# New to bee-keeping



## Warwalk (May 25, 2011)

I'm still in the early processes of looking for land, seeing what's out there, planning my Shangri-la, but I'd always slid past the beekeeping section. Still, I've had some interest. My dad raised bees on two seperate occasions. I remember the boxes came in a kit and he glued them together and painted em' up forest green. In terms of honey, we got some... but it was dark brown shtuff. He had three skeps that were each doubles. I guess, some of my questions would be: Approximately how much honey is in each "cube" (I know it varies, but just approximately), and do the bees somehow separate brood cells from honey cells? Or are they all mixed in together? I remember as a kid watching him pull the racks out and seeing all kinds of yuck all over them, but I suppose that's the way of it when done naturally? Also, for those harvesting the bees wax, has anyone ever measured how much wax would come from a single cube? A pound? Two pounds? My final question is, I believe some people simply kill their bees and buy new ones the next year rather than over-wintering them. I'd have a hard time killing bees just to save a few bucks, but is that standard? I figure if I took their food source they'd starve regardless but didn't know.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Here in the north we use 2 hive bodies for rearing brood and over wintering our bees.










Bees are very expencive to buy and if some one was killing them off each year for the honey they wouln't have much profit.
In the spring honey supers are put on the bees some still use deeps although really heavy, some used a medium honey super about 6 1/2 inches deep and some use shallows just over 4 inches.
There is a queen barrier some use to keep the queen out of the honey supers and there are us who don't use any barrier to keep the queen out.

Honey and wax production varries so much I won't even give an adverage cause the weather effects to production so much. some people are greedy and take to much so not so greedy leave plenty for the bees.

Hive with single medium hony super.









Hive with a double medium honey super.










 Al


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## indypartridge (Oct 26, 2004)

Hello and welcome!

Glad to read of your interest in beekeeping. There's a lot to learn, so start reading. Get some books at the libary. Read online - there's a multitude of sites, but here are two good ones:
Keeping bees naturally:
The Practical Beekeeper, Beekeeping Naturally, Bush Bees, by Michael Bush
Beekeeping 101, 201 & 301 online
Beeclasses>

I also recommend getting involved with a local club. Clubs often offer beginning beekeeping classes, and are great places to find mentors and get connected to nearby beekeepers. The Metro Altlanta club has a great reputation:
Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Association, Inc. | Atlanta Georgia

On to your questions:


Warwalk said:


> Approximately how much honey...


Varies greatly from place to place and year to year. According to the USDA, honey harvests in Georgia averaged 43 lbs per colony in 2011:
http://usda01.library.cornell.edu/usda/current/Hone/Hone-03-30-2012.pdf



> ... do the bees somehow separate brood cells from honey cells? Or are they all mixed in together?


In a typical hive there are brood boxes and honey boxes (supers). While there is usually honey stored in the brood boxes, and _occasionally_ you'll find brood in the honey supers, but in general, the honey you harvest from the honey supers won't have any brood.



> I remember as a kid watching him pull the racks out and seeing all kinds of yuck all over them, but I suppose that's the way of it when done naturally?


Not sure what you remember regarding "all kinds of yuck". When you are uncapping the frames getting reading to extract the honey it does get a bit sticky, but not what I'd call "yuck".



> Also, for those harvesting the bees wax, has anyone ever measured how much wax would come from a single cube? A pound? Two pounds?


Wax is usually obtained from the cappings - the wax that is removed in order to extract the honey. For a few boxes, you'll get ounces, not pounds.



> My final question is, I believe some people simply kill their bees and buy new ones the next year rather than over-wintering them. I'd have a hard time killing bees just to save a few bucks, but is that standard?


Hardly. It may have been "standard" for some beekeepers many years ago - especially in far northern climates, but not today. Your best honey production will come from colonies that overwintered.



> I figure if I took their food source they'd starve regardless but didn't know.


When you harvest honey, you leave enough for them to overwinter on. That will vary depending on location/climate. 

Hope this helps. I'm sure some of the others will jump in with their opinions/answers.


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## Warwalk (May 25, 2011)

These have been some excellent pointers! @Alleyoop - I like the way you colored your honey supers the golden color so they would be easily distinguishable from the brood supers below. Is there a particular reason people use one color versus another apart from personal identification? People seem to prefer matte colors for their hives (grey, forest green, tan) from what I've seen. I haven't seen many that were more vibrant, and figured that this was so as not to cause too much attention to them, but didn't know. Also, huge thanks in explaining what the different "super" sizes were ~ I believe that my dad used all deeps, but I can definitely see the advantage of using the mediums or smaller.

@ Indy - Likewise huge help on the links and info! I believe that part of the "yuck" from when my dad was doing things was that he'd simply placed the supers on an old wooden pallet in the woods, and the color of the honey was already dark dark, coupled with the dead insects themselves, etc... I'm guessing from what you'd mentioned about "wax yield" that starting a candle-making business off of such an adventure wouldn't go very far with only a few ounces per hive? You'd mentioned honey harvest for Georgia averaging 43 pounds per colony, and I read some of the Cornell link on this ~ my question is, if three separate hives are kept side by side, would this represent three different colonies with three different queens? I think yes, but I'm not positive. Obviously from there I know yield will depend on how many supers are kept, time of year, availability of proper nearby flowers, etc, but if I understand correctly a very rough guess would be 43 pounds x 3 hives; or if there are four hives 43 pounds x 4, etc etc... again realizing this figure could be high or low depending on the year?

Final question: I hate being stung. I mean, I'll deal with it. I've had worse happen. But I don't ever see myself as being the type to go into this endeavor unshielded. Do any of yall have a particular favorite beekeepers suit which will virtually eliminate risk of this? Or do you simply learn to deal with it for the love of the craft? (I'd actually thought, of all things, about checking out diving wetsuits lol!)


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Paint color is a matter of choice by the hives owner *OR* in our case we use nothing but OOP's Behr stain. We buy it for $5.00 a gallon or $15.00 per 5 gallons.

As for being stung a very good friend told me on a nice day with a flow you can work the bees naked. Don't know about the nakid, but on nice sunny days the bees are not very cranky if you have the right breeds any way. 

My bee suit is long jeans with boots (wife uses closers on her pant legs.), Tee shirt with a light colored long sleeve dress shirt over top of it, a helmit and face net and goat skin gloves cause I don't like proplis on the truck steering wheel.



















We mist the bees with syrup more than we smoke them, although the smoker sits near by if we deem we need it. I do not put up with a cranky hive and kill queens in cranky hives and replace her with a queen we raise from mild manner hives.

 Al


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## indypartridge (Oct 26, 2004)

Warwalk said:


> You'd mentioned honey harvest for Georgia averaging 43 pounds per colony, and I read some of the Cornell link on this ~ my question is, if three separate hives are kept side by side, would this represent three different colonies with three different queens? I think yes, but I'm not positive.


Yes. 



> Final question: I hate being stung... Do any of yall have a particular favorite beekeepers suit which will virtually eliminate risk of this? Or do you simply learn to deal with it for the love of the craft?


Like Alleyyooper, for years I just wore jeans, a veil and an old white shirt from the re-sale shop. A couple years ago I got an UltraBreeze jacket combo which I like very much. These are much cooler since they are made of a mesh material (and are about as sting-proof as you're gonna get):
Ultra Breeze Suits

From what I've read and heard from other beekeepers, the Golden Bee suits are similar to the UltraBreeze:
Golden Bee Products

Pigeon Mountain now has a ventiliated suit somewhat similar to the above at lower cost:
Pigeon Mountain Trading Company. Ventilated Bee Wear


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## Warwalk (May 25, 2011)

@Alleyoop ~ What does working "with a flow" mean? Does this refer to a light wind? Also, I'm assuming when you mentioned misting the bees with syrup that this gives them something to do perhaps? (mainly, collect the syrup?). Or does it likewise make them docile in the same manner that smoke would?

For me, my goal isn't to make massive amounts of honey (though it will be nice if those combs are harvested real nice and golden and heavy) but more to simply have fun. It seems like the type of part-time fun that can basically be left alone for long stretches of time and the bees will pretty much do their thing, provided that they're periodically checked up on... would y'all say this is accurate? 

Final question I thought of ~ does a hive tend to create one "batch" per year? Or is it sometimes harvested bi-annually?


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## Paquebot (May 10, 2002)

A "honey flow" is the process of bringing nectar to the hive. If it's a bloom which is suddenly in great abundance, the bees just want to get rid of what they've collected and go back for more. Last thing that they want to do is cause trouble. 

Martin


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Yup the flow is when the dandolions are in bloom along with the fruit trees and many other wild spring time blooming plants all at the same time. They are so busy collecting nectar then taking it back to the hive and handing it off they don't have time to mess with much of any thing else. The house bees are busy storing the nectar in the cells so they don't have time either.
We don't use smoke very much, I just don't like to. I open the hive and mist them with syrup. That keeps them busy cleaning each other of the sweet sticky stuff so don't care much what we are up to. I also think it knocks some of the mites off.

In perfect weather in a perfect growing summer we keep adding honey supers. We have a goal to get all the honey off before labor day so any thing they gather after that is thrirs and we don't have to feed so much in the fall.
One friend who is more commercial than we are removes his first honey supers in late June and again in late September. Another friend less commerical goes so far as to remove full frames from honey supers for just one load for his extractor.
A lot of work that is I think always cleaning the extractor and holding tanks as well as the bottling tanks.

D Al


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## Warwalk (May 25, 2011)

I feel like this information is vaulting me way ahead in the process, and I'm very thankful to y'all for it. I'm picking up new words and getting a better understanding of the whole process. Also, it's nice in a way knowing that I can say howdy to the bees more than once a year (not to mention opening the supers and potentially seeing all that honey!). 

As I understand the mechanics of the hive a little better, my natural inclination to re-invent the wheel kicks in, and brings up a few questions regarding the hive. One is that the handgrips on the sides seem very shallow, and I can definitely understand why wearing gloves could be difficult. Has anyone ever considered drilling two holes and installing perhaps a piece of vinyl rope (so, like two rope handles - one per side) to aid in lifting? Second question is I've wondered about some type of a glass "viewing plate"... so that rather than having to uncap the hive and pull a comb out, one could simply look through the glass. The glass could even slide out horizontally and a new piece slid in if pollen or dirt blocked viewing... just some thoughts. I guess one final one is, has anyone ever considered a horizontal hive configuration with a vertical queen excluder (as opposed to the more standard vertical configuration with horizontal excluder). I'd seen a plastic hive called the "beehaus" that was kind of similar to this... just wondering whether anyone's ever tinkered in any of this. I picture for my setup something with a picket fence around it 15' or so out from the hives with a locked gate (I've got some very curious kids, lol!).


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## southerngurl (May 11, 2003)

Warwalk said:


> I feel like this information is vaulting me way ahead in the process, and I'm very thankful to y'all for it. I'm picking up new words and getting a better understanding of the whole process. Also, it's nice in a way knowing that I can say howdy to the bees more than once a year (not to mention opening the supers and potentially seeing all that honey!).
> 
> As I understand the mechanics of the hive a little better, my natural inclination to re-invent the wheel kicks in, and brings up a few questions regarding the hive. One is that the handgrips on the sides seem very shallow, and I can definitely understand why wearing gloves could be difficult. Has anyone ever considered drilling two holes and installing perhaps a piece of vinyl rope (so, like two rope handles - one per side) to aid in lifting? Second question is I've wondered about some type of a glass "viewing plate"... so that rather than having to uncap the hive and pull a comb out, one could simply look through the glass. The glass could even slide out horizontally and a new piece slid in if pollen or dirt blocked viewing... just some thoughts. I guess one final one is, has anyone ever considered a horizontal hive configuration with a vertical queen excluder (as opposed to the more standard vertical configuration with horizontal excluder). I'd seen a plastic hive called the "beehaus" that was kind of similar to this... just wondering whether anyone's ever tinkered in any of this. I picture for my setup something with a picket fence around it 15' or so out from the hives with a locked gate (I've got some very curious kids, lol!).


The hand holds are like that to make for a flat profile, probably more about being able to fit them together for moving around and such. Also I would have concern if there were rope of accidentally snagging one while doing something and pulling over a hive full of extremely angry bees! 

As for a window. Bees don't like light, but I've seen some before that had a cover, where you could pull it back and see through the glass. Also, they will propolis it so it won't slide back out. 

Yes, there are horizontal hives, check out top bar hives. They are not going to be as productive for you, from what I've read.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

The hand holds are for moving emptys deeps really, and are that way for stacking in storage. Better than a rope that the bees are apped to not like and try to chew away is a slat handle screwed on the out side. less likely to hook it and dump the hive.

I have a honey super that came with a window. Once the comb next to the window is full of honey and capped you don't offen see a bee in there.
Also you need to pull the brood frames every so often to inspect the brood patteren, if there is indeed eggs and brood in the cells and no dieases present.
Looking thru a window you would never be able to see those things.

In nature bees work from the bottom up. For example you have a hollow tree and the bees move in. They will build the come from the bottom up and then fill it with honey from the top down. 
during the winter they eat the honey in the bottom and work up. Lots of bees have starved during the winter despite frames of honey right besode the cluster they won't move to.

 Al


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## tom j (Apr 3, 2009)

A pound of wax will hold 22pounds of honey if it is new comb and made with no foundation


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## tom j (Apr 3, 2009)

But it takes 6 to 10 pounds of honey to make a pound of wax


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