A prudent beekeeper will say that beekeeping is not dangerous, but a person who remembers a painful bee sting would probably disagree. The best answer to this question is "it depends." With careful attention to the hive and some basic knowledge of bee biology, beekeeping is not dangerous. The behavior of bees is relatively predictable; with experience, a beekeeper can safely manage the colony and keep the bees calm.
Using a smoker to puff cool smoke onto the colony before it is opened is one important step in good beekeeping. In addition to using smoke, the colony will be calmer and easier to handle if the beekeeper wears light-colored clothing and moves carefully when working around the colony. Good weather conditions, ample nectar sources, plenty of food stored in reserve in the hive, and calm bees with good genetics are other key factors that help maintain safe conditions.
The beekeeper's behavior is of prime importance, and carelessness on the part of the beekeeper can elicit an aggressive response from the bees. The likelihood of arousing the bees and getting stung is increased by wearing dark-colored clothing or strong perfumes near the nest, moving quickly around the bees, or opening a colony during rain. Conditions that can destabilize a colony are a shortage of food, the proximity of pesticides or other chemicals, too much or too little water (water stress), disease, and overcrowding.
In the United States, the standard hive used by beekeepers is called a Langstroth hive, named after the person who discovered the "bee space" - the size of the space that the bees prefer between combs. An important feature of the Langstroth colony is its modularity, which means that the basic features of the colony are exchangeable, replaceable, moveable, and expandable. Essentially, the hive is a solid wooden box measuring about 16 by 20 inches long (or about 40 by 51 centimeters), and it contains ten wooden frames in which the bees build their combs.
The frames hang much like hanging file folders in a file cabinet, and the depth of the box can vary from almost 6 to over 9 inches (or about 15 to 23 centimeters). Each frame is typically supplied with a vertical sheet of beeswax or beeswax-coated plastic, called foundation, which provides structure and support for the wax.
In the wild, European honey bees normally build vertical sheets of wax to use for brood rearing and food storage; the bees in managed colonies build their wax over the foundation template, which becomes the bottom of the honeycomb that they build. Beekeepers call this process building out or drawing out the foundation. The wooden frames with a drawn-out foundation in place become very stable, a characteristic useful to efficient honey harvesting.
A single Langstroth box is called a "hive body" - a wellmanaged beehive typically has one or two hive bodies where the bees rear the brood and then one or two "supers" for honey storage. Brood rearing occurs on the lower tiers of the colony, while the upper tiers serve as the pantry. The bees will also store pollen in the form of bee bread and some honey around the brood nest areas. A beekeeper doesn't need to do anything to tell the bees where to rear brood or store honey - they naturally organize their colonies in this way.
A wooden inner cover is set on top of the supers. The inner cover is usually made of wood and fits snugly over the Langstroth box. One surface is flat, and the other has a one-half-inch outer edge. An inner cover is typically vented with either a small notch in the wooden edge or a round or oval-shaped hole in the center or both. The flat side of the inner cover is placed against the top super with very little space between it and the top bars of the frames, and this prevents the bees from building comb to fill in the gap between the inner cover and the top super.
For the winter, when the bees hunker down in the hive, the inner cover is flipped upside down and the small lift around the outer edge creates an airspace that promotes air circulation and the evaporation of moisture that may accumulate. Without this space during the winter, the water in the hive could freeze and create unmanageable conditions for the bees.
Over the inner cover, an outer cover is placed over the entire top of the colony. Often made of wood covered in sheet metal or plastic, the outer cover is designed to protect the top of the hive from rain, snow, and wind. Lightweight outer covers are not typically used in locations with cold winters. The stack of supers is set on a wooden bottom board that serves as the base of the hive, and the entire structure is usually set on a layer of cinderblocks or on a wooden stand or pallet. Keeping the beehive off the ground promotes good ventilation and prevents the colony from becoming waterlogged during rains.
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08192010
1. What is special about bees living in colonies
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