Beekeeping for Beginners
Is Beekeeping for Me?
Beehives require management and good stewardship, which take both time and knowledge.
General maintenance requires periodic inspections during the warm months to make sure your queen bee is laying eggs, your worker bees are building up stored honey, and your bee colony has enough space to expand. In the cold months, the colony clusters and eats through their honey stores, only emerging when the temperature is above freezing to eliminate waste.
Inspections are discouraged during this time to keep from releasing precious heat from the hive. Management time and style will depend on your climate, your hive style, and your particular bees. All honey bee colonies are unique, and each beekeeper will have a different experience.
All beekeepers get stung at some point. For example, a bee might end up in the fold of your clothing, go unnoticed, and be unable to get out. Honeybees are mostly very docile, and stinging is a last resort, since once they sting, they die. Good protective clothing and calm movements can help keep bees calm during inspections.
Below are some subjects we consider important to understand as you begin as a beekeeper.
Beekeeping is local.
Bees are directly influenced by their environment, therefore, their behavior and success varies greatly across climates. For instance, the busy nectar flow and foraging season for bees will be much longer in the warmer south than it will be in the north.
Familiarize yourself with what keeping bees looks like in your neck of the woods. We recommend joining your local beekeepers club or association, connecting with local beekeepers, and finding experienced beekeepers or a mentor in your area before you start beekeeping.
What are honeybees?
The first step to becoming a successful beekeeper is to learn as much as you can about the bees themselves. For new beekeepers, understanding basic bee biology is one of the best ways to make confident choices inside the hive.
Considering all the variables that may affect your honeybees, you may see something different every time you get into your hive. In order to make appropriate management decisions, beekeepers must be flexible in their ability to figure out why bees are behaving a certain way, and how certain actions may impact their well being and overall colony health.
We carry dozens of books that cover the basics. Pick one, or three, up to begin building a solid foundation of beekeeping knowledge before you start beekeeping, whether your interests lean toward backyard beekeeping or natural beekeeping.
A General Overview
Apis mellifera, or the European honeybee, is the most commonly kept species and the only species kept in America. These honey bees are just 1 species out of 20,000 known bee species worldwide. North America alone is home to 4,400 bee species including social bumblebee colonies, solitary tunnel nesting bees, and solitary ground nesting bees.
Honeybees are the only insect that store food in excess. Their part in high-value commodity production, including honey production and wax, encouraged their introduction to America in the late 1600’s by Europeans.
In America today, the value of honeybees has only increased, as they have become the linchpin in the current agricultural system as pollinators. 30% of the world’s most common food crops require honeybee pollination-services, making healthy bees important far beyond the bee yard.
Social Castes
Honey bees have three social castes, each with a specific role or set of roles that divide all of the labor inside a colony. The colony is made up of thousands of individuals functioning as a whole, which is one reason honey bee colonies are so fascinating to observe in beekeeping.
The Queen
Each hive will have 1 queen bee who is the only reproductive individual in the colony. She leaves the hive under two circumstances: as a virgin queen to mate, and in some cases, as an experienced queen with a swarm.
On mating flights the queen locates a “drone congregation area” to mate with up to 80 drones before returning to the hive. She will store all this sperm to use for the rest of her life, which can last up to 5 or 6 years.
The queen will lay all of the eggs for the colony, “deciding” when to lay drones from unfertilized eggs, or worker bees from fertilized eggs. Her steady laying eggs pattern is one of the signs beekeepers look for when checking colony strength.
Worker Bees
Worker bees are sterile females who do all of the foraging, feeding of young bees, honey production and storage, wax production, cleaning, and defending the hive against intruders. Some older workers become guard bees, helping protect the hive entrance from pests and other threats.
Each worker bee will do a variety of jobs in her lifetime, which can last about 4-6 weeks during the active season. As they age, their duties will become riskier, and require venturing further from the hive to gather nectar and pollen.
Drones
The only male bees in the colony are drones. Their sole purpose is to spread the genetics of the colony by mating with virgin queens from other colonies. Once they mate, they die successful bees.
Unsuccessful drones return to the hive to eat honey and pollen. Once swarm season is over, drones become a drain on honey stores and other resources inside the hive, and are evicted by workers.
Ecology
Honey bees and native bees are an integral part of the pollination system, responsible for successful seeding of more than 90% of all flowering plants, and for fruiting of 30% of our food. Bees become covered in pollen when foraging, and then groom the pollen into specialized structures on their legs called pollen baskets to bring back to the hive. Any pollen caught in “safe zones” on hairs on their backs that they cannot reach to groom is transferred from flower to flower.
On their foraging flights, bees collect nectar and pollen to take back to the hive. The nectar provides carbohydrates, which, when mixed with the enzymes in their honey gut, can be stored and dehydrated into honey. Pollen, containing proteins and amino acids, is mixed into “bee bread” used to feed growing larvae and the queen.
Bees make a local impact with a global importance. Most animals, including humans, directly or indirectly rely on the pollination efforts of honeybees for their food, which is one reason beekeeping can support both backyard gardens and broader ecosystems.
What else do I need to know?
As a beginning beekeeper you will always be learning. If you stop learning you're doing it wrong! As a natural beekeeper, you are joining an ever-growing and changing beekeeping subculture that is still not understood by the larger beekeeping community.
You may be scoffed at or ridiculed for your choice of hive style, hive designs, or methods, but take comfort in the fact that a shift toward treatment-free, bee-friendly beekeeping is beginning, even among long-time traditional beekeepers.
Join a local beekeeping organization, even if they don't prefer your methods or beekeeping philosophy. Work to educate them on your methods and you may win a convert. There is also a lot to learn from long-time and experienced beekeepers despite some of their disinterest in top bar hive or Warre beekeeping.
When should I start my hive?
Honeybees are entirely behavior-dependent on the climate in which they live. Timing for beginning a new hive will vary depending on your local climate and geography. Read widely and connect with local beekeepers and beekeeping groups specific to your area to learn how others have found success.
Here in the Pacific Northwest, the right time to start a hive is early spring between late March and early May. As the chance of frost lessens or stops, early flowers will appear, giving your bees the ability to collect nectar and pollen during the first nectar flow. We suggest using autumn and winter to do all of your research and planning.
Demand for bee hives and bees is on the rise, and often it will be too late to get started if you haven’t secured a source for bees by January or February. Once spring arrives, you will want to be completely prepared for your bees arrive with all of your beekeeping equipment ready and your hive in place on your property. You will want to feel confident and versed about the task at hand!
FAQs
What is beekeeping?
Beekeeping is the practice of caring for honey bee colonies in a hive body, helping keep bees alive, managing the brood nest, brood combs, and sometimes using honey supers to collect honey.
Is beekeeping good for beginners?
Yes, beekeeping can be good for beginners when they start with basic equipment like a hive tool, choose beginner-friendly setups such as Langstroth hives with wax coated plastic foundation, and learn from other beekeepers or a master beekeeper.
How difficult is it to get into beekeeping?
Getting into beekeeping takes planning, especially when choosing between package bees and a nucleus hive, installing a caged queen, preparing for bee stings, and learning how to stay calm around defensive bees.
What is the number one killer of honey bees?
The varroa mite is widely considered one of the biggest threats to honey bees because it weakens colonies and can spread disease if not managed by a responsible beekeeper.
Is beekeeping the same as apiculture?
Yes, beekeeping and apiculture mean the same thing, though beekeeping is the common term while apiculture is the more formal term used by most beekeepers and educators.
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