Lesson Seven In Beekeeping: How To Install A New Package Of Bees

Here at Long Lane Honey Bee Farms, we are committed to help you be a successful beekeeper. David is a certified master beekeeper. You may consider joining us for one of David's beekeeping classes. Click here to see our upcoming classes.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a certified master beekeeper on the other end of the phone or email whenever you had a question. I started my new membership program and members are loving it. Beekeepers around the country have jumped on board. We still have room for more.

MEMBERS ONLY ACCESS TO:

-  1 New Instructional Videos Each Week.

-  My Personal Email and Cell Phone. You'll be a phone call away from a 
   certified master beekeeper.
   pictures of what concerns you and I'll advise you on the next step to take.

-  Picture/Video Evaluation Of Your Hive When Needed. Send me a video and/or

-  Weekly Tips Of What You Should Be Doing With Your Bees.

-  Your Choice Of 1(one) Item From Our Membership Gifts List

   Below: (After 6 months subscribed)

   - 1 Free class at our location per year (Does NOT Include Bee Institute)

   - 1 Free Winter-Bee-Kind

   - 1 Free Burns Bees Feeding System

Click here for more information.

We are a family business, a turn key beekeeping operation. We manufacture the hives ourselves, hand built for you, and we provide you with the bees and all the equipment you need. We appreciate your business and you'll find we won't treat you like a customer, but like a friend. And when you purchase your equipment from us, we're here for you. You can call us with your questions. We won't leave you hanging wondering what to do. Click here to see our complete online beekeeping store. Contact us today, and get started in beekeeping: 217-427-2678

To prepare for the arrival of your bees, you will want to purchase a new spray bottle and mix sugar water, one part water to one part sugar. Do not use old spray bottles that have been used with other chemicals as this could make the bees sick or kill them.

 Spray an ample supply of sugar water through the screen. Use the mist setting, not the stream. You CANNOT over spray your bees. They have been traveling for several days, and no doubt have been hot and not able to eat much, so the sugar water will really replenish their energy.

If you are traveling elsewhere with your bees, or after you pick them up from us, try to keep the package in a shaded or dark place in the car or truck. If you use a truck, try to avoid excessive wind damage that may occur if you place your bees in the bed of your truck. If you have to travel a long distance at interstate speed, and the bees are in the bed of your truck, place something around them, protecting them from the wind, while also providing sufficient air flow. Bees must have air to breathe just like us!

Sometimes, the weather might be too wet or cold to install your bees the same day they arrive. In this case, simply keep them in a cool basement or dark room and spray them with sugar water 3-4 times a day. They will usually be fine for a few days if you have to wait. Some dead bees on the bottom of their package is common. An inch or two of dead bees might be a problem, indicating they did not withstand the trip well. Call your supplier and report the findings.

If you see a few bees on the outside of your package, do not panic. It does not usually mean there is a leak. It usually means that a few bees have been clinging to the outside of the package for thousands of miles. But do check to make sure the box is sealed well.

Will the bees in the package sting you? Honeybees can always sting. However, you will find that by spraying them with sugar water, they are very calm. And, since they do not have any brood or honey to protect, they are not trying to defend their hive. Technically they don't have a queen either. Their morale is low, so they are not nearly as aggressive. When I install packages, I do not wear gloves or hat and veil. I would not recommend it to you, because you don't want a bad experience on your first installation, but you will find the bees to be very gentle. Work with confidence!

Now, here's how you can effectively install your bees in your new hive. Choose a good time of the day, when it is sunny, warm and not too windy. Mid to late afternoon works well. Be sure and take all your equipment to where you will install your package. You will need the following items:

1) Spray bottle with sugar water (1:1 ratio, one part water, one part sugar)

2) Hive tool

3) A wood screw (for removing queen cage cork)

4) A comfortable amount of protective clothing

Be sure your new hive equipment is where you want your hive to be. At this point, you will only need your bottom board, 1 deep hive body, 10 frames and foundation, inner and top cover. Remove 4 of the center frames from the new hive body. This is where you will shake your bees into. Spray all 10 frames, both sides, with the 1:1 sugar water mixture. This will attract the bees to the foundation and give them a warm welcome to their new home. Bees love sugar!

Also, before you install your package, you'll want to insert your entrance feeder or our new Burns Bees Feeding System. The BBF System is great for new packages. Comes with lids pre-drilled for your jar of 1:1 sugar water.

Bees need fed when first installed because they are not an operational hive just yet. They have no incoming food. So feed them for a couple of weeks the same mixture of 1:1 sugar water.

After 3-4 days, you can remove it entirely until fall. This step is important because occasionally packages can fly away (Abscond) after you install them. This restriction will help tremendously. While the chance of your new hive flying away is VERY RARE, but the possibility does exists. The reducer will help. They will stay put better than you would think. Do not fear that they are flying away because you see lots of bees flying around. This is normal. They need to stretch and go to the bathroom after traveling so far. Bees do not defecate inside their hive. They are very clean.

Now, spray the package thoroughly on both sides of the screen, front and back. This will calm the bees, keep them well nourished and keep them from flying about so much during the installation process. Remember, you cannot over spray. Be prepared for sticky hands and fingers.

Now, you will want to begin opening your package. Do not be afraid. Millions of bees are not going to rush out at you. Work with confidence and enjoy the activity.

To open the package, first remove the top panel. It is stapled on to the box. Staples are sharp, so don't cut yourself on the staples once the panel is removed. Use your hive tool to pry open the panel. But, be careful with your hive tool. The end is very sharp too, and if the tool should slip, it can poke or cut you.

Once you remove the top panel, NO bees will come out yet. This panel simply holds the feeding container in place as well as the white strap that has the queen cage on the opposite end, inside the package.

The bees may become noisy which is normal. Spray them again if you need to calm them. They are becoming loud not because you are making them mad, but simply because of the the sunlight and air. They are ready to do what bees do. Make a hive and gather nectar. Stay calm and confident!

Now you see the top of the tin can of sugar as well as the white queen cage strap. The queen cage strap is also stapled to the top of the box. Free this strap, but do not let it fall into the package of bees.

Gently tip the package of bees over the new hive, positioning it over the center where the 4 frames have been removed. Slide the sugar tin can out a little so you can get an easier grip on it. Sometimes the can comes out easily, and sometimes it is very tight and has to be wiggled out with considerable effort. It will come out.

Once you are ready, pull the can all the way out. At this point, the bees will have access to the great outdoors, specifically, their new hive. They will be attracted to the beeswax and sugar coated foundation awaiting them. Set the can of sugar water aside, holes facing up so it doesn't leak.

You will need to pull out the queen cage now, prior to shaking the bees or else it will fall into the hive. If it does, no problem. The queen is okay, just remove the cage and place it on top of the hive off to the side from where you'll be pouring your bees.

Now begin shaking your bees out of the package and into the new hive. Shake as hard as you want and you'll start seeing them pour into the new hive. You may also want to firmly strike the side of the package with the palm of your hand to free bees that are hanging on to the screen. However, be sure not to strike a bee when striking the side of the box or you might smash a bee just enough to get stung. Notice in the picture, I take advantage of the remaining sugar water in the tin can by placing if over the entrance feeder. I usually poke a few more holes with a nail so the bees will consume it more quickly. After it is finished, I replace it with a mason jar with holes in the lid.

Now you must install your queen. Slow release method is the best. These are not her bees, and she is not the queen they are used to YET! So, you must let them get to know her before she can roam freely among her new hive. Here's how. The queen cage has a screen on top and through the screen you can identify a white candy substance at one end. This is the end that you will HAVE TO remove the cork. DO NOT REMOVE THE CORK AT THE OPPOSITE END OF THE CANDY. Only remove the cork from the candy end of the cage. A hive tool doesn't work well, but screwing in a small screw then pulling it out works well. Once the cork is out, you will see that the hole is still plugged with the white candy. GOOD! Do not disturb that candy plug. As the bees eat through the candy, they will become familiar with their new queen. Then, once the candy has bee eaten, she will emerge from her cage as queen of the hive and be readily accepted by her new workers. After all, they are ready for a queen themselves!

Once you've removed the cork, you will want to place the cage between the frames in the center of the hives from the top. Notice how I use the pressure of the hive frames to hold the cage between the frames. I hang my queen cage with the candy side down. Some say to hang it with the candy up, in case her attendant bees within her cage die, they do not block her exit. However, bees are good about moving dead bees out of the way, and I want her to exit out onto the foundation.

PLAY CLOSE ATTENTION. YOU MUST REPLACE ALL 10 FRAMES!! If you don't, the bees will quickly make comb in place where your frames should have gone. This will be a mess. And they will attach their comb to your top cover and if you wait long enough, you will not be able to open your hive. SO YOU MUST REPLACE ALL 10 FRAMES before replacing the inner and top cover.

Do not place any other boxes on the hive just yet. You only need the one deep box. Let them draw out the comb, usually 6-8 frames, then you can place your second hive body on top. Once 6-8 frames of your second deep have been drawn out, you can start placing your supers on.

Great Job! You Did It!! Place the package box near the front of the hive because it will still have some bees that you were unable to shake out of it. These will find their way into the hive in a day or two.

Lesson Five: The Honeybee

After learning about the woodenware that the bees live in, now we are ready to learn about the actual bees themselves. Honeybee can be spelt as one word or two. Both are correct. It never ceases to amaze me at the number of beekeepers who actually know very little about honeybees. So let's start simple.

There are three caste to a honeybee hive: The queen, the drones and the workers. A honeybee hive has only one queen per hive. The hive must have a queen in order to grow and survive. Without the queen they will perish. The queen is the only bee in the hive that lays eggs producing the next generation of bees. She lays between 1,000-3,000 eggs per day...yes, per day!

The queen is noticeably different in size and shape. She is longer than the worker bee and has longer legs, so she can back into a cell and lay an egg on the bottom. Once you become familiar with her appearance, she is more easily spotted when examining the hive. It is good to examine your hives every two weeks to be sure the queen is alive and healthy. However, it is very time consuming and sometimes impossible to see the queen. So one way you can be sure she is in good health is to look for newly laid eggs. These are tiny white specks at the bottom of the cells. This tells you that she is alive and laying. The queen usually lives significantly longer than workers and drones, sometimes up to 3-4 years or longer.

The queen does have a stinger, but it is not a barbed stinger. She rarely uses her stinger, and usually only in fighting other queens that may emerge in her hive as virgin queens. It is very rare for the beekeeper to be stung when handling a queen. I am constantly picking up queens and have never been stung.

Here is one of my queens. The white dot on her back is paint that I put there to help me easily identify her. The other bees have been trying to clean it off. Notice how the attendant bees circle the queen. This is called retinue. This is another helpful hint in trying to locate the queen. Rather than trying to spot her, try looking for the circle of bees around her, or observe the frame. The queen stays on the move and the other bees get our of her way.

Next, we have the drones which are the male bees. Their only objective is to mate with a virgin queen. They differ in size and shape from the worker bee in that they are stockier, have larger eyes, usually appear slightly darker in color and do not have stingers. The will not and CANNOT sting you. They eat and wander around looking for a virgin queen. They are the only bee allowed to travel from hive to hive. They are important to have so that virgin queens can mate and begin laying eggs. Once the queen has mated with several drones during her mating flight, she will be able to lay eggs the rest of her life and will never mate again.

Drones live around 90 days. In the fall, in colder climates, the worker bees will begin to kill the drones. They are no longer needed for winter, and they simply become a costly liability to the wintering hive. So, they are not allowed to winter in the hive, and die outside. In the fall, some beekeepers become concerned about the increased numbers of dead bees outside the hive entrance. A closer examination reveals these are the perishing drones who are no longer needed.

Finally, the worker bee. Worker bees are all female and they do not lay eggs. If a hive becomes queenless for 3-4 weeks, a worker bee might begin laying unfertilized eggs as a result of the absence of the queen's pheromone. However, this only produces more drones and will not help a dying hive. It is believed that this is one of the last things a dying hive can do, produce drones to mate with other queens. It is easy to spot eggs laid by a worker. There is usually more than one egg per cell, and they are seldom at the bottom of the cell since the worker bee is shorter than the queen and cannot drop the egg on the bottom.

The worker bee will work in the hive until she is around 21 days old. Then, she is rewarded her wings and begins foraging for nectar, water, pollen and propolis. In the summer, she will work herself to death, usually only living 35-45 days.

As a new beekeeper, become familiar with the difference between the queen, the worker and the drone honeybee.

Next, we will examine how long it takes the drone, queen and worker to hatch and what they do in the hive.

LESSON THREE: Basic Beekeeping: Lesson Three: SUPERS

In lesson one, we took a look at the placement of a hive, the hive stand and the bottom board. Then, in our last lesson, we examined the deep hive body. These lessons can be viewed at anytime by simply scrolling down or back.

Today, let's take a look at the honey super. Some new beekeepers pronounce "super" incorrectly, calling it a "supper", like what you eat at night. It only has one "p", so it is pronounced the same as when you say, "super size it please." Since we have already discussed the two deep hive bodies, sometimes also called deep supers, today we are looking at the supers that are placed above the hive chamber, on top of the deep hive bodies. These are the supers we place on hives with the intent to remove whatever honey the bees store in these supers.

The width (16 1/4") and depth (19 7/8") will be the same for all boxes, including the honey super. The difference with the super is the height. There are three sizes used for honey supers. Beekeepers with strong backs sometimes use the deep size, 9 5/8" in height. A very common size is 6 5/8" in height. This is also called the Illinois super or a medium super. Then there is the small super. It is 5 5/8" tall.

Here's a picture of all three sizes, side by side. As you can see, the only difference is the height, which is very critical, because the greater the height, the larger the frame in height, and the larger the frame, the more honey it can hold. Therefore, a deep super full of honey can weight close to 90 pounds. A medium close to 60 pounds and a small 30-40 pounds.

There are some limitations when using the small super. There is no plastic foundation made for that size super. And, during a heavy nectar flow, you will have to super your hives more frequently. Also, it takes the same amount of time to uncap a small super as it does a deep or medium super. And, you get a lot less honey from a small super for the same amount of work. In an upcoming lesson, we'll discuss when and how to add supers. But for now, we are merely getting familiar with the hive components.

Some beekeepers use only 8 or 9 frames in a honey super, while others use all 10. It does make a difference. Obviously, if you use 9 frames, the comb on each frame will be drawn out wider by the bees, thus making much more space for the honey. It is true that a 9 frame super will usually contain more honey than a 10 frame because all nine frames are larger and can hold a total that exceeds 10 smaller drawn frames. Wider combs are easier to uncap because the comb exceeds past the wooden frame, allowing the uncapping knife to ride along the wooden frame as a guide and uncapping all cells. Sometimes if the frames are not pulled out past the wooden frame edge, the uncapping knife cannot uncap the recessed cells. In our hives some have a total of 9 and some have a total of 10 frames.

To help achieve the 9 frame spacing, a metal frame rest is often used. This frame rest is different from the plain frame rest in that it actually has notches to hold each of the 9 frames, giving a perfect spacing between all 9 frames. Be prepared for a few challenges with 9 frame spacers. First, you cannot slide your frames horizontally. They are held tightly in the notches. There are times when you need to slide your frames. But if you use 9 frame spacers, you will have to lift them straight up and out to move them. Secondly, the various gaps around the metal notching gets pretty gunked up with propolis, giving nice hiding places for wax moth or small hive beetle to hide and lay eggs. If you don't have problems with these pests, then it's not an issue. Notice the build up of propolis in this picture on a 9 frame spacer rail below.

We'll discuss supering a hive in a future lesson, but for now, you can place as many supers on your hive as your bees want to fill up. I typically have at least 2-3 supers on my hives during the Spring and Summer.

Our next lesson will be the two final pieces to the hive, the inner cover and the outer cover. See you then!

Please tell your friends about these online beekeeping lessons. Thanks! Remember, we are beekeepers manufacturing beekeeping equipment for beekeepers, and we currently operate hives located in East Central Illinois We know what you need and what you want! To place an order, feel free to call us at: 217-427-2678.

LESSON TWO: Basic Hive Components: The Deep Hive Body

Hello, we are David and Sheri Burns  at Long Lane Honey Bee Farms. We are committed to help you be a successful beekeeper. David is a certified master beekeeper. You may consider joining us for one of David's beekeeping classes. Click here to see our upcoming classes.

We are a family business, a turn key beekeeping operation. We manufacture the hives ourselves, hand built for you, and we provide you with the bees and all the equipment you need. We appreciate your business and you'll find we won't treat you like a customer, but like a friend. And when you purchase your equipment from us, we're here for you. You can call us with your questions. We won't leave you hanging wondering what to do. Click here to see our complete online beekeeping store.

In our previous lesson, we learned about the bottom board. As we work our way up from the bottom board, we are ready to examine the details of the next item, what is referred to as the deep hive body. It sometimes is called a deep super, hive body, a deep, and a hive chamber. Unless you live in the deep south where winters are very mild, you will need two deep hive bodies on your hive. This is where your bees will live and raise their young. This is where the queen will lay her eggs for new worker and drone bees. This is where the hive will store their own reserves of honey and pollen, their food source and future winter stores.

The standard and common size for a deep hive body is: 19 7/8" in length, 16 1/4" wide and 9 5/8" in height. A deep hive body is heavy when it is full of bees, honey and pollen. Therefore, some beekeepers choose to use the medium size super for hive bodies. The dimensions of the medium super is the same except for the height. It is 3" shorter, with a height of 6 5/8". If you choose to use medium supers for hive bodies, you will need to plan on using 3 supers if your winters are cold, and 1-2 supers if your winters are mild. We will assume your winters are cold and you plan to use two deep size hive bodies on your new hive.

Here's what a deep hive body looks like. The hive bodies we manufacture have rabbet joint corners. This reduces the "raw edge" exposed to the weather. We also use exterior glue on all corners and 8-hand driven 8 penny nails- per corner! We also place nice size handle holds on all four sides of our have bodies. Our deep hive bodies have been specifically designed to provide exact bee space needed in the deep hive chamber. We also insert metal frame rests, so that the individual frames rest upon metal rather than wood. This makes it easier to slide and remove the individual frames for inspection.

It is a common practice to use 10 individual frames per hive body. Using only 9 frames in the brood nest area will have aid in ventilation, but will decrease the amount of cells for eggs, pollen and honey storage, because instead of 10 frames there are only 9. Our frames are strong, have no knots and have full 3/8" side or end bars.  We have found the best frame and foundation combination is what is known as the top and bottom grooved frame. This means the frame has a groove in the top and in the bottom so that a piece of plasticell foundation can snap and lock securely and easily into the frame.

Wood frames with plasticell foundation works very nicely. The plasticell is a hard plastic about 1/8" thick and is coated with real beeswax. Before we place the foundation and frame in a hive, we spray sugar water (1 part water, 1 part sugar) onto the foundation to speed up the time it takes for the bees to draw out the comb. The foundation already has the comb cell pattern embossed on both sides, making the bees' job much easier.

Some beekeepers use real beeswax foundation and use wire to hold it onto the frame. This was the common practice for many years. However, today, plasticell is a much simplier foundation method and is as good in our opinion. Look at how nice this frame and plasticell foundation looks! Our bees love it.

Also the millimeter size of each cell in very important. The larger the size of the cell in the foundation, the larger the cell will be drawn out and the larger the bee will be. So, we use foundation that is specifically around 5 millimeters. This is an average, industry standard.

It is important to remember that where winters are cold, two deep hive bodies are needed so that plenty of honey, around 60 pounds, can be stored for the bees to enjoy throughout the winter months.

Tomorrow, we'll take a look at the next item, the honey super.

Lesson One In Beekeeping: Introduction To Placement & Hive Components(www.honeybeesonilne.com) 217-427-2678

Welcome To Your First Lesson In Beekeeping

We are David and Sheri Burns and we want to thank you for using our website to learn about beekeeping. Our main website is: http://www.honeybeesonline.com/ And here's our number, and we'd love to talk with you: 217-427-2678

We are happy that you are interested in beekeeping. Good for you! We think beekeeping is so fun. We need bees to pollinate our fruits, vegetables and crops. One out of three bits of food is pollinated by the honey bee. Not only do we need honey bees for pollination, but the honey is so sweet and has many proven health benefits.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a certified master beekeeper on the other end of the phone or email whenever you had a question. I started my new membership program and members are loving it. Beekeepers around the country have jumped on board. We still have room for more.

MEMBERS ONLY ACCESS TO:

-  1 New Instructional Videos Each Week.

-  My Personal Email and Cell Phone. You'll be a phone call away from a 
   certified master beekeeper.
   pictures of what concerns you and I'll advise you on the next step to take.

-  Picture/Video Evaluation Of Your Hive When Needed. Send me a video and/or

-  Weekly Tips Of What You Should Be Doing With Your Bees.

-  Your Choice Of 1(one) Item From Our Membership Gifts List

   Below: (After 6 months subscribed)

   - 1 Free class at our location per year (Does NOT Include Bee Institute)

   - 1 Free Winter-Bee-Kind

   - 1 Free Burns Bees Feeding System

Click here for more information.

We are a family business, a turn key beekeeping operation. We manufacture the hives ourselves, hand built for you, and we provide you with the bees and all the equipment you need. We appreciate your business and you'll find we won't treat you like a customer, but like a friend. And when you purchase your equipment from us, we're here for you. You can call us with your questions. We won't leave you hanging wondering what to do. Click here to see our complete online beekeeping store.

Before we get into the actual insect, let's talk about the current hive. Beekeepers, for the most part, still use hives designed by Rev. L. L. Langstroth in the early 1850s. Prior to this, beehives were kept in what looked like up-side-down baskets known as skeps. With skeps, the comb along with the total hive was destroyed when honey was harvested. Langstroth is credited with the removable-frame hive and with specific bee space. In other words, he invented the ability to remove the frames of comb and place them back in the hive without damage to the hive or comb. Langstroth also discovered what is known now as "bee space" and is generally thought to be between 1/4"- 3/8". Anything less, they will add their glue known as propolis. Anything greater than 3/8" they will build comb.

Almost all hive boxes today are modeled after Rev. L. L. Langstroth's design with slight modifications over the years.

A typical hive consists of the following pieces, starting at the bottom and working up:

The Hive Stand

The Bottom Board

The Hive Bodies

The Medium or Small Honey Supers

The Inner Cover
The Top Cover

Today, let me explain the hive stand and the bottom board. The hive stand makes up the very bottom of the hive. However, many beekeepers do not find the hive stand necessary. I personally do not bother with hive stands. They appear impressive because they have a ramp leading up to the entrance. And some people feel this helps the bees walk into the hive. However, I have watched the bees land, and they really don't land on the ramp nor walk up all that much. Bees prefer to fly, not climb. In the natural, they don't have ramps. I would recommend not using a hive stand to reduce cost and it makes it easier should you need to move your hive.

So, in my opinion the first piece of equipment you need is the bottom board. But before we place our bottom board, we have to consider where to place the hive, the direction the hive faces and how much to elevate the hive off the moist ground. I like to use wood pallets that I can obtain free from local factories. Usually one pallet is enough, but sometimes I'll place two pallets on top of each other to elevate the hive around 5-6" off the ground.

Then, I place my bottom board on the pallet. Pallets work well, but so do concrete blocks or any structure that will elevate the hive off the ground. You want the hive elevated for two reasons: To make it less stressful on your back and to raise the hive above the moisture in the ground. Bottom boards do draw moisture and so will be the first item to deteriorate over time. So, keeping the bottom board dry will help then last longer. Plus, it also means less moisture in the hive. Elevating the hive makes it easier on your back. But, do remember that eventually you'll have lots of supers, and if you elevate the first hive body to a comfortable range, you may soon find you need a ladder when you place 5 or 6 supers on. 5-6" is a good range of elevation.

Which direction? Which direction should the hive face. It really doesn't matter. We typically try to avoid the North so that cold winter wind will not blow into the front. And we typically try to face the hive Easterly so that the early morning sunrise will get the bees out working faster.

Shade or Sun? AVOID SHADE!! Get your hive in total sunlight. This is extremely important. They can keep the hive cool. Don't worry about the heat. Shade can attract pests such as Small Hive Beetle, ants and wax moths. Place the hive in direct sunlight. If you cannot avoid the shade, try to place the hive where it will receive the most sunlight.

Let's talk about bottom boards. There are many different variation of bottom boards. In the past there was only a standard solid bottom board. Now, with the introduction of mites, we have found that screen bottom boards help reduce mite populations and the screen also improves overall hive ventilation. A screen bottom board is part of what is known as IPM: Integrated Pest Management.

There are many different types of screen bottom boards. Some are simple and some have various slots and grooves to insert sticky boards or winter panels. Get the simple screen bottom board! If you want to slide in a white board or sticky board to count your mites, you can place it under the screen. And you can make your own sticky board using vasoline. If you need to restrict the air flow when applying a medication, you can slide in a small piece of cardboard or metal.

We have put much time in designing our bottom board manufacturing to produce a simple, yet very effect screen bottom board. Our bottom boards come completely assembled with an entrance reducer cleat. Our bottom boards are designed for a 3/4" opening in the front of the hive. However, with a slight modification, the bottom board can be flipped over and a smaller opening can be used. It is not advised and if reversed, an additional piece must be added to the back of the bottom board.

Sometimes new beekeepers ask which way the bottom board goes. When the bottom board is in the correct position, the screen is up. You can see the staples going into the screen. Also, the top of the bottom board has three edges.

Our bottom boards are made very strong, routed in such a way to lock sections together and are glued with exterior glue.

Finally, the bottom board's entrance is determined by the placement of what is called the entrance reducer cleat. It is a 3/4" x 3/4" piece of wood with two different sized openings. The cleat can be turned so that only one of the openings is used at a time.

In this picture, you can see the smallest setting of the entrance cleat. When would you use this small setting? 1) When installing your package of bees. They can still come and go, but it keeps them from wanting to fly away until they nest. 2) In the winter, when you are trying to keep mice out of your hive. 3) When the hive is being robbed by another hive. There is less entrance to protect.

The next picture shows the larger opening on the entrance cleat. When would you use this setting? Anytime you need a larger opening, but don't want to open it up all the way. This could also be used for all three reasons above.

Though the pictures shows the opening facing down, please remember to have the opening facing UP! When bees die during the winter, if the opening is down, then dead bees will fill up the opening. However, if the opening is facing up the bees can still fly out over the dead bees which you can clean out later on a warm day if the bees do not clean things up first.

Once your hive is more than a few weeks old and is not being robbed and the weather is warm the entrance cleat should be removed and stored in a place where you can easily find it for future needs.

This ends lesson one. You've learned about hive location, placement and the bottom board. In our next lesson we'll discuss the next section of the hive, the deep hive body.

Now that you are considering beekeeping, we invite you to purchase all your equipment and bees from Long Lane Honey Bee Farms. We are a hard working family business located in central Illinois. I am an EAS certified master beekeeper and we are here to help. We recommend you start with two hives, so click here to see our two hive offer.

Thank you!

Interested In Becoming A Beekeeper?

So You Think You May Want To Keep Bees?

When I was growing up in the ‘60s, I remember one of the theme songs for Coca-Cola had a line that said, “Apple tree and honey bees..” In the ‘60s I remember honeybees! I stepped on my fair share and got stung. It seemed there were more bees then than there are now. All I knew about honeybees was that you have to pull the stinger our and it hurt! But oh did I ever love honey. I would beg my mom to buy comb honey because I loved to chew the wax and suck the honey out of the comb. I would take my fork and reach way down into the jar and spear a big chunk of comb filled with dripping honey and cram it in my mouth. What a treat! Little did I know that some twenty years later, I would be producing my own comb honey from my own beehive!

When I lived in Ohio, a friend introduced me into keeping bees. He helped me take my first hive out of a fallen tree. It was great. I fell in love with it and it has been in my blood ever since.

Let me say right up front that you don’t have to get stung. That may sound impossible, but it’s true. You can wear protective gear and learn how to handle bees and rarely get stung. On hot summer days, I sometimes work my bees without a shirt, just a hat and veil. I’ve learned how to read the bees, how to handle them and how to select the best day to work them when their temperament is the best. Besides beestings aren’t all that bad.

You may want to keep bees just for some honey for your family to enjoy. Or perhaps you need bees to pollinate your fruit trees, garden or crops. Or maybe you’ve decided to start your own beekeeping business. I do all three, and all three are very enjoyable.

Over the next few weeks, I'll introduce you to beekeeping. Then, maybe by the first of the year (or for Christmas) you'll convince someone to get you a new hive for this coming Spring. For now, rest assured that you CAN be a beekeeper!

David

I Can't Figure Out Why Everyone's Not A Beekeeper!

For the life of me, I can't figure out why everyone doesn't keep bees. It is a blast! I suppose bees have been falsely portrayed as "killler bees" taking over homes and whole cities. That's Hollywood, not reality. Anyone can keep bees. It's easy. As you continue keeping bees over the years, you learn more and more.



Most beekeepers find their bees to be very calm and workable. About a month ago, I worked about 20 of our hives with no shirt on. Not one sting. Sometimes, I just sit by my hives, and watch the bees work, flying in and out. It's therapeutic. Here's what a few hives looked like this afternoon.

Honeybees are extremely profitable, with one hive alone making nearly $500 per year. Not to mention what hives earn in pollination. My long range goal is to operate 4,000 hives, raise and sell queens and packaged bees. I am currently attempting to breed a special Illinois survival stock queen. Wouldn't it be something to able to breed a queen that is resistant toward the cause(s) of CCD! Like Thomas Edison, I've eliminated a lot of mistakes in queen rearing in 2007. I'll be that much ahead for 2008.

To help finance the increase in the number of our hives we manufacture beehive wooden ware.  We also provide beekeeping equipment such as electrical hot uncapping knives, micron honey filters, protective clothing, smokers, hive tools, fume boards and fume and the whole works!!



Not only do we sell honey, but we also melt and mold our own beeswax. People love to buy pure beeswax. It smells so good and can be used for making candles, lotion, lip balm, and lubricating bows or sticky drawers--just to name a few of its many uses. After processing the honey supers, we have a lot of wax cappings left over. These cappings make the finest, and newest beeswax. They are washed thoroughly to remove any honey from the wax. We repeat this wash cycle several times.

Then, we melt our wax the old fashion way. We simply melt it in a large pan on the family's grill. Here's how we get our grill going good to melt our wax. Seems like a few steaks and some chicken gets the fire good and ready to melt the wax. Of course, the fire is only ready about the time I have finished my steak dinner. After all, there's no need to let all that good charcoal go to waste, right! Who needs to buy an expensive wax melter when you can have such a good excuse for eating steak!




After the wax melts, I allow the more solid matter within the wax to sink to the bottom of the pan. Then, I pour it into another container that has a cloth filter on the top. From this container, I am now ready to pour the wax into my various shaped molds. It hardens very fast, then it pops out real easy. It is then wrapped and sold, locally or through our Internet stores.

So you can see why I ask, "Why doesn't everyone keep bees?"

What Are Wax Moths & Why Do They Bother Hives?

ADVANCE BEEKEEPING COURSE JUNE 11, 2014 9am-3pm Central Illinois!!

Have you considered the importance of taking our one day Advance Beekeeping Course?  I'll be joined by my good friend and fellow certified master beekeeper Jon Zawislak. Jon and I have written a book on queen rearing and we recently authored a two part articled published in the American Bee Journal on the difference between Northern and Southern bees. Jon and I will be teaching our Advance Beekeeping course June 11, 2014 here in Fairmount, Illinois and we have around 6 seats available. You don't want to miss this opportunity to be around me and Jon and learn about bees for a whole day. Click here for more information.

When I moved from Ohio to Illinois in 1995, I brought my bees with me. They did well for a while, but then I noticed they were weakening. Eventually, the hive was filled with wax moths. They make a mess! They spin their webbing throughout the hive and the larvae burrow into wood and comb. Left untreated, the hive will abscond. Beekeepers like to use the word abscond. It is just a fancy word for saying "the bees left".

Wax worms make moths, specifically called Galleria mellonella L. or Greater Wax Moth. Or there is the Lesser Wax moth Achroia Grisella which is probably more common.

They usually only take over weak hives, hives that are stressed or have gone queenless or have mites really bad. As a general rule, strong hives are the best defense against wax moth. If you have wax moths, you need to see if you can find out why the hive became weak enough for the wax moths to take over. Some suggest that most hives have a few inside, but they are kept in check.

Just like we keep bees, some folks actually raise wax worms and even buy starter kits. Fishermen use them for bait, and some people even eat them for protein. Diana Sammataro and Alphonse Avitabile, in their popular book, THE BEEKEEPER'S HANDBOOK, have a whole section on wax worm rearing (appendix H).

What does a beekeeper do when wax moths are out of control? Freezing frames works well. A deep freeze will kill all stages of the wax moth, including the eggs. Here is the formula: 4.5 hours at 20 degrees F, 3 hours at 10 degrees F, 2 hours at 5 degrees F. Measure your deep freezer temp and decide how long.

Next, crowd the bees by removing unused frames and boxes and freeze those frames. If possible, and depending on the size of the hive, shake all the bees into one deep brood box with comb, then freeze the beeless and broodless frames. If the amount of bees is too large to fit into a single hive body, shake them into a deep and medium super. Crowding the bees will cause them to chase out the moths and reduce the empty space for moths to hide. Reduce the crowding after frames have been frozen by putting the clean frames back in the hive.

You may have to freeze your hive bodies/super bodies too as the moths do attach eggs in cracks in the wood. Blowing smoke into the hive with a smoker, two or three times a day, will stir up the bees and help run out pests too. Keep the hive in solid sunlight...no shade.Strong hives, sunlight, freeze comb, crowd the bees and smoke 'em. A non-chemical approach to gettng rid of wax moths!

Bees Are Doing What Bees Do In September

Even though it is September, we continue to sell hives and supplies! Our shop is humming to the sound of saws, routers and staple guns. The bees are doing what bees do in September. They seem to know that winter is imminent. They are trying to build up their final honey stores before the first hard frost that will kill the flowers and end the nectar flow.

Here are some bees on our hyssop. It's a beautiful plant and the bees love it! In the morning, the bees gather pollen from ragweed. Ragweed is of the genus Ambrosia and has small, greenish, unisexual flower heads. It grows at the ends of the corn fields around our house. It produces an abundance of pollen. Ragweed pollen in the air is one of the chief causes of hay fever. However, eating local honey with traces of flower pollen such as ragweed can help build your immunity up against these types of allergies.

I notice that early in the morning, the ragweed sounds like a swarm, it is so full of bees. Watch this short video and see if you can see two female workers coming in with yellow ragweed pollen in the pouches on their back legs.

I have crossed the halfway mark in the honey room on dry wall completion. It is looking good.

A Clean Honey Room

A clean honey room is not only essential, but difficult. Honey is sticky and messy. One drop can be tracked all through the room. Honey is hard to clean up. Hot water is essential! Once we got our equipment up and running, we began working on our room. Since the building was already build, I simply had to add insulation, wiring and plumbing. Okay I went a little further and added high speed Internet and satellite TV. Once the insulation, wiring and most of the plumbing was complete I began hanging the dry wall. Hanging is the easy part. Mudding, taping, sanding, mudding, taping, sanding...that's the tedious and hard part for me.

The main part of my honey room measures 12' x 14' but it also has a 4' x 5' section where one door takes you to our honey display room, and the other door takes you to our hive manufacturing area. But, you'd be surprise how little space is need to house a lot of honey processing equipment. I contacted our state health department and obtained their guidelines in what they want to see in a honey room.

I purchased a high powered 6' fluorescent fixture and also bought the plastic bulb covers. This is more than enough light for the room.

Next it was time to add the honey pump and the 1 1/2" pvc to carry the honey.

First, I had to rebuild the pump. It mean taking the pump apart several times, cleaning it, replacing O rings and making sure it worked. Roper, the manufacturer of the pump, has an excellent support staff that helped me configure my pump for my operation. My pump is a Roper 2835P. The P stands for packing. I also bought new packing for the pump. The pump is powered by a pulley from a 3/4 horse motor. This motor was in good shape, though I had to re-wire it to reverse the motor rotation.

Once the pump was ready, we simply started plumbing the pipe from the catch tank beneath our uncapper up to our 500 gallon storage tank. As you can see in the pictures, the line is angled so that we don't waste honey sitting in the line. Sometimes, we need every drop. So, by sloping the line, we can easily drain the honey from the lines and wash the lines out if needed.

We added clean-outs to drain and clean the lines.

Beekeeping In September

There is a lot of work to be done in the month of September. Over the last few weeks, we have been sprinkling powdered sugar in the hives. The bees become covered with this dusty sugar, and so in an effort to clean themselves up, they also clean off the mites. Mites to a bee are like fleas on a dog. Only the mites do more damage to the overall health of a hive if they get out of control. There is research being conducted that may suggest that mites contribute to the cause of CCD, Colony Collapse Disorder. So, to keep them under control, we dust our hives with powdered sugar.

The Procedure We Use To Dust For Mites

Sometimes we grind our own powdered sugar. This can be accomplished either in a coffee grinder or a blender. You can only grind a small amount at a time, so we find it easier to go to the local grocery store and buy the powdered sugar. Even though it contains some corn starch, this small amount isn't suppose to bother the bees.

It is important to pour at least 1 cup of powdered sugar over the top of the frames of each hive body full of bees. Then, we use a bee brush or our gloves to sweep the sugar down between the frames. Some people dust each side of the individual frames, but I don't like putting sugar down into the cells that are uncapped. 1 cup per hive body is plenty, though some people use two cups.

If you noticed in the picture above, we've made a framed screen so that we can lay the screen onto the top of a hive body, then pour sugar onto the screen. This holds the bees down while we spread the powdered sugar around. Then we remove the screen and sweep the remaining sugar down between the frames. We then add the next hive body on top and repeat the process.

Speaking of repeating the process, this "sugar drop" has to be repeated on exact day, in three consecutive weeks. In other words, for three Monday in row, or three Saturdays in a row...whatever day you did the first drop. This consecutive treatment allows you to break the mite cycle and kill those which may have been in the sealed brood chambers.

Some good advice is to use LOTS OF SMOKE! Especially if the weather is adverse or your bees are adverse!

Tomorrow, we'll go inside the honey room and show the progress we've made here, and continue the work, now that the honey production is over for the year.