Bee Keeping As Business Or Fun
Bee Keeping is the practice of maintaining honey bee colonies in hives. A beekeeper is also called an apiarist and he keeps bees so that he can collect honey and beeswax. Sometimes beekeepers keep bees for sale to other beekeepers. The place where Bee Keeping is done is called an apiary.
Hobby
Since honey bees are one of the most popular and economically beneficial insects they are commonly kept in apiaries in the United States. Though many beekeepers make a living by Bee Keeping, most of them are hobbyists. They just have a few hives and are simply fascinated by these insects and enjoy working with them.
Castes Of Honey Bees
There are basically three castes of honey bees, the workers, the drones and the queen bees. The workers basically do all the work of the colony of bees, and a colony may have as many as sixty thousand workers. The drones are the male bees and they fly from the hive and mate in the air with queens from other colonies. The queen is a fully fertile female specialized for producing eggs.
Site For Hives
It is easy to keep honey bees anywhere, where there are flowering plants which produce nectar and pollen. For Bee Keeping the site to be chosen should be sheltered from winds and it is better if it is partly shaded. It is advisable to avoid low spots in a yard, where the air is cold and damp in winter.
You have to be considerate towards your non- Bee Keeping neighbors. Your hives should not be where the bee flight paths cross sidewalks, playgrounds or other public areas. Give your bees a water source in your yard so that the bees are not attracted towards swimming pools.
Equipment
Use traditional equipment for Bee Keeping. You can buy it ready made from many Bee Keeping Equipment dealers either from shops or from websites. If you make your own bee hives, you must reproduce the dimensions exactly. There are many compartments and covers which follow a definite pattern. Use good oil base paint for exterior wooden parts.
How To Start
To start off with your Bee Keeping, it is easiest to buy two established colonies from a known local beekeeper. Another way is to buy packaged bees and queens and transfer them into new equipment. A third possibility is by finding and installing swarms.
Honey
Honey Bee management is not an easy task. The management is generally based on natural nectar flows. Beekeepers want their colonies to reach maximum strength before the nectar flows begin. In this way, the bees store the honey as surplus which can be harvested by the beekeeper.
Processing honey is the result of the Bee Keeping process. The hobbyist has to invest in the honey extracting equipment, because it is specialized. Sometimes used equipment is also available. The amount of honey that is produced shows the fruits of good Bee Keeping.
