#BUSY BEE GLOVES UPDATE#

The number one feedback that I get from first-year beekeepers is that they did not realize how important it was to monitor and control varroa in their hive - most beginners lose their first hive to the mite. Keeping your bees alive and healthy these days requires management for the varroa mite–most beginners fail at this, and their colonies die an ugly death.

Caring for a hive of bees requires several hours of husbandry a year, involving opening and inspecting the frames inside, and getting stung. If your motivation is to “save the bees,” please realize that the honey bee is in absolutely no danger of extinction. In order to be a better beekeeper, I suggest that you try to learn to see the world through the eyes (and antennae) of the bee, and to “think” as does the honey bee superorganism. Bees see and respond to the world (environmental cues) very differently than do humans. The more you understand the biology of colony health and dynamics, the more successful you can be at beekeeping. It is more difficult to keep healthy bees than it is to care for most common pets (for which you generally need only to provide food). I’ve linked these articles at Reading Materials. Farrar’s Productive Management of Honey Bee Colonies is a great read for understanding the winter cluster and swarm prevention Beekeeping in the United States covers all regions, and has a great section by Moeller entitled Managing Colonies for High Honey Yields. Be aware that both of these publications were for the North, and would need to be adjusted considerably for the West and southerly areas, but the main principles still apply. Other than varroa, however, basic beekeeping practices were well figured out long ago, and I highly recommend two classic USDA publications for best management practices. In addition, the bee population now faces the additional novel stressors of persistent European foulbrood, loss of forage in many areas, the effects of climate change (shorter winters), increasing CO2 (which decreases the nutritional value of pollen), and perhaps pesticide exposure (this fear is greatly exaggerated as far as most areas are concerned, but may occur in areas with intensive commercial agriculture). Although honey bees are essentially wild animals living in a box provided by their “keeper,” bees are in the midst of an evolutionary struggle due to the introduction of varroa (which completely changed colony stress and virus dynamics). You are beginning beekeeping at a time in which honey bees are struggling to stay alive–beekeeping is more difficult than it was prior to the parasitic varroa mite (which invaded around 1990). I’ve written a step-by-step plan for colony management further down on this page.įirst, educate yourself! A honey bee colony is a living animal that deserves to be cared for properly. If you live somewhere else, the timing of the honey flow and length of winter may differ. If you do this, most other problems go away.īelow is a brief visual of hive management responsibilities in the Northern California Foothills. This page provides some quick step-by-step notes for your first year of beekeeping, written specifically for those starting with a nucleus hive or package bees purchased from me, but is generally applicable.īottom line: Once you get a colony started, other than adding space, the two most important things to pay attention to are varroa management and colony nutrition. I’ve attempted to distill 50 year’s of beekeeping experience into a short set of instructions for starting out with bees in the Sierra Foothills. For mite treatment options, search “Varroa Mite Management” Beekeeping in a Nutshell

#BUSY BEE GLOVES UPDATE#

I continually update this page, so please refer to the current version.

Busy bee gloves