Beginners Course

North East Worcestershire Beekeepers Association are part way through their annual beginning beekeeping course.  I have given a talk on where to site your apiary.

Here is a copy of my presentation. Link to Tim's Presentation

Making an Observation Hive

I am asked to provide exhibits at a number of shows and events throughout year.  As far as possible I like to take along an observation hive. It is an excellent way to allow the public to interact with bees.  People can view the bee colony close up without needing protective clothing and as beekeepers we can talk about the way the colony works.

My observation hive in use.  Our stand won second prize!

Removing a colony of bees from Avoncroft Museum

Avoncroft Museum of buildings (http://www.avoncroft.org.uk) have a good relationship with my local beekeeping association, North East Worcestershire Beekeeping Association (http://www.bbka.org.uk/local/northeastworcestershire/).  We are called in from time to time to remove swarms from their buildings.  One building, the 'String of Horses', seems to have a fascination for bees, with swarms regularly landing there.

Processing Beeswax

Beekeepers often ignore the beeswax that they remove from the hives as they extract honey.  However it can easily be processed to give a product that can be used in a number of ways.  You can use it to make into a number of products such as hand cream, candles or furniture polish.  Even if you are not craft minded, it can be cast into small 1 ounce ‘ingots’ which are then bought by all sorts of people for their own craft needs.  Even if you cannot be bothered with these, you can simply take large blocks of wax to the equipment manufacturers and they will ‘swap’ it for wax foundation.

There are as many ways to process wax as there are beekeepers.  This is my way, which seems to be fairly simple.

Propolis, plant resin collected by bees.

We all know that bees collect nectar and pollen, but did you also know that bees collect plant resin to use as a disinfectant, glue and varnish inside the hive?  This substance, called ‘Propolis’, is collected by the bees from sticky buds and tree wounds.  The bees bring it back to the hive in the same way that they  carry pollen, in the ‘pollen baskets’ on their back legs.  The only difference is that it is so sticky that they cannot unload themselves and instead, another bee has to nibble the propolis off.

What do we use beeswax for?

Over the years there have been millions of uses for beeswax.

The most important use for beeswax as a beekeeper is of course to give the honeycomb back to the bees so that they can re-fill it with honey.  It 'costs' the bees to recreate the honeycomb, so giving it back means that they can collect more honey next season. The bees will re-use honeycomb, but they will not take flakes or pieces of wax and re-use them, so once the wax is damaged, or removed from the honeycomb, it can be recycled into something else.  The list below is just some of these uses.

How do bees make honeycomb?

Bees build their home out of wax (beeswax!).  Unlike wasps, who collect the material to make their home, bees create the wax themselves.  Underneath the worker bee abdomen there are 4 pairs of glands.  The bee body, like all insects is made of a hard material.  So that the bee can flex its body, this ‘exoskeleton’ is made up of a number of hard overlapping plates, joined by flexible membranes.  The wax glands are hidden in the overlapping area between two of these plates, so that the wax appears as a small flake between the plates.