Saturday 26 July 2014

HIVE SIZES explained - brood and hive supers - beekeeping 101



HIVE SIZES  explained - brood and hive supers - beekeeping 101

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Our new video is out for this week! We thought we would discuss the hive body sizes, which every #beekeeper must consider sooner rather than later. The #hive must be practical not only for the bees, but also for the beekeeper, so the size of your brood box or your #honey supers will be essential. 



We recommend to every new beekeeper or anyone looking into starting their first hive or two, to first seek assistance by reading beekeeping books (we have an extensive beekeeping library on our website http://www.mahakobees.com/store.html), and most importantly, to join their local beekeeping association, bee club or just seek a group of like minded people that have had experience and can share their experience with you in your geographical location. They will in most cases be happy to assist and guide you in the right direction. To get started in beekeeping though, you will need the basics: #beehive, #bee suit, #beekeeping tools, bee smoker, and either a package or a nuc with #bees and a new fertilized #queen bee. 



Your first bee hive will most likely be a small nucleus hive with 5 frames, with three to six thousand bees, colonized on 4 or 5 full depth frames. Brood boxes (the bottom box where the queen lays her brood) will in most cases be a full depth hive box. You may need one or two of these depending on your location. Then you may choose to use a queen excluder with honey supers above your brood hive boxes. These will depend on the size you are willing to carry. A honey filled full depth honey frame can weigh up to 3 kg (6lb), with 10 or 8 frames in the box. The frames plus the box itself can weigh up to 40kg (90lb). SO it gets HEAVY! You have been warned! But it is the most efficient ways to get excellent honey production if that is what you are trying to achieve. You can then use an IDEAL honey super, or the HALF honey super. What ever you do, find out which one suits you the most, and stick with that size. Standardization makes every beekeepers life much easier. The hive is much easier to manage as the bees expand, swarm, and shrink in numbers for winter.



We hope the video provides helpful information and we invite you to subscribe for weekly video updates. We try to be different to other generic beekeeping channels and present interesting videos in a new light. So click the thumbs up and join us!

Have a great week everyone!

MahakoBees



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Music composed, performed and provided by Groovey - Adam Kubát a Pavel Křivák. You can visit their website on: http://www.groovey.cz/

Sunday 20 July 2014

QUEEN bee and her bees in the hive - the beekeeper





QUEEN bee and her bees in the hive - the beekeeper inspects to swarm control. Http://www.mahakobees.com/blog for much more info, products, and discussions.



The beekeeper should visit the hive frequently. In Australia and other warm climates, more so. The weather sunny and temperate all your round and the honey bees have plenty of pollen to gather for colony expansion and always growing their beautiful organically healthy raw honey stores. Once fresh #honey is capped, it will remain fresh for many decades, never spoiling. 



This video however shows the #QUEEN, her circle of worker bees, also referred to as her carers. These worker bees constantly circle the queen bee, provide her with food and water, and nutrition. They provide guidance and protection, and keep a close eye on her to ensure she is doing a good job at laying eggs and that she is fit for purpose. The bees do two things. They aim to expand by swarming, and collect food stores in the form of raw honey and pollen that provides them with all the nutrition they need to maintain a healthy life. If the weather is mild, the queen will continue laying eggs throughout the winter and therefore it is important to inspect the hive frequently to check on the colony size, food stores, and the available space. Once space is insufficient, the bees begin to make plans for swarming.



Swarm control is important to a bee keeper, because once the hive splits, beekeepers lose half their honey producing stock. This greatly reduces their capacity to produce honey, new bees, and other products such as raw pollen, beeswax, propolis and possibly royal jelly. If your local beekeeper does not maintain the hives appropriately, you may find yourself with swarming bees in your backyard. This may require you call in swarm removal services, which may or may not be free in your area. Although #swarming bees are generally at their most docile and non aggressive state, you may need to take extra precaution if you or any of your loved ones are allergic to bees, or more specifically, express an allergic reaction to a bee sting. The bee stinger releases bee venom, which may cause pain and swelling under normal circumstances, however to those unfortunate enough to be allergic to the bee stinger, you may display anaphylaxis symptoms as a result of the allergy. This is a serious situation for anyone with this condition as swelling is extremely fast and may cause difficulty in breathing and even death if left untreated quickly. This rapid allergic reaction is referred to as anaphylactic shock. Use of an EpiPen which induces epinephrine in the form of a self injecting pen can slow the allergic reaction and save lives. We will cover this topic in more detail in our future videos, especially in relation to young children.



Back to this video about our beautifully colored golden Italian Queen bee. The queen is the only one that can sting repeatedly without dying. However, the use of the queen bee #stinger on beekeepers is very rare. The queen #bee has a life span of many years, typically 4-5, depending on which book you read and off course on the climatic conditions your #hives and bee colonies live in. The queen bee is much larger than the other worker bees and has only one role in the beehive. Emerge as the one and only queen bee in the colony, undertake a mating flight during which she will mate with numerous drones which incidentally pass away after the act, and upon a successful fertilization and return to the hive, she then remains inside for many years laying between one and three thousand eggs each day.



Please visit our blog to learn more about the bees and support the vital beekeeping industry. Click http://www.mahakobees.com/blog or visit any of our social sites listed below. We appreciate your support, so please click the thumbs UP, and subscribe. 

Have a great weekends!

MahakoBees





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Music composed, performed and provided by Groovey - Adam Kubát a Pavel Křivák. You can visit their website on: http://www.groovey.cz/. Also, a big thank you goes to Kevin McLeod for providing his royalty free music "Call to Adventure". We appreciate your kind contribution - (incompetech.com).