Bees are easily affected by pests and diseases both in young and adult stages, and there are two main parasitic mites that like to infect bee colonies. These parasitic mites are largely responsible for huge annual losses in bee counts, honey production and general costs associated with bee farming.

Prevention is better than cure so a good beekeeper must learn to recognise healthy brood anything less must be cause for suspicion. In most cases infections are not apparent until the colony becomes stressed so try to avoid stress to the bees and unhygienic practices.

There’s the Sacbrood disease, this is a virus disease that prevents larvae from populating once there’re sealed in their cells and they die. Larvae killed by sacbrood become fluid filled sacs, they turn from pearly white color to pale yellow also their heads are curled up as the body dries to a dark brown scale. Affected larvae are removed by adult bees and sometimes they become infected if they feed on contaminated pollen or if they ingest infected larval body fluids.

The Chalk Brood disease, predominantly caused by the fungus ascophaera apis. It’s usually apparent in the spring season and it is common with expanding colonies. It’s still not understood what causes it but it could be attributed to high levels of CO2 in the brood nest whenever the colony is not properly ventilated and pollen deficiency could be another contributing factor. In cases whereby it found that it’s generic the only cure is to re-queen. Larvae will ingest the fungal spores and their gut becomes germinated, the strands of this fungus invade the larval tissue and the larva dies soon after the cells have been capped.

Dead larva will appear chalky white often with a yellow centre; they are loose and hard in the cells. These are removed by house bees and discarded on the floor outside the hive, often they can be mistaken for discarded mouldy pollen which has a colored layer. In cases of this infection sterilise the combs using acetic acid.

The American Foul Brood is another disease which is often caused by spore forming bacterium larvae. They contaminate the brood food and develop into a bacterium that penetrates the gut wall and then multiply within the larval tissues. Larval die from blood poisoning soon after the cell is sealed, the dead larval is removed by house bees and the comb will have a pepper box appearance also the appearance of the capping will be moist, sunken and perforated. To diagnose your hive this disease you can use the ropiness test. Insert a match stick into the suspect cell, twist it slowly and remove it…should you detect brown mucus thread in the larval remains that a clear indication of the presence of AFB disease.

The European Foul Brood is a disease often caused by bacterium Melissococcus Plutonius whereby this bacteria feeds on food that’s already in the larval gut starving the larval to death and infected larval usually die before the cell is sealed. Larvae that have been infected will be detected by unnatural positions and color changes which is from the healthy pearly white to a creamy or brown scale. This is not a noticeable disease but often in the early stages the infected larvae will have melted wax appearance and if it’s confirmed this condition can be treated with antibiotics.

These are just of the most common diseases that prone hives and bees during the larval stage. In the adult stage pests and parasites tend to be more problematic and for more through and detailed information on the subject you can find out from your local beekeeper association on latest developments.

Varroasis; not necessarily classified as disease but an infestation by the parasitic Varroa mites, they are the most observed parasites of honey bees because of the endemic level they’ve reached. New colonies are prone to developing these and should nothing be done to treat them the colony is likely to die within three years. Time scale for treatment of these parasites has to be kept as failure to do so will result in the mites developing resistance to treatment in the future

The Tracheal Mites; microscopic parasites they mainly occupy the honey bee’s windpipe and the signs of advanced infestation will apparent by increase number of worker bees that are exhausted and always crawling about on the ground outside the hive. To effective control these use menthol crystals, vegetable oil and sugar patties have also provided remedy to problem as they minimize the parasite ability to reproduce.

Nosima apis causes a disease known as Nosema in bees, as a spore forming protozoa it multiplies in the bee’s gut and impairs the digestion of pollen which causes the bee to die. Dysentery and some fecal matter on combs and hives often idetifies heavy infections and colony that’s been infected will fail to build up normally in spring. Other effects include diminished population as the lifespan of the worker is shortened.

I’d like to reiterate that the success of a beekeeper rests solely on good management of colonies and hives. A beekeeper should never allow the bees to starve as it can occur at any time of the year more especially in spring when there’s brood and little food coming in. On the flipside you don’t also don’t want to overfeed and overwork the bees in the nucleus.

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How honey bees ripen the nectar is through the removal of moisture. They do this by distributing current off air through fanning their wings; this brings in dry air and expels moist warm air. The water content must be reduced to less that 20% to about 18% and that when the cells are sealed with wax capping, it’s like putting a lid on a jar to prevent the honey from drawing any more moisture.

When most of the cells are capped clear the bees off the super, remove it and prepare it for extraction, just ensure that the majority of cells have been sealed. This will prevent high moisture build up, as too much moisture causes the honey to ferment lowering the quality of your honey. Cut the capping off with a knife to expose the honey for extraction.

Keep in mind that bees are not going to hand over their honey on a silver platter, you must first remove them off the supers. There are various ways of doing that but the most common is the leaf blower or a fume product like the Fischer’s Bee quick and a bee escape or feather. Many beekeepers use leaf blowers to fan the bees from the frames and I’ve notice that the bees seem to detect the vibrations caused by the engine on the leaf blower and this gets them agitated.

Some use a fume product which is a chemical that emits an odour that bees don’t like. You pour it on a fume board then place it on top of the supper you want removed, the bad smell repels the bees and within no time the super is clear off bees. Most love this method for the simplicity it provides; personally I think the product in use could have a questionable effect on the wax or honey even though most user have never had any problems with it.

The removal of honey from the combs requires an extractor which will spin at a high speed, this action slings the honey out of the comb. Many designs consist of a drum which can fit in several frames which are spun around to extract honey by applying centrifugal force. Honey will be then be collected at the bottom of the extractor, it may still contain some fragments of wax, bee parts like legs and wings and other things that came off the frame that will need it to be filtered.

For best filter results I recommend you use a 600 or 400 micron filter, these can be bought for about $10 and they’re made to fit most bucket sizes until a five gallon bucket. The filters allow the honey to flow though quiet quickly trapping all the foreign bodies and these filters can also be washed and re-used over and over again. Once the filtration process is complete allow the honey to sit for at least one week this make the honey to be free of bubbles, there after it should ready for bottling.

Beekeeping requires high standards of hygiene so your honey room or the place where the extraction process will take place must be spotless and germ free. Whenever you handle honey always wear a hairnet, clean clothes hands and equipment must be washed and sanitised regularly.

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Honeybees have been given very little credit about their contribution in most farming related industries when in fact they’re the unsung heroes of the farming and food industries by pollinating most of the crops that are being grown.

Whenever you handle bees you must always be wearing the complete protective gear. It will be a suit that has a helmet with a veil and gloves, wrap the bottoms of your pants legs, this is to ensure that bees that fall on the ground don’t crawl up your legs and sting you while you working around the hive. Bees are startled quite easily so always work with slow and steady movements making sure you handle parts of the hive carefully.

Anything that startles will set them in attack mode so avoid bumping or shaking motions when removing bees from the frames. Always smoke the bees out of the way when inspecting the colonies so to avoid having them crushed, also the temperature should be around 60º F on a bright and sunny day with light breeze.

In the past honey bee colonies were build in hollow trees or logs, where the wax comb was made to fit to the shape of the chosen cavity, nowadays hives are made from a series of racked, movable frames. It’s essential to separate these frames by about 15 mm of space just enough to allow the bees to pass through. Anything more causes the bees to build irregular combs which are called the burr comb.

The advantage provided by the frame hives is that they allow the beekeeper to closely monitor the condition of the colony on a weekly basis during the active seasons and the embossed wax foundation and the radial extractor makes the combs reusable, and this will save a lot of your bees energy which will enable them to produce even more honey.

The success of a beekeeper is mostly dependent on good management practices of the colonies. The best times for inspection are between the last months of winter and the last months of fall, during these periods the colonies should be checked and manipulated one to four times every month. It’s still possible to check up on your colonies in winter but it should be done on warmer days when the bees are flying around freely, but avoid overexposing the brood to cold winter breezes just work on the hive as quickly as possible but do it with threatening them.

In beginning you may find yourself dealing with that occasional bee stings but this is something that shouldn’t discourage you. What you’ll experience is nothing more than a localised swelling, redness and pain. Bees are gentle when treated with respect; however this is not to say that precautionary measures should not be followed. Anyone who may have a fascination with these creatures but have little tolerance with the sting should be three times more careful.

In the case whereby a person with hypersensitivity to the bee sting finds themselves being stung they must receive immediate medical attention. For everyone else commercial bee sting first-aid kits are available by prescription. The kit will be made up of a preloaded syringe of epinephrine hydrochloride & antihistamine tablets. Even with these kits at your disposal always take secondary precautionary measures and consult a doctor after a stinging incident.

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Beekeeping is really not that difficult in fact I’d say it’s relatively easy, you can involve the whole family and spend some great quality time, all you need is a little guidance to get you started and this website will provide you will all of the necessities needed to get you on path.

Most people who start beekeeping do this as a hobby; it’s relaxed, casual and often fun. But the truth is that there’s more to beekeeping that what meets the eye. It requires knowledge of bees, growing things and the natural world in general. Success in everything requires a great level of commitment and most successful beekeeper have committed themselves to learning, understanding and enjoying bees. If your involvement in beekeeping will mean something less than this, then I’m sorry to say beekeeping is not for you.

Extended observation and studies conducted on bees have indicated that honey bees are social insects; each colony has the potential of growing to over 50 000 bees. Every colony has a social order whereby each and every member has a designated task. You get the queen bee, whose sole responsibility is to lay and fertilize the eggs, then the drones provide the sperm that the queen uses to fertilize the eggs she lays and then there are the worker bees that devote their entire lives to ensuring the welfare and survival of the colony.

The most important member of the colony is the queen bee, she’s reared in a special cell and being the queen her cell is normally larger than regular cells. She develops from fertilized eggs just like the worker bees, however in the larval phase of her life she’s fed royal jelly which is a glandular food which is secreted from the hypopharyngeal glands in the heads of young worker bee termed the nurse bees. This allows her to grow much quicker than the drone or worker bees.

Queen bees are born with fully developed ovaries and by the time she’s 5 to 10 days after emerging from the cell. She takes flight and mates with drones in the air, she’ll keep on mating with about 10 – 14 of these drones until she has received enough sperm which is stored in a special organ termed the spermatheca. Once this organ has been filled with drone sperm she’ll never mate again and that’s how she gets to fertilize her own eggs.

The queen can lay up to 2000 eggs each day, she can also choose whether to lay drone eggs or worker eggs. The queen bee has an 8 to year 10 years life span; however in production colonies it’s wiser to replace it every 3 to 5 years. When the queen ages her sperm count falls and the eggs she lays become unfertilised and whenever eggs are not fertilised they produce more drones and she becomes the “Drone-Layer”.

Male bees are called drones and their only function is reproduction. When a drone mates with a queen during her nuptial flight he’ll perish in the act as he would have served his purpose. A single colony will keep a few hundred drones during the active foraging season, should the food supply become less, the drones are ejected from the colonies by worker bees and be starved to death as they feed directly from the honey in the storage cells.

The worker bee… as the name suggests spends its life in service to the colony. During the first three weeks they’re called the hive or house bees, they groom themselves, clean the brood cells, clean the hive feed the older and younger larvae, evaporate the nectar, build the comb, feed the queen, feed young drones and maintain an even temperature in the brood nest and they also guard the entrance their hive.

It’s advisable that someone who’s starting beekeeping does so with one or two hives and grow from there as more knowledge is gained, but two hives will increase your chances of success especially in winter periods. To start out the following equipment is required, a complete bee suit, bee gloves, good pairs of boots, bee veil, smoker, bee hive and hive tools. Safety is of utmost importance because when you work with bees all it takes is a gap that’s half an inch wide for bees to gain access to you.

The next essential part of beekeeping is the placement of your hives, if you have a big property then you may have an area where you can easily find a good location to place your hives. It should be near a fresh water source, nectar and pollen source so to give the bees easy access to food, all of these can still be provided by the beekeeper. Beekeeping is highly sustainable although bees are active during certain times of the year and it lasts throughout every season.

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It’s important that you locate a good spot for your honey bee hives so that they don’t become a nuisance to your neighbours. It’s highly advisable that you place your hive in a way that the entrance faces the sun while facing away from strong winds, it must have easy access to water source and it mustn’t be exposed to too much heat more especially in the summer seasons.

Should your location be without a natural water source, alternatively an artificial one can be made with a bowl or something that can hold water. The tub must be placed in the apiary with wood floats in it; this will allow your bees to drink without the danger of drowning. Make sure you change the water regularly at least once every week to prevent stagnation and mosquito breeding.

Honey bees forage on many types of plants for pollen and nectar to provide food for the colony. Clovers can be used as the number one source from crimsom, white sweet and yellow sweet can provide more nectar for the bees. However most plants are limited in acreage and the majority that produce honey crop are few in number, here’s a list of some plant that make a good source of pollen and nectar which bees can collect from.

As I have already mentioned some clovers I’ll start with the ladino clover, Dutch white clover, Alfalfa, Basswood, Apple, Blackberry, Barberry Juliane, Beggarweed, Bush Honeysuckle, Sourwood, Watermelon, Willows, Soybeans, Sunflower, Flowering Quince, Milkweed, Goldenrod, Winter Jasmine, Dark Opal, Corn, Cotton, Cucumbers and Fringed White Phacelia are some of the plants where bees can forage from.

A good beekeeper must inspect the hive regularly so the colonies must be opened and checked weekly in the production season. To inspect the colony pry the outside of the brood chamber loose, the remove the frames and observe the bees and the combs.

What you’d be looking for are Pearly white larvae these indicate health; if there’re grey, yellow brown or black larvae be alarmed as these are signs of disease or injuries.

Check for Eggs standing at the bottom of the cell…this indicates that the queen is laying eggs, should the eggs be on the sides of the cells these would be from the worker that’s laying eggs. (N:B workers are still able to lay eggs but they won’t be fertilised)

Continue to check if there’s Sunken, perforated cell caps, healthy brood will be noticed by convex cell caps. If there are unhealthy brood the cell caps will be concave and perforated with small holes.

Check the Queen’s egg laying pattern, a prolific queen will have a laying pattern of brood whereby very few cells have been skipped over most of the frames.

Proceed to inspect the Honey and pollen stores, in a colony there should be six super frames at the least or three deep brood chambers must be filled with capped honey, on average the frames hold about 15 to 18 lbs of honey.

This process will be repeated on all your frames that contain brood, part of inspecting the colonies requires that you feed, treat with antibiotics, replace damaged combs with foundation and re-queen should there be a need to do so. Make sure you prepare all the required items in advance and have them ready near you when you open the colony. Once you’ve inspected all the frames place them back in the hive in the original order and close the hive.

Hive & colony inspection requires that you keep a clear and concise calendar of all activities that will help you apply the right management practice at the right time. A plan will also help you on how to time your colony inspections and manipulation so that you detect any problems and diseases to prevent them from destroying your colonies.

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You may get packaged bees, these allow you to start out small and grow your hives. Packages are made available in 3, 4 or 5lbs increments. A newly set up hive can be populated with a three pound package of bees with a queen included and that should get things rolling smoothly or a five pound package can be split up to set up two hives, however a second queen will be required for the second hive.

The advantages of packaged bees is that they have to be certified healthy before being sold that means they’ll have good bill of health, they’ll have a clearly documented history and they can be treated with sugar roll to guard them from mites. However every method has its own downs; they’re only available seasonally, they’ll be no eggs or brood in the hive until the queen has laid some and they require heavy feeding to encourage new comb building.

Then there’s the Nucs, or the nucleus hives, these are ideal for establishing new but full sized hives. As an established colony they contain a queen that’s already laying eggs but down side to these bees is that they may harbour diseases & pests for these reasons they’ll need that you inspect the nuc thoroughly and make sure that you get the history before you make any purchases.

The other popular method of acquiring bees is through swarms; a natural way by which bees reproduce, however it’s not recommended for someone who’s starting out as it’s quite tricky. It’s best to capture swarms only if you know the history of origin. Another downside of this method if you are new at this is that they may have mites or health problems and the queen may be old so this is a method to be used by individuals with a bit of knowledge and experience under their belts.

Now that you would have found some bees to establish a colony you have to install them so that they get accustomed to their new home. Most standard honeybee boxes have about ten frames which are made from wood even though nine will be used to make sufficient room for the bees. They come complete with wax sheeting termed the foundation and these frames will fit tightly in the supers.

Remove four of the frames, then remove the lid from the shipping box and then place the bees into the super. Place the frames back into the supers and the queen’s cage should be slid vertically between the two frames at the centre of the super and make sure it’s in place and secure. Proceed to place the inner cover and lid on the hive. At the entrance of the hive just place a feeder bottle to get the bees back to work so they start filling the foundation, producing wax and making space for the queen to also start the egg laying process.

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Beekeeping is not that expensive but I wouldn’t say it’s cheap either; it can cost you up to 300 dollars just to set up a single hive and have it running smoothly. In most states you have to register yourself as a beekeeper with local authorities to have you certified. An inspector will be sent to your apiary to check that all requirements are met according to the regulatory standards of that particular state.

Raising productive bees requires that you learn everything there is know about the these wonderful creatures from The Colony, the Queen Bee, The Drones, The Worker Bees, known species of bees. How to set and measure the colony performance standards; how to approach general management of bees and hives and how to organise your seasonal management of hives.

You also need to learn how to correctly inspect a hive, how to deal with associated diseases, pests, predators and the bees sting injuries associated with this trade. You see…this is not just about sticking a bunch of bees in box somewhere in the corner of your backyard and just coming to collect honey.

There’s a science in beekeeping but most people are pay a substantial amounts of money to acquire the necessary training in order to succeed at this, but here at bees and hives mastery we won’t charge you an arm or leg to get the same level of expertise. There are many steps involved in the proper education of a beekeeper and the following are key to succeed; patience, persistence and the willingness to learn are just some of the basic traits required.

Safety is another key factor in beekeeping, so a large aspect of this practise is ensuring that the beekeeper is safe while tending to the bees. Protective gear is essential and proper gear will consist of a suit (pants & jacket), a hat with a veil and gloves. It’s also important that these are of good quality and can offer maximum protection from bee stings

Harvesting honey can pose some challenges in the sense that you don’t want to do so too soon or too late. In instances whereby the honey has been harvested too soon it tends to contain too much water and spoils or ferment much, much quicker. Honey that’s harvested late tends to be of a dark golden color and this cause the bees to produce less honey as there won’t be sufficient room for the production of more honey. Even though the color doesn’t affect the taste much, most people prefer to have a lighter shade kind of honey.

So the perfect time for harvesting is when you see wax caps over the honey cells, then you know that your honey is just perfect for harvesting and this should be done on a sunny day or morning when the bees are busy going about their daily business.

Here at bees and hive mastery we’ll guide and help you answer some of the most important questions about beekeeping, this not just any hobby it involves living creatures that have the ability to cause great harm to you and other people. Beginners mustn’t just have a vague idea about handling bees and equipment but they should be absolutely knowledgeable about it and here we’ll offer all the resources required to make you an expert in the least amount of time.

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