Beekeeping For Dummies

Many areas in the world are producers of honey and beeswax for medicinal and food purposes. You'll find a great many beekeepers in the United States, Asia, Africa, and some parts of Europe. Although beekeeping originated in Europe it has been brought up to date in the United States. Some cultures accept it as part of their tradition and it appears to be a way of life.

It is useful to know that honey has been used extensively in religious rituals throughout the ages and during moments of special celebrations, where it is used as a flavoring to add that extra dash of sweetness to any meal. Most Americans who produce honey sell it to the local markets, and some are shipped to foreign countries that do not possess their own beekeeping facility. This is because often they are not advanced enough to mass produce the necessary amount to ship overseas to stores owned and operated in the United States like Whole Foods Market because they carry specific brands.

US beekeeping methods are so advanced that we can collect enough honey from our industry to cater for the growing demands worldwide. Bees produce honey when flowers are plentiful and spring is the time for honey producing in the Unites States. The U.

Beekeepers often spend time during weekends watching hives and it is a good way to pass the time away productively. At the height of the honey producing season, hives do not require much maintenance often an hour a day us sufficient to see that all is going on smoothly and well. A good beekeeping season can produce anything up to 100 pounds of honey and depending on how much the buyer pays for each pound, you can work out how much you'll make for every harvest you get.

One very irritating challenge for the beekeepers is the presence of bumblebees in the beekeeping season, because these large yellow and black flying creatures feed in the same areas as those honey bees. They swarm and feed on flowers that should have been left for the honey bees. To avoid unnecessary competition, beekeepers often move the hives to a new location and enable those honey bees to feast on a new batch of flowers. The types of honey produced form each flower type is different; when migration of the bee hives is done, the honey produced will be different from the ones that were produced the previous season, depending on the types of flowers available at the new location.

Your beekeeping activity will require you to gather some basic equipments before you can embark in this fun and challenging activity. You must make your equipment available before the bees actually arrive. You will have to invest in the beehive before anything else.

Your beehive must have no less than five supers. You cannot miss out on the supers because the bees store honey there. Make sure that the five supers fit in the space between the bottom of the hive and its top cover. Supers are not used just for storage of the honey, they are also used for raising the young bees. When the hive starts buzzing with activity, each of these frames will show nine to ten frames. According to your needs, you can choose between a beehive with a shallow super or one with a deep super. With deep supers, you can make your foundation size uniform. However, a full deep super can weight as much as 100 pounds. You will have to make sure you place your beehive someplace where the surface is even, or else your beehive may topple over in strong breeze. Set up your beehive in an area that is not trespassed by pets or humans. When the frames are inside the super, you can manage equal distances between them by using a spacer.

Now, you will need a smoker. The purpose of the smoker is to drive the bees out, it comes in handy when you want to do some honey harvesting. You will find that the smoker is an uncomplicated device. A smoker contains only three parts - a funnel, a chamber where combustion takes place and bellows. Since burlap ignites very fast but still leaves a lot of smoke and smolders generously, it is the expert's choice for using in the smoker. Alternatively, you can use dried corn cobs. Allow the fire to keep burning with the bellows.

The next piece of equipment to use is the metal hive tool. You can use the metal hive tool to open the beehive, to separate its various components to maintain the cleanliness of the hive. The metal hive tool is a single piece of equipment, but it does a lot of stuff. You can never be ready for your beekeeping shipment unless you have a bee brush. You need a bee brush for that.

When it is time to harvest your honey, you will need a fumer board. Bees don't like the chemicals that are dabbed onto the fumer board. You can use them, if you don't mind buying preowned material. The catalogs and websites can get you several pieces of beekeeping material, whether you are a pro or are just beginning out with the hobby.