What Are Varroa Mites? Varroa mites are the parasites that suck their food from honey bees and cause a disease called varroosis. These mites perform their reproduction only in a honey bee colony. They feed on the fat bodies of bees and weaken them, thus destroying the honey bee colonies. They are the carriers of minimum 5 debilitating bee viruses such as RNA viruses and Deformed wing viruses. Infestation of Varroa mites ultimately causes the death of honey bees. These mites produce young...
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Why Do Beekeepers Use Smoke?
It is the practice used by the beekeepers when they have to complete some tasks like harvesting the honey while they are surrounded by the bees. Smoking of the hives is done to keep bees calm and save beekeepers from getting stung. You might have seen people using smoke for getting rid of bees from beehives constructed around the house or below a tree which may create havoc in the near future. Have you ever wondered why only smoke has been used? If a beekeeper tries to trespass the beehive,...
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Different Types of Beehives
One of the first decisions that you will be making as a beginner beekeeper is the type of beehive you choose for your bees. We will discuss the most popular types of beehives available in the market, along with their benefits and disadvantages. The choice of the beehive will greatly depend on your comfort when working with these hives. It is always good to get a first-hand experience about these hives from other local beekeepers before you choose the most suitable type of beehive for you.
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How To Install Bees In A Top Bar Hive?
Top bar hives allow beekeepers to mimic a more natural environment for honey bees to build their colony. Unlike the Langstroth hives, these are designed with top bars on which the bees can draw out their combs. If you are planning to set up your first bee colony into a top bar hive then here’s how you can do it:
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How To Set Up A Swarm Trap For Honey bees?
Swarming season is usually during spring when the bees have spent the winter in their colony and are ready to split to start afresh and gather enough honey before winter. But trapping a swarm can be a hit and miss. Everything from the equipment to the lure you use can make a difference. So here’s a step-by-step instruction on setting up a swarm trap for honey bees:
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How Can You Help Bees?
There has been a lot of buzz in recent years about the importance of bees and their decreasing numbers. We feel all this hype is definitely needed. Bee colonies have been dwindling in numbers every year. Efforts are being put into saving bees, but they are not enough. We need to come up with a more universal approach which involves every citizen of the planet. Here’s how you can do your bit for these pretty pollinators,
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Tips To Inspecting A Honey Bee Hive
Inspecting beehive every now and often is vital to ensure everything is going well. It is suggested to inspect a hive once in a week. More than this will disrupt their work and they will lag behind by a day. But, this requires a proper plan. If anything goes wrong, you have to be ready for the consequences. However, if you follow the plan and go by some tips, inspecting a beehive will not be as tough as that. So, here are the tips for properly inspecting a beehive.
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How To Requeen A Honey Bee Hive
Queen is the most important bee in the overall honey bee colony. And this is why it is vital to ensure that the queen is healthy and productive. The life span of a bee ranges between 4-5 years. But, sadly, a queen remains healthy and highly productive only for 1-2 years. So, the beekeepers need to replace the queen bee once in a year to keep the hives in productive condition. Anyways, there are many other ways when a honey bee hive calls for a new queen. The situations are: · The...
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How To Combine Your 2 Beehives
There are times when it becomes vital to combine two beehives to convert it into a robust colony. For example, when a beehive is queen-less, it is too weak, or else two hives are weak. Combining two beehives is definitely a simple and easy task. But this should be done gradually. Dumping the hives from one to another will not work at all. It takes time and the whole thing will happen slowly and gradually. Merging two hives through a small piece of newspaper is very popular and this is...
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How to Make Nucleus Honey bee Colony?
After the winter comes spring, and the most difficult task for all the beekeepers to keep the beehives from swarming. The best way to prevent swarming is by making nucleus honey bee colony. And in this article, we shall learn how to make a nucleus honey bee colony.
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Amazing Facts About Honey Bees
Honey bees are one of the most environment-friendly as well as human-friendly insects. They have served humans need for centuries, even though we are still unaware of those. For example, honey bees are responsible for pollinating one-third of the total crop cultivation that we consume. Are you surprised? Here are some more such amazing facts about honey bees.
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How To Prevent Bees From Leaving Your Hive
There is nothing more disappointing than the honey bees leaving your hive. This can have a bad impact on your apiculture business. Honey bees may leave all at once (including queen, workers and drones) or they might split. This can happen due to a variety of reasons; this includes uncomfortable hives, strong winds, predators, bad chemical odors, etc.