Beekeeping Basics
General Information
Honey bees classification is Apis Mellifera. In general, they live as a colony or hive which has one queen, workers (all females) and drones (males). The queen mates once in her lifetime and lays all the eggs in the colony. The fertilized eggs become workers and the unfertilized eggs become drones. The health and behavior of the hive is determined by the queen. A young queen tends to lay eggs more aggressively and abundantly and the hive tends to produce more honey as a result.
Most beekeepers use Langstroth hives which are “bee boxes” of specific sizes. The deep boxes are typically used for raising brood (baby bees) and the smaller super boxes are typically used for honey.
Bees are prone to a variety of problems including parasitic varroa mites, tracheal mites, bacterial infections (foul brood) and insecticides.
Bees forage on flowering plants and high sugar substances. They goto the flowers and take up the nectar from the flowers and regurgitate it back in the cells within the hive. They then fan the nectar to concentrate the sugars which then matures the honey. Finally, the bees apply a wax cap to the cells to close off the honey for future use. They also bring in pollen as a protein source for the production of more bees.
Queen Rearing.
This is a queen rearing hive. A colony can raise multiple queen cells when certain conditions are met. These conditions include queenlessness, overcrowding, and a nectar flow. In the wild, these are conditions that may cause bees to swarm as well.
At Breezy Hill, we use carefully selected stock for queen production. Notice the frame feeder at the right side of the hive…this simulates a nectar flow. Bees must also produce royal jelly which is a high sugar substance. Feeding the bees helps with this.
Honey Production
This is what a frame looks like with capped (matured) honey. The wax caps have to be removed and the frame is placed within a centrifuge to spin out the honey.
At Breezy Hill, we do not use harsh chemicals in the harvesting of our honey. We do it the old-fashioned way…we manually remove the frames and uncap the cells. Our goal is to disturb the bees as little as possible.
In 2017, our bees produced about 700 pounds of honey which was a very low yield. The weather conditions were unfavorable. Our honey is double filtered but not pasteurized. It will contain local pollens and minute amounts of debris.
Our goal is to produce the highest quality honey while using bee-friendly, land-friendly harvesting techniques.
