Backyard Beekeeping – Gearing Up

Whether you live in an apartment or a house, it’s fun and easy to keep bees. Spring is the perfect time to get started! Whether you get the bees from a neighbor, a bee breeder, or catch a wild swarm, you’ll first need to get the equipment to keep them with. A hive and basic beekeeper’s gear can cost as little as a few hundred dollars to as much as several thousand depending on how many extra gadgets and other accessories you’ll want. But whether you’re raising bees for profit or pleasure (or both!), the rewards of beekeeping make this investment worthwhile. Even if you live in an apartment or condo you can keep bees (assuming it doesn’t break building code or lease agreement): there are specialized hives (or you can modify a standard one yourself) that can be kept inside so that the bees can only exit their hive through a tunnel to the outdoors, not into your home.

The Hive
Every hive has several basic parts, and there are many more optional features that can be obtained or created. Bee hives can be painted or unpainted. If painted, it is better to not paint the inside, and does not have to be white. Painted wood does not breathe as well, and withstands the elements better than unpainted wood. This can be an advantage in dry, harsh environments, but can be a disadvantage in moister climates. We never paint our hives because it is unnecessary (even in our dry desert air) and the bees hate paint.
Hives can be bought pre-assembled or you can save money and assemble them yourself.

The basics:
Hive stand – this is is the bottom of the hive, upon which sits the bottom board.

Bottom board – this is the “floor” of the hive. It can be solid or screened. Screens improve ventilation and help control mites, but can be a disadvantage in cold weather.

Hive body – this consists of two supers (though they are not called that when used here, they are the same equipment) with frames and foundation. This is the part of the hive where the queen lives and the brood is raised.

Queen Excluder – this is a screen that is designed to have large enough openings for the worker bees to pass through it but too small for the large-bodied queen to pass through it. This keeps the queen from leaving the hive body, so that she cannot lay eggs in the supers above.

Supers – these boxes are of the same construction as those of the hive body, but are called supers because they are the “extra” boxes that are placed on top for the bees to store honey in. These are filled with frames ane foundation from which honey will be harvested. The supers go above the queen excluder, so that the queen does not lay eggs where honey will later be harvested. Supers come in three depths. The smaller the depth, the less honey it will hold but the lighter it will be to lift off for harvesting. Smaller supers – whether used in hive bodies or for production – are easier for the bees to work, allowing easier temperature regulation, humidity control, disease and predator defense, etc. A shallow super (5 ¾” deep) weighs about 40 lbs when filled with honey, a medium super (6 5/8” deep) weighs about 60 lbs when filled, and a deep super (sometimes called a standard super, 9 5/8” deep) weighs about 80 lbs when filled.
Frames – The frames are holders for the foundation, and are designed to rest in the supers or hive body and be easily removed for maintenance and harvesting.

Foundation – This is the beeswax sheet from which the bees build their combs and in which they store their honey and raise their brood. Foundations come in many designs for many purposes. These include foundations with plastic support, wire support, or no support; and special shapes like circles for shaped comb honey. Foundation is not necessary, but does help the bees be more efficient with their hive’s space and with their supplies of wax.

Entrance cleat – This is a small piece of wood that has various size holes in it (or several pieces, each with a different size hole) that goes in front of the bee’s entrance. It allows the bees a larger or smaller doorway to their hive. Larger doorways are good for hot weather at the peak of bee activity, when many bees are trying to get in and out of the hive. However, large doorways are more difficult for the bees to defend. Small doorways are best in cold weather so that less heat escapes the hive, or when the bees need help defending their hive against invaders.

Feeders/waterers – there are many styles of feeders and waterers. They should be accessible to bees so that they don’t have to fly far from their hive (or not leave it at all, especially if it’s cold out), but don’t drown in it. There are top feeders, which sit on top of the uppermost super, and are designed so that the bees can eat without leaving the hive, feeders that can be slid into the hive entrance, and feeders that go outside the hive. Feeders are easy to make, too.

Hive top – This is the “roof” of the hive. It can be plain wood, wood with metal (to protect against elements, but can get hot in the sun), or decorative.

The Accessories:
Bee escape board – this board has a whole with a screen in it, that is designed so that bees can only pass through it in one direction. It is most commonly used when preparing to harvest a super, but can be used at other times such as hiving.

Slatted rack – this goes board goes on the hive bottom board to increase air circulation and prevent cold drafts from chilling the front of the hive.

Pollen trap – use this if you want to collect pollen instead of honey.

Propolis trap – use this if you want to collect more propolis that would usually be available at harvest.

Frame spacers – these allow you to evenly space the frames at a wider distance than is typical, with the purpose of obtaining a greater honey harvest.

Mouse guard – this keeps mice from getting in your hive.

Bee House – this is a tool we invented at Coastalfields, and houses the hives against extremes of weather and wind. Bees love to make their homes in abandoned human structures, so we built one just for them and put nice hives inside. They love it. More about this later.

General Purpose Tools
Hive tool – Hive tools are essentially specialized combination crowbars and scrapers. They are used for many tasks, and especially for prying frames out of supers and hive bodies for inspection and harvest, and for scraping the frames for cleaning.

Smoker and smoker fuel – Smokers are used for many reasons whenever you need to work in the hive or catch a swarm. Bees will move away from smoke, and can be used to drive bees either out of a super when you need to take that super, or into a hive when retrieving a swarm. Smoke also masks the smell of the beekeeper, and can be used to trick the bees when handling them: bees recognize people by their smell, and can associate a person’s regular smell with one sort of activity (such as a non-threatening activity) and the smoker smell with another sort of activity (such as “stealing” their honey). Thus, if you smoke the bees when they would otherwise become aggressive to defend their hive, they will be both distracted by the smoke and will not realize that you’re the same person when you approach them otherwise.

Smoker fuel can be any number of materials, but should be something that will not flavor the honey and is safe for both bees and beekeeper to inhale. Most popular is cotton, but burlap can also be used. New products are now on the market that replace smoke and smokers with “liquid smoke” – not the stuff used for barbequing – which is supposed to work like smoke but is sprayed with a squirt bottle.

Bee brush – This is a soft brush that is used to brush bees off of frames, into hives, or wherever else they need moved, without hurting them.

Clothing
Many beekeepers work without any safety clothing or gloves at all. If your bees are calm, you have an immunity to bee stings, or just prefer working with bees au natural, bee clothing may be of little to no use. Also, working without gloves will make it easier to feel a bee when you put your finger on it before you press it too hard, allowing you to release the pressure before the bee is hurt or stings you. This requires sensitive fingers and quick reflexes, but is preferred by many beekeepers. Whatever bee clothing you decide to wear, never wear wool, sheepskin leather or black when working with bees – they hate sheep, and the color black!
It is also a good precaution to smile while you work. Bees can smell and are disturbed by the smells humans make when they fear, worry, hate, saddened or are otherwise disgruntled. Bee happy when working with your bees, or else you will bee stung. Bees communicate through smell and touch primarily, visually and audibly secondarily.

Veils – these come in different sizes and styles. The smallest and most basic is one that will fit on a baseball cap and folds up small to keep in a pocket. Larger ones are wired to stand out away from your face.

Bee suits – these come in different styles and vary on the amount of a person’s body that would be covered. They cover more than just a veil. We just use a bug baffler mosquito net shirt, which is excellent because it keeps off the bees AND the mosquitoes!

Gloves – while regular leather gloves often work fine for beekeeping, many specialized gloves are available. These usually extend up to the elbow. Make sure to tuck them into your shirt or you’ll get a bee up your glove! (And wear long pants to tuck your socks into!)

Topics: bees , bee-keeping , veils , honey