In a recent FGG workshop participants joined experienced beekeepers Frank and Laura in an inspection of two well-established hives and two newly collected bee swarms. It was a fascinating afternoon that gave us a very good insight into what beekeeping is all about.
I am not sure what Frank and Laura had planned for the day before the Food Garden Group’s Introduction to Bees workshop, but none of it happened, because they responded to a notice from the Southern Tasmanian Beekeepers Association about two calls from people who had a swarm of bees on their property. Out they went twice that day with a lot of beekeeping gear and bee hive boxes and the day ended with two more bee hives on their property.
The next day was the day of the workshop, and because Laura and Frank were very keen to see whether their new bees were settling in alright, we did away with gentle introductions, and instead witnessed a thorough inspection of the new hives.
Thanks to Laura and Frank’s extensive advice in the RSVP letter that all participants received, no one was wearing any perfume that the bees might be interested in. Everyone was calm. No one panicked. The bees behaved very well too. No one got a single bee sting. It tells me that, if you do the right thing by the bees, they do the right thing by you. Fair deal!
I know very little about bees, but realise now that keeping bees can be a fascinating hobby.
Below I documented some of the things I, as a complete newcomer, learnt that afternoon.
A healthy colony of European Honey Bees has three types of bees:
- Thousands of small, female working bees that go out to collect honey and then store it in the hive.
- A few larger male bees called drones.
- A female queen bee that is the largest bee in the colony, and the one that lays eggs after mating with multiple drones in their one-and-only mating flight.
The parts of a typical beehive
Beehives consist of a number of wooden boxes carefully positioned on top of each other. The beehive in the photo below has a bottom board, five boxes and then a lid on top.
Each frame contains some horizontal thin metal wires. You can leave it to the bees to create and attach to the wires storage spaces for honey called ‘comb’. Alternatively, you can give the bees a ready-to-use storage system called ‘foundation’ (see photo below), so they can begin to store honey straight away.
In the first photo above you may see a grey line on top of the third box from the bottom, the light brown box. This is a ‘queen excluder’. It is a metal plate with many small holes. The holes are big enough to let working bees through, but not the queen. The queen excluder is installed when the queen is in the boxes below it, to make sure eggs are only laid there, and not in the boxes above the queen excluder. Then at some point the beekeeper harvests the honey that is stored in the boxes above the queen excluder.
When a hive needs to be transported, a metal travelling strap is often put around the whole hive to hold the boxes in place. To prevent boxes coming off in windy conditions some people keep the strap attached when the hive is put in place. If the hive is not in a windy spot this is not really needed as the bees ‘glue’ the boxes together.
Starting a new hive
Frank and Laura explained that a healthy colony divides itself into two colonies, once a year, every year. A second queen is born, and then, when it is mature, it the original queen takes around half the number of working bees with her away from the beehive. Such a group of bees that that are temporarily homeless and looking for a good place to start a new hive is called a ’swarm’.
Frank explained that catching a swarm is not hard. The idea is that you catch the queen, and then the rest of the swarm follows into the box in which you caught the queen. Reality is of course that this is only easy if you are very calm and experienced and you know what you are doing. But if you do, you end up with what hopefully will be the start of a new bee colony in a new beehive. The people who alerted them about the swarm will be relieved that it has been removed from their property, and the beekeeper can add the new hive to his/her collection of hives, or sell the new hive.
But there is more to it than just taking the box with the swarm home and finding a new spot for it. There is, for instance, a viral infection that is common in Tasmanian bees, and that can make for a very unhappy and ultimately completely dead hive.
The best position for a new hive is a spot out of strong winds, facing morning sun, and no obstacles in front of the hive for at least three metres, so the bees’ flight path is free. If a natural wind break is not available, you can use hay bales to create one.
You can make your own boxes or buy them. Their colour is irrelevant to the bees, but may help you recognise your hives, if you take them to someone else’s property.
Bees may have a hard time finding food sources if environmental conditions (primarily weather) are bad.
Bad environmental conditions (primarily weather) can be a big problem for a new colony that has just been created by a swarm, because they have not had the time to store away honey for situations in which they can’t collect any.
Beekeepers can help bees in this situation by providing them sugar syrup (less nutritious than flower nectar, but it supplies the basic food needs for a colony). There are several options for how to feed bees this nectar replacement. Frank and Laura place an extra box on top of the hive and then put in it a container with holes in the top filled with sugar water (see photo below). A litre of this syrup will be emptied by hungry bees in less than a day.
Inspecting a hive
Inspecting a hive starts with observing what is happening near its entrance. Always stand behind the hive, so the bees’ flight path is free. Are the bees calmly going in and out of the hive, or are they fighting? Are there dead bees in front of the hive? What other debris have the bees taken out of the hive and put in front of the entrance?
How much honey does the hive contain? The weight of the hive is an indication, and can be roughly measured by lifting up the back of the hive slightly.
A thorough inspection goes a lot further. It means carefully lifting off some or all of the boxes that make the hive, and lifting some of the frames out of some of the boxes, to see what is happening inside.
It is easier to handle the bees if you use a ‘smoker’ (photo below). It is also easier on the bees, as it calms them down. In the photo Frank has just put a match in the pine needles in his smoker and is now using its bellow to fan the flames. He then flicked the top back on the smoker and it was ready to use.
Inspecting a hive is important when a swarm has just been collected and/or when a hive is moved to a new spot, but if a beekeeper is too zealous and inspects a hive too often, the bees will not be happy about this. Laura explained that it takes the bees three days to fully recover from an inspection, even if it is done with minimal disturbance. The general rule is only inspect a hive when you think something might be wrong (based on what you've noticed from outside the hive), or when you are performing a spring or autumn health check. Of course, if you are harvesting honey, you need to go inside the hive, but then only into the honey boxes, not the brood in the boxes below the queen excluder.
In the photo above Frank is inspecting one of the hives which is already well-established. It had been showing signs of some unhealthy brood in front of the hive but, luckily it looks like there is no real problem. The other hives all looked healthy and happy. Identifying potential problems, and helping a new colony on its way to success is where expertise is needed
Once a hive is in place for a while and the colony is settled, it does not need a lot of attention, because the bees will look after themselves, up to a point. It is still good to keep an eye on things, and inspect a hive once in a while, because there is always the possibility that things go wrong.
Harvesting honey
Bees store honey because it will be their food during the next winter when there will be little nectar to harvest. That means that the beekeeper should always leave enough honey in a bee hive for the bees to live. Frank and Laura explained that for an average size beehive you need to leave 6-8 kg. of honey for the bees. That is easier said than done if you are an inexperienced beekeeper.
The process of harvesting honey starts with removing the "caps" on the honeycomb to allow access to the honey inside. That can be done manually with a knife or electrically with a ‘uncapping knife’ (see photo).
Beginning beekeepers can extract honey from comb without any equipment by crushing the comb.
You can buy or hire an ‘extractor’ (see photo below) and then separate honey from comb by ‘spinning’.
To store honey, you need to sterilise the jars you use, but there is no need to sterilise the honey.
What a beekeeper needs and how much it costs
Beekeeping can be a very interesting and rewarding hobby, but there is a fair bit to learn and the costs involved are not minor. Prices are all best estimates in December 2021.
To give you good basic knowledge about beekeeping do a beekeepers course. With Heritage Honey it will cost $350.
Then consider that you may be spending $1000 - $1200 to get started:
Bee Hives + bees will cost approx. $500
- Option 1: A fully established colony and their hive being sold by a beekeeper
- Option 2: A hive (boxes + frames + bottom board + lid) and bees - hive approx. $250, - bees approx. $250 (either a swarm or a nucleus of bees)
 |
| hive tools can have various shapes |
Beekeeping tools: hive tool (see photo above) and smoker (see photo below) approx. $120
Protective Clothing in the range of $30 - $200
- Minimum gloves and hat + veil approx. $40
- Full suit and gloves up to $200
- An electric uncapping knife around $200 ; an uncapping fork around $20
- An extractor may cost $200
Further reading
FGG members Pauline and Dirk began to keep bees around a year ago and found the book The Australian Beekeeping Manual, by Robert Owen incredibly helpful. You can find it here.
And as the day drew to a close …
Frank and Laura’s bees were tired after a big afternoon of entertaining all the complete novices that arrived out of the blue. They were ready to settle down for the night, thinking they could now have a well-deserved sleep, when they were once more disturbed by their human keepers, because there was one more bit of work to be done before the end of the day.
This was the array of hives we had visited that afternoon:
And here are the same hives after Frank and Laura finished their evening job:
That made the hive on the right much safer in windy conditions and much more to the liking of their bee occupants!
Thank you!
What makes beekeeping such a fascinating hobby is that you are working with a well-organised colony of insects that will respect you and treat you well, if you respect them and treat them well.
The afternoon made it clear that beekeeping can be a fascinating hobby, if beginners are prepared to learn the basics by taking part in a beekeeping course and are then lucky enough to be supported by more experienced beekeepers, because there is a lot to learn.
Thank you, Frank and Laura, for sharing some of your extensive beekeeping knowledge with us and for checking the accuracy of this blog post. Those who came to the Food Garden Group Taste of Beekeeping workshop all loved the experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.