How To Be A Beekeeper
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Start keeping bees and making Honey. Start keeping bees and make a little money. Bee Aware and be part of it - we need bees and bees need us. Be part of it!
Most people now realise the importance of bees and what they do for the ecology of the world.
Motivated by an understanding of the significance of bees many people ask so how do I start bee keeping? Many people simply need some basic guidance so they can start bee keeping.
One of the most important things to sort out is choosing the right bee keeping equipment and knowing where to get bee keeping supplies.
To start off it is a good idea to find local bee keeping courses in your area by typing into Google things like - bee keeping Sheffield, bee keeping st.Petersburg Florida or bee keeping Illinois. A good way to get started is by investing in a couple of good bee keeping books, there are plenty to choose from on the theme of bee keeping for beginners, and you might consider joining bee keeping forums to find out what more experienced bee keepers are saying.
There is a real concern over the dramatic decline in honey bees. Most bee keepers in the UK for example are amateurs and it is clear that more people need to take up bee keeping. The importance of beekeping is becoming increasingly vital to the survival of honey bees and ultimately all living things on the planet.
Bees have existed for over 35 million years.The Queen Bee can live for 5 years and lays 2000 eggs a day.
Honey Bees are not native to the Americas, they were introduced by the first European colonists.
There are 20,000 species of bee of which only 7 are 'honey bees'.
A Fifth of UK honeybees died in winter 2008
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Contents at a Glance
"That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees."
Marcus Aurelius
Beekeeping Poll
Squidoo Is A Hive Of Activity
A Plea For Bees
Dennis van Engelsdorp explains how the bee population is declining and what this mean
Dennis van Engelsdorp is a leading bee-keeper. Click on the photo to hear his TED talk.
Beekeeping tweets
Bees Making Honey In A Jar
Amazing pictures
This is an example of some amazing pictures from Damn Cool Pics. Click on photo for the full set of images.
The wonder of beekeping beekeeping Mousepad
Follow BestBeekeeper Tweets
Follow The Waggle Dance
Useful Bee Knowledge
- Urban Bee Keeping
- Video from CBS
- Bee Keeping Promoted in the Punjab
- Bee keeping is encouraged in India
Beekeeping - Bee Part Of It
The BBC's Beekeeping project
Bee Part Of It is the BBC's Bee awareness project. Local radio stations are adopting bee hives with the additional aim of creating 40,000 new bee-friendly wildflower rich spaces.
The Hive: The Story of the Honeybee and Us
Beekeeping - Bee Part Of It on Facebook
Keeping Bees - The Bee Space
headlines about sustainable beekeeping from Nick
The Secret Life of Bees
Why Bees Swarm
Dr Juliana Rangel from Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, US. has researched which bees cause a hive to swarm and how they do it. She has discovered that bee scouts create a "piping-signal" that sets up the workers for swarming.
The full story can be found here Bee swarms follow 'pied pipers'
Beekeeping Gift
Keeping Bees Anyone Can Do It
Family friend starts bee keeping
Ken got interested in bees last year. His first step was to go to some introductory classes arranged by his local bee keeping association in Shropshire in the UK.
He has built his own hives from kits and started his own colonies.
It is considered 'bad luck' to pay for a queen to start a colony so he was given one by his bee class teacher.
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Bee Keeping Gifts on Zazzle
Great Bee Keeping Books
Learn about bees from the experts
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Great Bee Keeping Material on eBay
Bee keeping information and equipment
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Bee Keeping Buzz
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Apiculture
The art and science of keeping bees
image credit BQE Keeper
Did you know that not all bee hives are the same?
The Apiarist has developed the style and structure over the bee hive over the centuries.
The early form of bee hive was called a Skep (see picture above)
In the USA the most commonly used hive design is called the
Langstroth Hive.
In the UK the National is favoured.
There is also the WBC design., with its recognisable 'sloping roof' and named after its designer William Broughton Carr (very likely Border Reiver ancestors with that name!)
Reverend Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth of Philadelphia, discovered in 1851 that by leaving a 1 cm space in the hive for the bees to move between the sections, the bees wont build any honey comb or close the space up. This he called the "bee space." This meant that removable frames could be used.
Urban Bee Keeping
The new frontier of be keeping
London UK has its own urban bee keepers association
The video below is of novice urban bee keepers in America.Please note urban beekeeping might be illegal in your area.
British Bee Keepers
This is the logo of the British Bee Keepers Association
The organisation provides a host of news, advice and training information. There are over 60 affilliated associations and presently 15,000 members.
American Bee Keepers
The American Bee Federation
It has 1000 members
More Bee Keeping Associations
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Scottish Bee Keepers Association
Ulster Bee Keepers Association
Shropshire Bee Keepers Association
Welsh Bee Keepers Association
Bee Keeping Association of the ACT Australia
National Bee Keepers Association of New Zealand
The Canadian Honey Council
Ontario Bee Keepers Assocation
Comb The News
The buzz about bees
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- Bee decline threatens our dinner and the countryside
- Buzz from The Daily Telegraph
- UK scientists get £8m for research into bee decline
- Buzz from The Guardian
- Research money has beekeepers buzzing
- Buzz from The BBC
- Vanishing of the Bees
- Documentary
- Urban Dwellers Should Keep Bees
- Bees on your rooftop
- Decoding the Waggle Dance
- Will this stop bee decline?
Bee Blogs
Feed your mind
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- Honeybees, coal miners and Tammy's Kentucky Pie
- Perry Amos shares his knowledge of honeybees at an Arbor Day field demonstration held at Premier Elkhorn near Shelby Valley. My grandparents were beekeepers, depending on honeybees to pollinate our commercial orchards. I still remember biting into warm ...
- National Honey Bee Day at Nipawin Public Library
- By Nancy Budd For those of you unfamiliar with it, today is the National Day of the Honey Bee ? so get out there, enjoy the bees, perhaps even plant some flowers that they would enjoy. We have a display of bee books up ? perhaps you'd like to come in ...
- Honey bees sweetened 19th century life in Central Illinois
- If not quite a matter of life and death, local honey bees were important ? gastronomically and economically ? to area residents for much of the 19th century. Robert Dirks, author of the recently published book ?Come and Get It! McDonaldization and ...
- Modified Bee Peptide Slays Deadly Bacteria
- By Erika Gebel Insects like honeybees manufacture potent antibiotic peptides that make starting points for possible new medications. As more and more bacteria develop resistance, ?there is an urgent need for new antibiotics,? says Ralf Hoffmann of the ...
The Enemy
image credit Hawaii.gov
A major enemy of the honey bee is the dreaded
Varroa Mite
It kills bees by sucking their blood.
Fighting Varroa
By lightly covering bees in caster sugar the bee keeper encourages the bees to self groom and this helps to some extent.
Information Waggle Dance
Social networking and communication bee style
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If you would like to use this image it would really be appreciated if you could credit Sallemange and link back to this lens
- National Geographic Honey Bee article
- The providers of honey and beeswax
- Bee Keeping
- Brittanica
- Some Bee Facts
- There are 7 species of honey bee
- Honey Bees
- The full story
Beegin Bee Keeping
Top Bar Hive
a d.i.y. top bar hive
New Beekeeping Books
Look At Your Bees In Your Top Bar Hive
bee viewing panel
Vanishing of the Bees
![Vanishing of the Bees [DVD] [2009]](http://squidutils.com/uk/bB002VE97MU.jpg)
"The bees learn where they live by landmarks.
If they're moved within their home range, they get confused."
Gene Robinson
Most Gifted Beekeeping Books
Beecause they're worth it!
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ehoneybees
May 28, 2012 @ 3:40 pm | delete
- Nice :)
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LucyEMason
May 15, 2012 @ 11:06 am | delete
- I'm very interested in becoming a beekeeper, and this lens has a lot of useful info. Thanks!
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mahasson
Mar 21, 2012 @ 8:49 am | delete
- I'm not sure I could ever be a bee keeper, I'm too afraid of bees. Even with a suit on I think I would still be too scared, I don't know why. I work for a pest control company that doesn't promote killing helpful bees, like honey bees, but we sure get a lot of business for carpenter bee control. Those things are terrible, destructive pests!
Nice lense.
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Mattyr195
Feb 22, 2012 @ 1:12 am | delete
- A very comprehensive guide. There's obviously a lot of love gone into this lens.
bees for sale
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jadehorseshoe
Dec 23, 2011 @ 3:10 pm | delete
- Return Visitor. Intriguing Lens.
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Bees For Sale
Oct 17, 2011 @ 2:50 pm | delete
- Great lens. Very informative and comprehensive. A great resource for beginners and old hands alike! Keep it up!
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Dashsq
Oct 14, 2011 @ 6:17 pm | delete
- like your lens, thanks, well done!
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BeCanDo
Oct 2, 2011 @ 12:13 pm | delete
- Nice lens, good range of information.
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squidoopets
May 26, 2011 @ 1:14 am | delete
- Even bees are sentient beings -:) Lovely bee keeping lens- bow wow!
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Joe McGuire
Dec 9, 2010 @ 8:29 pm | delete
- Nice lens although a little long. I am taking a beginners beekeeping course in the beginning of 2011. I look forward to having a few hives for personal use and hopefully a little profit too.
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