cucumbers in Florida or make early honey from citrus groves in
Florida,
Texas or
California. The largest demand for pollination comes from the
almond groves in California. As spring moves northward so do the beekeepers, to supply bees for tree fruits, blueberries, strawberries, cranberries and later vegetables. Some commercial beekeepers alternate between pollination service and honey production but usually cannot do both at the same time.
In the
Northern Hemisphere, beekeepers usually harvest honey from July until September, though in warmer climates the season can be longer. The rest of the year is spent keeping the hive free of pests and disease, and ensuring that the bee colony has room in the hive to expand. Success for the hobbyist also depends on locating the apiary so bees have a good nectar source and
pollen source throughout the year.
In the
Southern Hemisphere, beekeeping is an all-the-year-round enterprise, although in cooler areas the activity may be minimal in the winter . Consequently, the movement of commercial hives is more localised in these areas.
Types of beekeeping equipment
There are considerable regional variations in the type of hive in which bees are kept. A hive is a set of wooden boxes filled with frames that each hold a sheet of wax or plastic foundation. The bottom box, or brood chamber, contains the queen and most of the bees; the upper boxes, or supers, contain just honey. The bees produce wax and build honeycomb using the wax sheets as a starting point, after which they may raise brood or deposit honey and pollen in the cells of the comb. These frames can be freely manipulated and honey supers with frames full of honey can be taken and extracted for their honey crop. In the USA, the
Langstroth hive is commonly used. The Langstroth was the first type of hive with movable frames, and other designs of hive have been based on it. In the UK, the most common type of hive is the National Hive but it is not unusual to see some other sorts of hive . The more traditional
skep is now largely unlawful in the United States, as the comb and brood cannot be inspected for diseases.
A few hobby beekeepers are adopting various top-bar hives commonly found in Africa. These have no frames and the honey filled comb is not returned to the hive after extraction, as it is in the Langstroth hive. Because of this the production of honey in a top bar hive is only about 20% that of a Langstroth hive, but the initial costs and equipment requirements are far lower. Top-bar hives also offer some advantages in interacting with the bees and the amount of weight that must be lifted is greatly reduced.
Protective clothing
When interacting with the bees, novice beekeepers usually wear protective clothing . Experienced beekeepers rarely use gloves because they make movement clumsy and can transmit disease from one hive to another. The face and neck are the most important areas to protect, so most beekeepers will at least wear a veil.
Defensive bees are attracted to the breath and a sting on the face can lead to much more pain and swelling than a sting elsewhere while a sting on a bare hand can usually be quickly removed by fingernail scrape to reduce the amount of venom injected.
The protective clothing is generally light colored and of a smooth material. This provides the maximum differentiation from the colony's natural predators which tend to be dark-colored and furry.
Smoker
Smoke is the beekeeper's second line of defense; protective clothing provides remarkably little protection from agitated bees. Most beekeepers use a "smoker"—a device designed to generate smoke from the incomplete combustion of various fuels. Smoke calms bees; it initiates a feeding response in anticipation of possible hive abandonment due to fire. Smoke also masks alarm pheromones released by guard bees or when bees are squashed in an inspection. The ensuing confusion creates an opportunity for the beekeeper to open the hive and work without triggering a defensive reaction. In addition, when a bee consumes honey the bee's abdomen distends, making it difficult to make the necessary flexes to sting.
Smoke is of no use with a swarm, because swarms do not have honey stores to feed on in response. Usually smoke is not needed since swarms tend to be less defensive, as they have no stores to defend, and a fresh swarm will have fed well from the hive.
Many types of fuel can be used in a smoker as long as it is natural and not contaminated with harmful substances. These fuels include hessian, cardboard, and rotten or punky wood. Some beekeeping supply sources also sell commercial fuels like pulped paper and compressed cotton, or even aerosol cans of smoke.
See also
External links
- Beekeeping expert shows hobbiests the ins and outs of beekeeping in free online video series.
- , Apimondia
- A specialized wiki aspiring to be definitive.
- Plans for beekeeping equipment, information, beekeeping forums
- Natural Beekeeping, Advice for Beginners, Alternatives, Huber's New Observations on the Natural History of Bees
