Urban Beekeeping For Youths

if you are considering getting into beekeeping you first need to know what it requires. Obviously, doing your research is a benefit. But there is certain equipment you will need. Here are the tools and other items you will need to get started on this journey: 1! Hives Hives are where the bees live. You will need to do some research to decide which type of hive you’d like to have. I personally use Langstroth hives, but I hope to try out a Top Bar Hive sometime soon. So you’ll need to decide if you are going to keep bees as a hobby or try to morph them into a business for your homestead. This will determine what type of hive you’d like to use. 2.  Frames Frames are rectangles that hang inside of a hive like a filing system. The bees will build their comb inside of these frames. This is where they will make honey, lay brood, and live their lives constantly preparing for winter. Now, you’ll need to decide if you just want to  purchase

Feeding Honey Bees INTRODUCTION  Honey bees, like all other animals, require essential ingredients for survival and reproduction. Most of what we know about honey bee nutrition was learned from the 1950s through the 1970s; only during the last few years have we started to pay attention to honey bee nutrition again. Honey bees require carbohydrates (sugars in nectar or honey), amino acids (protein from pollen), lipids (fatty acids, sterols), vitamins, minerals  (salts) and water. Additionally, these nutrients must be  present in the right ratios for honey bees to survive and thrive. SUGAR Like other animals, honey bees need carbohydrates as an energy source. Carbohydrates are converted to glucose or fructose, either of which are used to produce energy directly. Aside from being used as an energy source, glucose can also be converted to body  fats and stored. Nectar is the main source of carbohy-drates for honey bees. The amount of nectar needed  per colony depends on

Colony collapse disorder  ( CCD ) is the phenomenon that occurs when the majority of  worker bees  in a colony disappear and leave behind a  queen , plenty of food and a few nurse bees to care for the remaining immature bees. While such disappearances have occurred throughout the history of  apiculture , and were known by various names (disappearing disease, spring dwindle, May disease, autumn collapse, and fall dwindle disease), the syndrome was renamed colony collapse disorder in late 2006 in conjunction with a drastic rise in the number of disappearances of  western honey bee ( Apis mellifera ) colonies in North America. European beekeepers observed similar phenomena in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, Switzerland and Germany, albeit to a lesser degree, and the  Northern Ireland Assembly  received reports of a decline greater than 50%. Colony collapse disorder causes significant economic losses because  many agricultural crops  worldwide ar

How do I stop my own bees swarming? There is much information on this issue . Really the main crux of beekeeping is swarm management. If you can manage your bees and reduce swarming, then you have really mastered beekeeping. You can add honey supers to give you colonies more space and you can take out a brood frame in the extremities of our colony and spin them if they are full of honey. This will give your queens more space to lay in to but the eventual will happen. Your bees will swarm some time in their queens life. You will begin to know when your bees are about to swarm. The obvious signs of large amount of brood hatching, the creation of swarm cells and  change in the bees behaviour, to name but a few signs. Some  people like to use a phsyical control  namly clipping the queens wings. I do not support this practice. It usually results in a messy ball of bees attempting to swarm but with a queen that cant fly. This is a completely unatural thing and results

A  beehive  is an enclosed structure man-made in which some honey bee species of the  subgenus   Apis  live and raise their young.  Though the word beehive is commonly used to describe the nest of any bee colony, scientific and professional literature distinguishes  nest  from  hive .  Nest  is used to discuss colonies which house themselves in natural or artificial cavities or are hanging and exposed.  Hive  is used to describe an artificial, man-made structure to house a honey bee nest. Several species of  Apis  live in colonies, but for honey production the  western honey bee  ( Apis mellifera ) and the  eastern honey bee  ( Apis cerana ) are the main species kept in hives. The beehive's internal structure is a densely packed group of  hexagonal prismatic  cells made of  beeswax , called a  honeycomb . The bees use the cells to store food ( honey  and  pollen ) and to house the  brood  (eggs,  larvae , and  pupae ). Beehives serve several purposes: production of ho