Beekeeping » Build It Yourself Plans for Building Hives, Frames and More This popular section of Beesource.com offers downloadable “build-it-yourself” plans in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. You will be able to open PDF files after installing the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software, which is a reliable product, widely used, and available free for Windows or Macintosh operating systems. With this powerful software, you can view and print a PDF file at any resolution to any home printer, at an office center such as Kinko’s, or at a commercial offset or digital printing company. You will need Acrobat Reader version 4.0 or higher to open these files. A Note About Copyrights Beesource.com is happy to share our knowledge and experience and make these resources available free of charge. Beebase - Beekeeping information resource for Beekeepers BeeBase is the Fera National Bee Unit website. It is designed for beekeepers and supports Defra, WAG and Scotland's Bee Health Programmes and the Healthy Bees Plan, which set out to protect and sustain our valuable national bee stocks. Our website provides a wide range of free information for beekeepers, to help keep their honey bees healthy and productive. We hope both new and experienced beekeepers will find this an extremely useful resource and sign up to BeeBase. Please provide feedback <div style='display: inline'>[<em>You must enable JavaScript to see this email address</em>]</div> on what you think and what you'd like to see on the site. Please play your part and help us by signing up to BeeBase here. April 2014 - Latest Job Vacancies at Fera If you are interested in working for the National Bee Unit or for The Food and Environment Research Agency, please click here to view the latest vacancies. Staffing over the Festive Period Read more... Starvation Warning.
Top Bar Hive Design Plans - Learning Beekeeping Top Bar Hive Design Plans Top Bar Hives are Beautiful in Simplicity They are the minimum needed for a movable comb hive. Podcast: Play in new window | Download (1.6MB) Top Bars in Texas need a little design change. As for designs… The design I like best is the one from Les Crowder Top Bar Hive Design / Plans I did modify it a bit. The video on how to make them is . . . Be sure to watch my video on how to make your top bars, themselves. and . Bees - online, for all your beekeeping supplies Natural Substances For Mite Control In Honey Bees The use of natural oils and other substances in the pursuit of mite control in honey bee colonies. This document mainly covers the calibration of LD 50 doses of essential oils with respect to honey bees. Natural or "essential" oils are produced by plants in order to repel predatory insects or to render the plant in some way toxic to the insect if ingested. Essential oils have been shown to have antimicrobial, antifungal, insecticidal and miticidal effects on various pathogens and pests under both laboratory and field conditions. Essential oils have been used for treating honey bee afflictions, including infestations of parasitic mites (varroa and Acarine (tracheal) mites). They do cause contamination of wax and honey, but the levels are minimal. The terms 'slow' and 'fast' are used here to indicate the difference between passive fumigation by a bottle with a wick (or a felt pad in a honey jar lid) and the burning of pungent leaves in a smoker or delivering an aerosol of the oil compound.
Basic Beekeeping Warre Bee Hive Construction Guide - The Bee Space Welcome to the Warre Hive Construction Guide brought to you by The Bee Space. In this guide you will learn how to build a complete Warre beehive. A Warre (pronounced war-ray) hive is a vertical or supered top bar hive that is simple to build and easy to use. Description The Warre hive is smaller than a regular ten frame Langstroth hive so it consumes less energy and resources than a regular hive. Disclaimer Before we begin, I need you to understand that building a Warre Hive involves potentially dangerous activities such as using hammers and saws. Outline Let’s begin with an outline of the Warre Hive Construction Guide. As I post each section, I will place a quick link in the right sidebar so it is easy for you to find. Go on to the Tool List → Like this: Like Loading...
Recommended Books For A New Beekeeper There is an old saying: if you ask five beekeepers what they think about something, you'll get six answers! Beekeeping is an art and a science, and there are countless ways to approach it. There seem to be equally many books on the subject. So where's a novice to start? When I first became interested in bees, I took a small group class. But its hard to know what you’re getting into after just one trip to the apiary, so reading is a great way to round out your knowledge. When choosing a beekeeping book, it’s helpful to consider what you hope to achieve with your bees. With those thoughts buzzing in your brain, take a look at our top five book recommendations for novice beekeepers! Beekeeping for Dummies by Howland Blackiston is a great no-nonsense primer and a handy reference for any backyard beekeeper. Natural Beekeeping: Organic Approaches to Modern Apiculture, 2nd Edition by Ross Conrad. Top-Bar Beekeeping: Organic Practices for Honeybee Health by Les Crowder and Heather Harrell.
Queen Of The Sun: A Must-See Bee Documentary - Honeybees & Beekeeping A new documentary about disappearing bees, Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us?, examines the global bee crisis through the eyes of beekeepers, scientists, farmers and philosophers. According to its website, the film unveils 10,000 years of beekeeping and highlights the impact of industrial agriculture on the relationship between humans and bees. From the makers of The Real Dirt on Farmer John, the film features Michael Pollan, Vandana Shiva, and Gunther Hauk as well as beekeepers from around the world who keep bees in natural and holistic ways. Instead of focusing on commercial beekeepers, the filmmakers say the documentary emphasizes the biodynamic and organic communities who have differing opinions from many commercial beekeepers about the causes and solutions of colony collapse disorder, the global phenomenon where honeybee colonies vanish from their hives. Wild and managed honeybee populations have been in decline for the last 30 years, according to the USDA.
Dealing With Winter Honeybee Withdrawal - Homesteading and Livestock It’s that time of year again. When the bustle of the holiday season dies down, I start to really miss going out and working in my beehives. So, what to do when honeybee withdrawal sets in? Winter Beekeeping Preparations Bundle up and visit the hives in spite of the cold! Start getting ready for spring. Try out some beehive related crafts. ot of fun, and not very hard. Homemade beauty products made from beeswax are another fun craft to try. If you enjoy wine, you may also want to try out mead making. I plan on writing future blogs that will explore some of these ideas in more depth. Best Beekeeping Books for Winter Reading Another idea is to catch up on your beekeeping related reading! There are also many books out there that are just plain entertaining! The Beekeeper’s Lament – Hannah Nordhaus. Confessions of a Bad Beekeeper – Bill Turnbull. Bees Don’t Get Arthritis – Fred Malone. Honeybee: Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper – C. Following the Bloom – Douglas Whynot.
5 Gal. Bucket Beekeeping Equipment Keeping honeybees is turning into a popular cottage industry. And what’s the beekeepers best friend? Here’s a hint: it’s also the pig and chicken keeper’s best friend, it’s plastic, and it’s 5 gallons in size. Honey Bee Waterer Keeping insects hydrated isn’t straightforward. This great little PVC pipe invention is designed to fit a 5 gallon bucket. Many bee keepers will feed cheap sugar to their bees to help them survive the winter. Honey Extractor This is a triple 5 gallon bucket Honey Extractor designed to separate honey comb from that sweet sugary gold. Comb is placed in the top bucket where it is spun rapidly, allowing honey to settle to the bottom 5 gallon bucket. Centrifugal honey extractors like this are quite common, but this ones’ special because it’s made out cheap, accessible, 5 gallon buckets. Make sure the buckets are food grade and you can store the honey right in the bucket. Full plans for the honey extractor are found at www.honeyspinner.com. Bee Hive Top Bar Hive Langstroth Hive
How Do You Prevent Honey From Crystallizing? Tess, I can not remember how my mother, who was born in 1922, kept raw honey from sugaring (crystallizing). Can someone help? A Reader Answer: Although there are external factors such as storage conditions, temperature, relative humidity and the type of container that may influence the tendency of honey to crystallize; sometimes the crystallization process is out of our control. The tendency of honey to crystallize depends primarily on its glucose content and moisture level. How to Avoid Honey Crystallization 1. Cool temperatures [below 50°F (10°C)] are ideal for preventing crystallization.Moderate temperatures [50-70°F (10-21°C)] generally encourage crystallization.Warm temperatures [70-81°F (21-27°C)] discourage crystallization but degrade the honey.Very warm temperatures [over 81°F (27°C)] prevent crystallization but encourage spoilage by fermentation as well as degrading the honey. (Source) Here is a great article for more information on honey and long term storage. Tess Google+
Honey Extractor Got Bee's? I knew this day would come. One day all those bees would make some honey then I would have to make a honey extractor-anator and extract all the honey in the tri-state area. After all what could go wrong? I have been a city bee keeper for two years now and this will be my first harvest. I couldn't afford a commercial honey extractor and borrowing the local clubs extractor seemed like a lot of work planning ahead and rushing to go get it extract and then return. This project went together by solving one problem at a time in sort of a hap hazard way and getting a bit of luck every know and then. The theory behind the extractor is to spin the frames of honey flinging the honey out and leaving the wax intact. I noticed that a frame from my hive fit in a food grade bucket that i had for making beer.