The history of honey bees and beekeeping 13
The requirements for a modern beekeeper 13
Honey bee breeds 14
The role of the beekeeper 14
Why are honey bees so important? 15
Turning nectar into honey 15
How do honey bees make wax? 15
About honey bees 16
Honey bee anatomy 16
Queens, worker and drones 16
How does the queen lay eggs? 17
Cell types 18
Honey bee population 18
Temperature control 18
How do bees find food? 19
Plants that provide food for bees 19
Water sources for your bees 20
Pets 20
Locating your Beehaus 21
Bee stings 21
Bee stings and how to avoid them 22
What to do if a bee gets in your suit? 22
Smoking your gloves 22
How to stop a bee chasing you 22
Transferring bees to your Beehaus 23
Transferring bees from short to deep frames 23
The nucleus colony in the first year 24
How to inspect your honey bees 24
Preparing your equipment 25
Smoking your bees 25
How to use a smoker 25
Opening your Beehaus 25
What am I looking for? 26
Lifting out a frame 26
Turning and holding a frame 27
Moving bees to reveal the comb 27
Cross section of the colony 28
Example frames 28
A cross section of ten frames showing
how the colony arranges it’s home 28
Identifying parts of the comb 29
Queen cells 29
Adding frames and moving divider board 29
When should I add honey supers? 30
Queen excluder 30
Clearer boards 31
Using dummy boards 31
Inspecting health 31
Closing up 31
The beekeeping year 32
January 32
February 32
March 32
April 32
May 33
June 33
July 34
August 34
September 34
October 34
November 35
December 35
Feeding your bees 36
What to feed your bees? 36
When to feed? 36
What time of day is best to feed? 37
Feeder types 37
Adding a bag of syrup 37
How to use fondant 38
Making your own sugar syrup 38
Adding a contact feeder to
your Beehaus 38
Advanced beekeeping 39
How to mark a queen 39
Making a nucleus colony 40
Looking after a nucleus colony 40
Introducing a new queen to the colony 41
How to unite two colonies 41
Swarm control 42
Swarm control method 1 - Super easy 42
Swarm control method 2 - Easy but better 43
Swarm control method 3 - Harder but best 43
Wild swarms 44
How to catch a swarm 45
Transporting a swarm 45
How to transfer a swarm to
your Beehaus 45
Moving your Beehaus 45
Bee health 46
Best health practices 46
Pests 46
Varroa 46
Using your inspection tray 47
Monitoring varroa with
the inspection tray 47
Varroa treatment 48
Tracheal mites 50
Nosema 50
Wax moth 50
Sacbrood 51
Chalkbrood 51
Drone Brood in worker cells 51
Foulbrood 51
American Foul Brood (AFB) 52
European Foul Brood (EFB) 52
Cleaning and sterilising your Beehaus 52
Honey 53
Harvesting your honey 53
Extracting your honey 53
Using the wax 54
Trouble shooting 56
British Beekeepers’ Association 56
Bee glossary 57
Table of Contents
To Next Page
Loading...