Index

The honeybeepage 2

  • The bee state
  • Reproduction
  • Combs

Beekeeping in top-bar hivespage 3

  • How to make your own top-bar hive
  • To work with a top-bar hive

How to work with bees which swarm a lotpage 12

  • Why bees swarm
  • How do you see when a bee state is going to swarm
  • Swarming process
  • How to control swarming

Hygienic treatment of honeypage 14

  • Compilation of honey
  • Purifation of honey

Financepage 15

The Honeybee

  • The honeybee is used by human for the production of honey and beeswax and for the pollination of plants.
  • They have an internal biologic clock whereby they can navigate en divide their tasks. Further this clock is important for the bee dance whereby the female workers give each other information about food sources.

The bee state

  • In free nature bees live in sheltered places like hollow trees. Bees hold by people live in beehives.
  • A bee state is a strong social unit, the individual has no meaning
  • The state exist of different bee types. On the top lives one queen, she is the only fertile female en takes care of the reproduction. She lives the longest from all the bees. If an egg develops as queen, work bee or drone depends on the fact if an egg is fertilized or not. An unfertilized egg becomes a drone, an fertilized can develop as queen or as work bee. The difference in becoming a queen or a work bee depends on the kind of cell where the egg ends up.
  • Then there are the bee workers. In the summer there are about 60000 bee workers and 2000 in winter. Bee workers are underdeveloped females. They do all the work in the beehive. What task they have depends on their ages, there is a very strict work scheme. When a bee worker gets out of her cell her working live starts directly. Her first task is the cleaning of the cells, a couple of days later she is also able to work nectar. After six days she can feed en care for the young larvae. Work is holding on all day and night, bee workers hardly rest. When a bee worker is fifteen days old she would go look at the gap of the beehive and helps with the security of the hive. Intruders like wasps or bees from other states will be driven away. When se is twenty-one days old she flies out for the first time to collect nectar and pollen. From the early morning till the late evening as long as there is light, the flowers give nectar en the outside temperature is more then ten degrees Celsius she flies out. Information about new food sources will be given to other bees by the dance language. Through the tough working and the enormous distances a work bee goes through her wings wear out. Some days a work bee covers 250 kilometres. After 800 kilometres the wings are broken whereby a work bee needs to die. This explains the longer lifecycle of a work bee in winter and of the queen cause they hardly fly.
  • At last there are the drones, fertile men. They are only there to mate with the queen. In the winter there are no drones, in summer there are a about hundred.

Reproduction

  • The bee state is a strong live community, so reproduction isn’t focused on a separate bee but on the whole state. There need to be more states and this is how that goes; in spring the number of bees in a state grows. Many plants bloom so there is enough food. At a certain moment the bee workers start to make bigger cells in the combs and the queen lays unfertilized eggs in these cells. Out of unfertilized haploid egg come after 24 days the drones who are fertile after three weeks. It is remarkable that a drone doesn’t have a father but does have a grandfather.
  • When the drones are there, the work bees make big cells along the borders of the combs. In these cells the queen lays a normal fertilized egg. When after three days the larva gets out of its egg it gets special food, so called royal jelly. It is albumen rich food made by the work bees by nectar, pollen and a exceptional gland in their head. These larvae grow very fast en pupate after six days. Thirteen days after the larva came out of the egg the new queen gets born. Just before here birth the new queen alert that she is coming through by piping, the so called quacking and tooting. The old queen flies out with half of the state 7 till 10 days before the birth of the young new queens and searches for a new accommodation. This is what we call swarming of bees. A bee swarm exist about 10000 and 20000 bees. The bees sucked themselves full with honey before leaving the hive and can’t sting that easily. So a bee swarm isn’t aggressive. In the bee state that stays in the hive there come in the coming days a couple of queens out of their eggs and every time the oldest queen leaves with half of the bee state to look for another accommodation. In this way the old bee state splits up in 3 till 6 new states. In their new homes the states directly start to make combs and the new queens make their bride flight after 3 till 15 days. In the afternoon they fly out en go to a place where the drones have assembled. The drones follow the queen and only the quickest drones can mate with her what also happens during the flight. The queen doesn’t only mate with drones from her own state but also, with preference, drones from other states. After mating the drone dies. The queen mates with 10 till 20 drones, then she has enough sperm for whole her life which is 5 years at the longest. When the fertilized queen returns she stays in the hive en after 2 till 3 days she starts lay eggs. The queen can lay till 2000 eggs a day in the high season which is twice her own weight so that the state starts to grow fast to a community of 40.000 till 70.000 bee workers.

Combs

  • The combs are the furniture of the bee hive. The bee workers can excrete wax from a gland at the bottom of their abdomen. With this wax they build the combs which exist of a large degree of hexagon form cells. The queen lays her eggs in these cells. Further the eggs are used for the store of honey and pollen.

Beekeeping in top-bar hives

The idea of beekeeping in top-bar hives is that you have a box that is open at the top.

Like this:

And instead of have one big lid at the top you put slats on top which lay direct to eachother. It’s important that you don’t have any gaps between the slats. The problem with these gaps is that, by opening the hive, every bee in the colony is exposed to light, sounds, smells, air currents, temperature changes etc. They are therefore aware of the damage to their nest, and react defensively.

Like this:

The little holes at the bottom of the box are openings for the bees.

In each slat, there must be a slot cut into it. A slot that runs lengtwise along the middle of each slat. A narrow strip of hardboard or wax should be glued into each slot, so that it projects about 10mm from the bottom surface of each slat.

Like this:

A: 50.5 cm

D: 32 mm

E: 20 mm

F: 10 mm

G: 2 x as long as the want of the box is thick

How to make your own Tob bar Hive

Step 1: the box

The hive comprises a box roughly 85cm long, roughly 30cm deep,and 50.5cm wide. The distance between the side walls inside of the hive should be exactly 46.5cm. The sides and floor of the box are made from planks or inexpensive timber or similar material. The five planks comprising the box should be securely fastened to one another, because the hives will get very heavy. Because when you inspect the colony the box will come under more preasure.

Step 2 : entrance

For entrances you have to make holes in the long sides of the box, about 10cm apart, and about 5cm above the floor. The diamater should be about 10 to 12mm.

Step 3: the top bars

The roof is made up of separate wood slats. If you have used the measures for the box I discribed, the slats should each exactly be 32mm wide and 20 mm thick. If you have used other measures you should make you're slats the same length as the width of the box, and 20mm thick. It is very important that you use It's clever to make a few more slats than are needed to cover the box. It’s important that the slats are exactly 32 mm. The reason is that this is exactly the distance between the centres of next combs in naturally-built nests. Once the bees have built a comb neatly along the mid-line of one top-bar, they continue to build combs along the mid-lines of next top-bars without the beekeepers having to resort the wax foundations

Step 4: starter-strips

To ensure neatly-built comb, you should make starter-strips along the mid-lines of each top-bar. In each slat, there must be a slot cut into it. A slot that runs lengtwise along the middle of each slat. A of hardboard, ( bee )wax should be glued into each slot, so that it projects about 10mm from the bottom surface of each slat. It’s also possible to use molten beewax. You can use two top-bars laid on top of a third with about a 5 mm gap between them to form a mould for the third bar, into which you can pour the molten wax. The strip should be a little shorter than the slat. Put the strip in the slot so that it doesn’t touch a side of the box when the slat is placed on top of the box and with the strip hanging down into the hive.

Step 5: outside

The oudside of the hive box exept for the slats should be well protected with light-coloured paint. Allow sufficient time for the paint smell to disappear before attempting to put bees into the hive.

Step 6: the lid

You can use a waterproof peace to cover the closed hive. For example plastic or metal. Especially if the lid is made of metal, ensure that it does not lie directly on the top-bars or slats. These could get so hot that the honey combs hanging from them melt. You could cover the top bars with a layer of straw or good insulating material and place the waterproof lid on it. You can also just put wooden legs on the topbars to create a space between the top bars and the waterproof lid.

To work with a top- bar hive

A top bar hive is a very good and cheap hive to harvest honey from the killerbee. So in the following text, there is explained how to work with a top bar hive and how honey is harvested out off the hives.

Top bar hive:

A top bar hive is a trough shaped box. Wood bars, the top bars, set on top of the box. Bees attach their comb to these bars which are removed for inspections and colony management. A cover over the top bars, provides weather protection. The entrance is just a hole in the box. A tbh (top bar hive) is a long, horizontal hive with removable combs. Tbh’s are the essence of natural beekeeping simplified.

The advantages of top bar hives are that by opening the hive, every bee in the colony is not exposed to light, sounds, smells, air currents, temperature changes etc. They are therefore not really aware of the apparently catastrophic damage to their nest, and because of that they don’t react defensively. Another advantage of the top-bar hive is that the top-bars form a continuous roof, without gaps. The beekeeper need make only a small opening in the hive for inspection or harvesting. Further it is a very inexpensive hive and easy to build.

The only equipment that is necessary is a smoker, veil and a serrated knife and of course a bucket to hold the combs. In the next part there will be explained how to use a top bar hive and how to work with it.

Opening the hive:

First of all the cover should be removed to expose the top bars. The cover is not attached to the hive, so it can just be taken away. When opening the hive two or three of the top-bars are removed from one end of the hive. These will generally have neither bees nor comb on them. This opening need be only wide enough to permit lifting the combs for inspection without bumping or scraping them. In a top bar hive, the beekeeper starts work at the far end of the hive, away from the entrance. This way bees come and go without realizing the hive is open. The bees don’t get aggressive this way.

By successively moving each bar, you should shift the inspection gap gradually towards the brood nest (the heart of the colony) in the middle of the hive. By puffing a very small amount of smoke into the opening, the bees can be driven away from the gap into the undisturbed part of the hive. One uses just enough smoke to keep the bees calm. The bulk of the colony is thus never where the beekeeper is working, and remains relatively unaware of the disturbance. Once the inspection gap has reached the middle of the colony, the top-bars are carefully returned to their original positions, and pressed tightly against one another again. If the beekeeper wishes to continue with the inspection, the process is repeated from the other end of the hive. Alternatively the hive can be opened from the other end next time.

Cutting attachments:

The bees attach comb to the sidewalls. Most attachments are small. But they extensively attach all heavy comb to the hive. They know when and where more comb support is needed. Attachments aren't a problem, but even the smallest attachment must be cut before a top bar or comb is moved.

Before moving a top bar or comb, cut it free of all attachments. Inspect every comb carefully. If attachments are left uncut, moving the top bar tears the comb. Even the smallest attachment can cause big problems. A torn or damaged comb almost always fails. This failure can happen instantly if the comb is new, hot and heavy. Or it can slowly fail, before the bees repair it, leaving a surprise for the next inspection.

 Slightly attached comb.

Comb damage also occurs if the attachments aren't carefully and gently cut. Take your time. Don't tear the comb free. Instead gently cut it loose. If the attachments are torn instead of cut, the comb is damaged and can fail.

A serrated knife is the best tool for cutting attachments. It's longer, thinner and sharper than a hive tool. A hive tool is a special designed lever with scraping edges and it is used by the removal of frames from beehives. Work from the bottom of the comb upward. Don't saw the comb with the serrated knife. The horizontal forces created stresses a comb. Rather than saw the comb, move the knife slowly upward while slightly withdrawing it. Allow the knife to melt its way through the comb. Don't pull the comb backward, even the tiniest amount, as you withdraw the knife.

Removing top bars:

Once a comb is cut free from all attachments, the top bar is slowly separated from its neighbor and gently removed from the hive. If the comb is moved to fast it will fail.

Keep the plane of the comb vertical. If the top bar is even slightly rotated out of its natural hanging position, this stresses the comb and the comb fails. Rather than grabbing the top bar and holding on to it like one would do with a standard frame, let the top bar ends rest freely in the hands, hanging naturally from its own weight. When held like this, any movement causes both the comb and the top bar to roll, which is much less stressful to the comb.

After inspecting a comb, gently set it down in a free space toward the hive's far end or use a top bar stand. I consider a top bar stand a necessity, as handling a top bar with its comb requires two hands. It's almost impossible to do anything other than observe a comb without one.