Beekeeping
Organic Beekeeping
January 11, 2012 | 
Author Looking into CCD (colony collapse disorder) I found some articles on organic beekeeping. From what they were saying was, those beekeepers who were doing organic beekeeping didn’t have any losses to their hives. This had me scratching my head and doing some research on this. I have herd of doing organic beekeeping but never tried it. I am however convinced that if we were to take up a stance to completely limit or eliminate the chemicals in which we use in beekeeping it may have a good impact.
No Chemicals, Whats this all about? Won’t the bees get sick or the mites kill them?
Well, see the first thing I’d like to point out is there are ways to prevent mites without using anything on the market. Upon doing some research I found that the foundation we use today may actually be hurting our bees. The cells in the foundation are roughly 5.4-5.5mm for regular worker foundation. If you see bees build their comb naturally you will find that natural worker comb is from 4.6-5.1mm which could mean a big difference when it comes time to capping brood. Some say having smaller cells takes a day less for bees to cap thus less chance for varroa mites to get in on the brood to reproduce. A single day in this instance can make a big difference and create less work for the bees. Here is something I found out. Did you know that bees which build their comb naturally often build it faster than they do on foundation? I didn’t know this but it makes sense because when ever we try and help out nature, we tend to screw up. I’ll talk about diseases later.
How do you get the bees to build their own cells on the frames without the comb being built every where?
Well, you have a frame and on the top bar for most frames its usually flat with a wedge you can pry out for the foundation. Don’t pry that wedge out of the top bar instead cut a 45 degree angle downward on both sides of the bar. You will have a wide part on top and a narrow part on the bottom of the bar which the bees will build on. Having this narrow edge on the bottom will help the bees figure out “ hey we’re suppose to build here on the bars and not in the big empty area between the bars”.
Now about diseases, you would want to pick good locations to put your hives. If your hives are down in a moist area all the time then there is a greater risk for foul brood. Going back to the cell diameter, this is also key in preventing disease, in that spores are less likely to get into the hive. If you go to www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/index.html. You will see an interesting article about a couple who studied bees.
Linked in Kentucky Beekeeping Group
Hi, I just created a Linkedin group for Kentucky Beekeeping . I’m hoping that we can get enough beekeepers from around Kentucky onto this group to chat about local events and beekeeping stuff.
Posted in Beekeeping, Beekeeping News | 
Tags: Beekeeping, Bees, Honey, Honey Bees, Queen Bees | 
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Beekeeping in Afghanistan
As dusty as it was over in Afghanistan, there are to my surprise honey bees over there. One of the Agriculture team’s had specialized in beekeeping and so I asked him some questions about bees in that area. Apparently there used to be a lot of bee hives throughout Paktya province. He took me over to the hive and we opened up to look at the bees. They were extremely gentle and really didn’t care at all if we went into the colony. They color of the bees were darker like that of the Carniolan breed.
I was trying to find the pictures to the swarm which came from this colony and went into the wall of our chapel. They went in but the guy’s got them out with little hassle.
What??? Eradicate American Foul Brood????
Over in the UK they are making a huge effort to Eradicate the AFB/EFB from their little island of the world. From what the article said they have been training and certifying farmers to detect and how to treat/sanitize the disease. The project in which the EU funded $40 million also included help from some American Orginazations.
Click Here to read on.
Linked in Kentucky Beekeeping Group
Hi, I just created a Linkedin group for Kentucky Beekeeping . I’m hoping that we can get enough beekeepers from around Kentucky onto this group to chat about local events and beekeeping stuff.
Posted in Beekeeping, Beekeeping News | Tags: Beekeeping, Bees, Honey, Honey Bees, Queen Bees | No Comments »
What types of Bees are honeybees
Well there are many different types of bees in the world. Everything from Wasps, to bumble bees and then to honrnets. The Bee I want to write about is the Honeybee. Within the bee realm there are different types of honey bees as well. The most notorious honey bee most people know about is the Killer bee.
The Killer Bee is an African honey bee(or Apis mellifera scutellata)that was let loose in South America. This bee has been as far north as southern Utah in the United States. It’s temperament is extremely hostile and should be avoided at all costs. These bees have a tendency to swarm a lot but are highly valued for their honey production. Before the African Honey came to the contentant of South America, they didn’t produce much much honey in that region of the world. Now countries such as Brazil are placed within the top 10 of the worlds leading honey producers.
Here in America we have many different varieties of Bumble Bees which you know about. The Bumble Bees do produce honey but they store their honey into small round was containers we call honey pots.
These are not honey bees however they do produce honey. You will find these nests usually hiding away in hay or in the ground somewhere.
Mason Bees are much smaller than honey bees. They are considered as a major pollinator within the U.S. but these bees don’t live in colonies. The mason Bees usually build their nests on the sides of walls or in long tubes which they pack pollen into then lay an egg within. Recently there as been a bit of a movement to help preserve these little bees from dying out. You can simply build a nest for these little bees by taking straws and strapping them together. Here’s a picture below.
Now i’d say its time to get to the point. Granted the African honey bee is an honey bee but it isn’t used much here in the U.S. Within the Honey Bee family there are many “Breeds” of honey bees. The most Common is the Italian honey bee which came from Europe with the earlier settlers. These bees are far more gentler than that of the Africanised Honey Bee. They produce a good amount of honey as well as easy to work with. Most Beekeepers within the U.S. use Langstroth hives to keep the bees in. This helps in extracting honey and checking the brood(or eggs) for disease.
Having a hive like this I find makes beekeeping much more enjoyable. Just by simply taking out the comb and seeing the queen is much fun. I hope in my next post I can write a bit more about the defferences in honey bee breeds. Just like how the African and the Italian are honey bees but two separate breeds of honey Bees. Thank you For Reading.
Speed King Electric Knife
Well, I’ve used the Speed King uncapping knife in the past and this is a must have for any honey production environment. It takes a little time to heat up but is well worth it when you have a good 50 frames of honey to harvest. These thing run about $100 but the only cheaper option would be to get a capping scratch-er. Basically the way it works is the knife heats up like an iron. This melts the wax as it cuts to make it a lot easier to uncap the frames before putting them into the extractor. I would recommend this to anyone.
Linked in Kentucky Beekeeping Group
Hi, I just created a Linkedin group for Kentucky Beekeeping . I’m hoping that we can get enough beekeepers from around Kentucky onto this group to chat about local events and beekeeping stuff.
Posted in Beekeeping, Beekeeping News | Tags: Beekeeping, Bees, Honey, Honey Bees, Queen Bees | No Comments »
Beekeeping Class Feb. 14 Anderson County, South Carolina
In Anderson County Beekeeping classes for beginners will be held starting Feb 14, 2012. This is a six week course on Tuesday from 6:30pm-8:30pm. To register call Mitchell Burdette (864) 352-2013
Little Wonder Extractor by Dadant and Sons
Back when I did beekeeping I rented a Little Wonder Hand-Extractor from Mr Kelly at the local Dadant and Sons branch. Its a simple and yet really good quality hand extractor good for anyone who planes on having anywhere from 5-whatever hives. It has 4 sides where you can put shallow or a deep super frame in it. To extract using this extractor you must extract one side of the frame half way, then turn the frame over and do the other side completely then come back to the first to complete it. This helps prevent the comb from braking. A step up from the Little Wonder is Dadant’s Ranger Extract which can extract both sides of the frame simultaneously from a 6 1/4 super. They are about a hundred dollars apart on the price and to be hones I’d go with the Little Wonder unless you plan on going a bit bigger with the honey business.
Little wonder image below.
