Beekeeping is a rewarding hobby or profession that involves keeping honeybees in man-made hives and harvesting their products, such as honey and beeswax. This article provides an overview of the basic equipment, knowledge, and skills needed to become a successful beekeeper. It covers topics such as:
The colony and its organization: The article explains the roles and functions of the three types of adult bees in a colony: the queen, the drones, and the workers. It also describes the development stages of bees from egg to larva to pupa to adult, and the different types of brood patterns.
Honeybees are social insects, which means that they live together in large, well-organized family groups. Social insects are highly evolved insects that engage in a variety of complex tasks not practiced by the multitude of solitary insects.
Communication, complex nest construction, environmental control, defense, and division of the labor are just some of the behaviors that honeybees have developed to exist successfully in social colonies. These fascinating behaviors make social insects in general, and honeybees in particular, among the most fascinating creatures on earth.
A honeybee colony typically consists of three kinds of adult bees: workers, drones, and a queen Several thousand worker bees cooperate in nest building, food collection, and brood rearing. Each worker has a definite task to perform, related to its adult age. But surviving and reproducing take the combined efforts of the entire colony. Individual bees (workers, drones, and queens) cannot survive without the support of the colony.
In addition to thousands of worker adults, a colony normally has a single queen and several hundred drones during late spring and summer. The social structure of the colony is maintained by the presence of the queen and workers and depends on an effective system of communication. The distribution of chemical pheromones among members and communicative “dances” are responsible for controlling the activities necessary for colony survival. Labor activities among worker bees depend primarily on the age of the bee but vary with the needs of the colony.
Reproduction and colony strength depend on the queen, the quantity of food stores, and the size of the worker force. As the size of the colony increases up to a maximum of about 60,000 workers, so does the efficiency of the colony.
Queen Each colony has only one queen, except during and a varying period following swarming preparations or supersedure. Because she is the only sexually developed female, her primary function is reproduction. She produces both fertilized and unfertilized eggs.
Queens lay the greatest number of eggs in the spring and early summer. During peak production, queens may lay up to 1,500 eggs per day. They gradually cease laying eggs in early October and produce few or no eggs until early next spring (January). One queen may produce up to 250,000 eggs per year and possibly more than a million in her lifetime.
A queen is easily distinguished from other members of the colony.
Her body is normally much longer than either the drone’s or worker’s, especially during the egg-laying period when her abdomen is greatly elongated. Her wings cover only about two thirds of the abdomen, whereas the wings of both workers and drones nearly reach the tip of the abdomen when folded. A queen’s thorax is slightly larger than that of a worker, and she has neither pollen baskets nor functional wax glands. Her stinger is curved and longer than that of the worker, but it has fewer and shorter barbs. The queen can live for several years—sometimes for as long as 5, but average productive life span is 2 to 3 years.
The second major function of a queen is producing pheromones that serve as a social “glue” unifying and helping to give individual identity to a bee colony. One major pheromone—termed queen substance—is produced by her mandibular glands, but others are also important.
The characteristics of the colony depend largely on the egg-laying and chemical production capabilities of the queen. Her genetic makeup—along with that of the drones she has mated with—contributes significantly to the quality, size, temperament, and productivity of the colony. About one week after emerging from a queen cell, the queen leaves the hive to mate with several.
Drones (male bees) are the largest bees in the colony. They are generally present only during late spring and summer. The drone’s head is much larger than that of either the queen or worker, and its compound eyes meet at the top of its head.
Drones have no stinger, pollen baskets, or wax glands. Their main function is to fertilize the virgin queen during her mating flight, but only a small number of drones perform this function. Drones become sexually mature about a week after emerging and die instantly upon mating. Although drones perform no useful work for the hive, their presence is believed to be important for normal colony functioning.
Laying Workers When a colony becomes queen less, the ovaries of several workers develop, and workers begin to lay unfertilized eggs. Normally, development of the workers’ ovaries is inhibited by the presence of brood and the queen and her chemicals. The presence of laying workers in a colony usually means the colony has been queen less for several weeks. However, laying workers also may be found in normal “queenright” colonies during the swarming season and when the colony is headed by a poor queen. Colonies with laying workers are recognized easily: there may be anywhere from five to fifteen eggs per cell (Figure 4) and small-bodied drones are reared in worker-sized cells. In addition, laying workers scatter their eggs more randomly over the brood combs, and eggs can be found on the sides of the cell instead of at the base, where they are placed by a queen. Some of these eggs do not hatch, and many of the drone larvae that do hatch do not survive to maturity in the smaller cells.
Wrkers are the smallest bodied adults and constitute the majority of bees occupying the colony. They are sexually undeveloped females and under normal hive conditions do not lay eggs. Workers have specialized structures, such as brood food glands, scent glands, wax glands, and pollen baskets, which allow them to perform all the labors of the hive. They clean and polish the cells, feed the brood, care for the queen, remove debris, handle incoming nectar, build beeswax combs, guard the entrance, and air-condition and ventilate the hive during their initial few weeks as adults. Later as field bees they forage for nectar, pollen, water, and propolis (plant sap). The life span of the worker during summer is about 6 weeks. Workers reared in the fall may live as long as 6 months, allowing the colony to survive the winter and assisting in the rearing of new generations in the spring before they die.
Bee Development All three types of adult honeybees pass through three developmental stages before emerging as adults: egg, larva, and pupa. The three stages are collectively labeled brood. While the developmental stages are similar, they do differ in duration. Unfertilized eggs become drones, while fertilized eggs become either workers or queens.
Nutrition plays an important part in caste development of female bees; larvae destined to become workers receive less royal jelly and more a mixture of honey and pollen compared to the copious amounts of royal jelly that a queen larva receives.
DEVELOPMENTAL DURATION OF STAGES STAG | | DURATION OF STAGES | |
| QUEEN | WORKER | DRONE |
Egg | 3 | 3 | 3 |
Larval stage | 5 ½ | 6 | 6 ½ |
Pupal stage | 7 ½ | 12 | 14 ½ |
Total developmental time | 16 | 21 | 24 |
Beekeeping Equipment needs vary with the size of your operation, number of colonies, and the type of honey you plan to produce. The basic equipment you need are the components of the hive, protective gear, smoker and hive tool, and the equipment you need for handling the honey crop. The hive is the man-made structure in which the honeybee colony lives. Over the years a wide variety of hives have been developed. Today most beekeepers in the United States use the Langstroth or modern ten-frame hive.
A typical hive consists of a hive stand, a bottom board with entrance cleat or reducer, a series of boxes or hive bodies with suspended frames containing foundation or comb, and inner and outer covers. The hive bodies that contain the brood nest may be separated from the honey supers (where the surplus honey is stored) with a queen excluder.
BOTTOM BOARD The bottom board serves as the floor of the colony and as a takeoff and landing platform for foraging bees. Since the bottom board is open in the front, the colony should be tilted forward slightly to prevent rainwater from running into the hive. Bottom boards available from many bee supply dealers are reversible, providing either a 7 ⁄ 8 - or 3⁄ 8 -inch opening in front.
HIVE BODIES The standard ten-frame hive body is available in four common depths or heights. The full-depth hive body, 95 ⁄ 8 inches high, is most often used for brood rearing. These large units provide adequate space with minimum interruption for large solid brood areas. They also are suitable for honey supers.
However, when filled with honey, they weigh over 60 pounds and are heavy to handle. The medium-depth super, sometimes called the Dadant or Illinois super, is 65⁄ 8 inches high. While this is the most convenient size for honey supers, it cannot be cut efficiently from standard-sized lumber. An intermediate size (75 ⁄ 8 inches) between the full- and medium-depth super is preferred by some beekeepers, especially those who make their own boxes.
The shallow-depth super, 51 ⁄ 16 inches high, is the lightest unit to manipulate (about 35 pounds when filled with honey). This size has the greatest cost of assembly per square inch of usable comb space. Section comb honey supers, 45⁄ 8 inches high, hold either basswood section boxes or plastic rings and section holders. Section comb honey production is a specialized art requiring intense management and generally is not recommended for beginners.
Some beekeepers prefer eight-frame hive bodies. These were mostly homemade, but one U.S. bee supplier is now selling eight-frame boxes as English garden hive boxes. Beekeepers rearing queens and/ or selling small starter colonies prefer to use a three- or five-frame nuc box usually with standard deep frames. These can be purchased from bee supply dealers and are constructed from wood or cardboard, the latter for temporary use only.
Different management schemes are used according to the depth of hive bodies utilized for the brood area of the hive. One scheme is to use a single full depth hive body, which theoretically would give the queen all the room she needs for egg laying. However, additional space is needed for food storage and maximum brood nest expansion. Normally a single full-depth brood chamber is used when beekeepers want to crowd bees for comb honey production, when a package is installed, or when a nucleus colony or division is first established.
Beekeeping equipment: The article lists the components of a standard Langstroth hive, such as the hive stand, bottom board, hive bodies, frames, foundation, queen excluder, inner and outer covers. It also discusses the protective gear, smoker and hive tool, and honey handling equipment that beekeepers need.
Hive management: The article gives guidelines on how to start with bees, select the apiary location, handle bees, manage the colony throughout the year, prevent and control diseases, parasites, and pests, and produce and process honey and other products.
Pollination: The article highlights the importance of honeybees as pollinators for many crops and plants. It also provides information on how to move bees to different crops, how to determine the number and strength of colonies needed, how to negotiate pollination contracts, and how to protect bees from pesticides.
Handling beeswax and pollen trapping: The article explains how to render beeswax from the combs and how to trap pollen from the colonies.
Floral sources: The article identifies some common plants that provide nectar and pollen for honeybees in different regions.
Comments