Sustainable Beekeeping

1
Sustainable Beekeeping

• Presenter Bill Theiss
• Tuesday/Thursday 6 - 8 PM (September 2,4,9,11)
• Gypsy Hill Park

2
Syllabus

• Tuesday, September 2
• Introduction Getting started with beekeeping
• Is beekeeping for me?
• Beginning beekeeper issues
• A history of beekeeping
• Hive types
• Langstroth
• Top Bar
• Warre
• Observation
• Nucs

3
Syllabus

• Thursday, October 3
• Setting Up the Apiary
• Beekeeping equipment and tools
• Hive installation
• Acquiring Honeybees
• Watering Methods
• Honeybee Biology Behavior
• Honeybee life cycle
• Reproduction
• Communication
• Roles and responsibilities
• Anatomy (form vs. function)

4
Syllabus

• Tuesday, October 8
• Honeybee disease identification, prevention
  treatment
• Most common bacterial, viral, and fungal diseases
• Predators
• Pests
• Pesticides
• Poisons
• Integrated Pest Management (IPM)

5
Syllabus

• Thursday Oct. 10
• Hive management procedures and techniques
• Exterior and interior hive inspection
• Splits
• Queen rearing
• Robbing avoidance
• Pollen and Nectar
• Beneficial and poisonous flowers
• Honey and beeswax
• Harvesting, handling, packaging and storage

6
SVBA
7
Is Bee Keeping for Me?

• Will I get stung?
• Startup costs
• Physical effort
• Time requirements
• Land requirements
• Zoning restrictions
• Neighbor concerns
• Liability concerns
• State licensing and inspection requirements for
  honey and nuc sales

8
Purposes of Beekeeping

• Pollination Services
• Species Preservation
• Education
• Products
• Honey, beeswax, propolis, pollen, mead, queens
  and/or nucs

9
Propolis

• A resin obtained from poplar, conifers, flowers,
  and other botanical sources
• Used by bees as a waterproof sealant
• Used by humans for
• Chewing gum ingredient
• Car wax
• Musical instrument finishes
• Medical uses (antibacterial)

10
Goals of the Beekeeper

• Provide shelter and protection
• Disease prevention and treatment
• Hive propagation
• Prevent swarming
• Collect and/or utilize hive resources

11
A History of Bee Keeping

• Beekeeping, 15,000 B.C. - 1600 A.D.
• Bees housed in clay pots, straw baskets, trees or
  hollow logs (Skeps)
• Queen (King) bee was thought to be male
• No understanding that bees made wax or that the
  bees visit to flowers had anything to do with the
  formation of seeds and fruit
• Bees were typically killed in autumn to collect
  honey
• Swarms were used to stock the bee yard each
  spring
• Honey bees were not native to the Americas.
  Colonists brought bees to America on ships in the
  1600s

12
Getting Started - Preparation

• Autumn and Winter Tasks
• Buy/Build hives, assemble frames
• Obtain beekeeping equipment and tools
• Setup hives
• Place advance order for bees
• Install honeybee fresh water source

13
Bee Hive Types

• Langstroth
• Top Bar
• Warre
• Observation
• Nucs

14
The Langstroth Hive

• Lorenzo Lorrain Langstroth (1810 1895) is
  considered the father of modern beekeeping
• The Langstroth Hive
• Used by gt75 of beekeepers worldwide
• Stackable hive bodies
• Moveable and interchangeable
• 1851 The bee space phenomenon
• 1852 Removable frame hive patent
• 1858 The Hive and the Honeybee

15
Langstroth Hive Components
16
Langstroth Commercial Frame Sizes

• Deep 85 lbs
• Medium (Illinois) 35 lbs
• Shallow 25 lbs
• Foundation Cell Sizes from 4.9 5.4 mm

17
Langstroth Commercial Foundation and Frame Types

• Traditional wired or crimp wired wax foundation
  with wood frames
• Plastic foundation with wood frames
• Plasticell
• One piece plastic foundation and frame
• Pierco
• No foundation with wood frame
• 2 plastic foundation at top with wood frame

Pierco all plastic
18
Queen Excluder

• Optional equipment
• Prevents queen from laying brood in honey supers
• Used for QueenRight queen raising method

19
Double Screen Board (Snellgrove board)

• Allows a weaker hive to be placed on top of a
  stronger hive and benefit from the rising heat
• Assist with preparation for combining hives
• Facilitate queen introduction to a large hive
  with lots of mature workers
• Used for QueenRight queen raising method

20
Top Bar Hives

• Top Bar Hive
• Moveable top bars
• Africa/Southern Europe
• 1600s to Present
• No need to destroy hive to collect honey
• Slanted walls are perceived by bees as vertical
• Width of bar must be 1 3/8. Other bar
  dimensions are not critical, but recommend having
  interchangeability with Langstroth hive frame
  sizes

21
The Top Bar Hive
22
The Top Bar Hive
23
(No Transcript)
24
(No Transcript)
25
Top Bar vs. Langstroth

• Advantages of Top Bar compared to Langstroth
• Relatively simple and inexpensive to build
• No frames to buy and assemble
• No queen excluder needed
• No extractor needed
• Easy to inspect entire hive (no lifting of heavy
  hive bodies)
• Produces lots of high quality beeswax
• Less disturbance and stress to bees during
  inspection
• Great for comb honey production
• Disadvantages of Top Bar compared to Langstroth
• Heavy and difficult to move
• Requires comb rebuild after honey harvest
• Not suited for cold climates
• Comb delicate and easy to break during inspection
• Hive expansion difficult to implement

26
Abbé Émile Warré (1867-1951)
Warre Hives
27
Six frame double wide
Observation Hives
Eight frame single width
Seven frame single width
28
Nucleus Boxes (Nucs)

• Usually 4 or 5 frame (deep or shallow)
• Easily carried and inspected
• Great for starting new colonies (Mating nucs)
• Can serve as a frame transport in the bee yard
• Simple and relatively inexpensive to build

29
Questions?