Table Of Content

BEGINNING BEEKEEPING EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO MAKE YOUR HIVE THRIVE! Tanya Phillips 001_Titlepage.indd 1 05/01/2017 10:52 Publisher: Mike Sanders Associate Publisher: Billy Fields Senior Acquisitions Editor: Brook Farling Development Editor: Christopher Stolle Cover and Book Designer: Becky Batchelor Photographer: Kimberly Davis Illustrator: Becky Batchelor Prepress Technician: Brian Massey Proofreader: Laura Caddell Indexer: Celia McCoy First American Edition, 2017 Note: This publication contains the opinions and ideas of its Published in the United States by DK Publishing authors. It is intended to provide helpful and informative 6081 E. 82nd Street, Indianapolis, Indiana 46250 material on the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the authors and publisher are not engaged Copyright © 2017 Dorling Kindersley Limited in rendering professional services in the book. 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Printed and bound in United States www.dk.com 002-003_Copyrighthalftitle.indd 2 05/01/2017 10:52 BEGINNING BEEKEEPING 002-003_Copyrighthalftitle.indd 3 05/01/2017 10:52 Beginning Beekeeping 4 Contents 1 All About Honeybees . . . . . . . . . 9 Creating a Well-Planned Apiary ..........56 Creating a Garden for Your Bees.........58 Why We Need Honeybees ..............10 Attracting Swarms to Your Hives ..........60 Common Species of Honeybees ..........12 Catching Swarms .............................62 The Honeybee Hive ..........................14 Buying and Installing Bees ..................64 Stages of Honeybee Development .......16 Installing a Queen ............................70 The Queen ......................................18 The Drone .......................................20 3 Maintaining Your Hives . . . . . . . .73 The Worker .....................................22 Anatomy of a Healthy Hive ................74 How the Hive Works .........................24 Handling Bees Safely ........................76 How Bees Communicate ....................26 Inspecting Your Hives ........................78 What Bees Eat .................................28 Maintaining a Queenright Colony .......82 2 Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . .31 Replacing the Queen (Requeening) ......84 Swarm Causes and Controls ...............86 The Evolution of Beekeeping ...............32 Controlling Overcrowding ..................88 The Pioneers of Beekeeping ................34 Storing and Using Drawn Comb ..........90 Why Become a Beekeeper? ...............36 Recordkeeping .................................92 Urban Beekeeping ............................38 Hive Inspections ...............................94 Rural Beekeeping .............................40 Hive Box Maintenance ......................98 Beekeeping on a Budget....................42 Top-Bar Hive Considerations ............100 The Beekeeper’s Toolshed ...................44 The Beekeeper’s Closet ......................46 4 The Harvest . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 The Langstroth Hive ...........................48 Products of the Hive ........................106 Langstroth Foundations and Frames ......50 Setting Up Your Honey Extraction The Top-Bar Hive ..............................52 Space ..........................................108 Other Hive Types ..............................54 How to Remove Bees from a Super ....110 004-005_TOC.indd 4 05/01/2017 10:52 Contents 5 Extracting and Filtering Honey ...........112 Laying Workers and Drone-Laying Queens ........................................154 Bottling and Labeling Honey .............114 Managing a Tiny Colony .................156 Honey Extraction in a Top-Bar Hive ....116 Preventing Robbing ........................158 Harvesting Wax .............................118 Preventing Absconding ....................160 Building a Solar Wax Melter ............120 Moving and Transporting Hives .........162 Harvesting and Storing Pollen ...........122 Handling Aggressive Hives ...............164 Uses for Honey ..............................124 Uses for Wax ................................126 7 Seasonal Beekeeping . . . . . . . 167 5 Pests and Hive Treatments . . . .129 Beekeeping in Spring ......................168 Beekeeping in Summer ....................170 Common Threats to Bees..................130 Beekeeping in Autumn .....................172 Minimizing the Risks for Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) .................132 Beekeeping in Winter......................174 Bee Mites: Diseases and Treatments ...134 Dealing with Flooding .....................178 Brood Diseases and Treatments .........136 Feeding Your Bees ..........................180 Viruses ..........................................137 Resources and Suppliers ..................184 Significant Threats to Your Bees .........138 Organizations and Magazines .........185 Small Hive Beetles ..........................140 Other Pests ....................................142 Index ............................................186 Approaches to Pest Management ......144 Using Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Techniques .............................146 6 Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . 149 Managing Queen Issues ..................150 Preventing Dead Bees .....................152 004-005_TOC.indd 5 05/01/2017 10:52 Beginning Beekeeping 6 Introduction Welcome to the amazing world of honeybees! Until I became a beekeeper, I had no idea just how fascinating and intelligent honeybees were. They’ve survived for centuries using their keen senses of vision, taste, and smell to thrive and multiply throughout most areas of the world. They’re one of the few living creatures that cause no harm in order to live their day-to-day lives. In fact, when they take what they need to eat for survival, they actually benefit others through their pollination of plants, in the creation of beeswax, and in the making of excess honey that we get to harvest and eat. This book is designed to give you all the information you’ll need to get started with keeping bees and some of the best techniques to use for hive management as your colony grows from season to season and for years to come. Bees are truly remarkable and resilient creatures that I hope you’ll come to respect and admire as much as I do. Every beekeeper has their own story as to why they started keeping bees. I read about a class on top-bar hives that was advertised in a Craigslist ad and thought it looked interesting to me. I thought it might be a fun hobby to try with my husband, so we signed up for the class. Once I committed to ordering bees and got my husband working on hive construction, I started researching beekeeping and joined a local county bee club to learn more. I learned bees were having trouble surviving—and dying from something called CCD—and suddenly, it wasn’t about having a hobby anymore. I was on a mission to save the honeybee. We began our ventures into beekeeping by rescuing bee swarms, and our apiary quickly grew to 20 colonies our first year. We’ve easily doubled our numbers each year with swarms and splits. What started as a little hobby quickly became my full-time business. How will your bee story begin? — Tanya Phillips 006-007_Introduction.indd 6 05/01/2017 10:52 006-007_Introduction.indd 7 05/01/2017 10:52 008-009_Chapter1_AllAboutHoneybees.indd 8 05/01/2017 10:52