How Are Bees Kept? A Detailed Guide to Methods and Techniques

SummarySelecting bee species: choose local bee species that collect plenty of pollen for keeping. Choosing a beehive: the hive material should be sturdy and lightweight; generally, a movable-frame hive can be used, which makes later management and honey harvesting convenient. Transferring the colony: place the colony together with its comb into the movable-frame hive. Supplementary feeding: in winter, feed honey, sugar water and pollen by hand once in the morning and once in the evening. Stimulative feeding: during the spring brood-rearing period and the autumn brood-rearing period, feed sugar water, syrup and honey by hand once every evening.

1. Selecting bee species

1. Not all regions are suitable for keeping bees, so before keeping bees, you should generally first understand the local natural environment and then choose local bee species for keeping, as this helps improve the success rate of bee keeping.

2. When selecting a colony, try to choose a colony that comes and goes busily and collects plenty of pollen for keeping.

2. Choosing a beehive

1. The choice of beehive is also crucial; it is an important condition for bee keeping, because hives are generally placed in the open air, and the bees' basic life activities all take place in the hive, so the requirements for choosing a hive are that the material be solid and the texture light.

2. Generally, for beginners who have just started keeping bees, a movable-frame hive is more suitable, as this facilitates the swapping of combs and also makes later management and honey harvesting more convenient.

3. Transferring the colony

1. Transferring the colony means moving a purchased colony, or a colony captured from the wild, into the chosen movable-frame hive, which helps the bees adapt to the new environment more quickly; usually the bees' comb is placed into the hive along with them.

2. In this way the colony can also resume normal activity as soon as possible and will not cling to the environment where it previously built its nest, because the bees' comb has been moved over together with them.

4. Supplementary feeding

1. Supplementary feeding actually refers to a supplemental feeding process during the bees' honey-collecting stage; it generally involves hand-feeding honey, sugar water, pollen and so on at night.

2. Especially when relatively little honey is being collected, generally in winter, supplementary feeding is also needed to maintain the bees' survival and increase their honey output, and at this time the supplementary feeding is generally carried out once in the morning and once in the evening.

5. Stimulative feeding

1. Stimulative feeding is generally divided into two stages, namely the spring brood-rearing period and the autumn brood-rearing period. Stimulative feeding during the spring brood-rearing period is generally done to improve the economic benefits of bee keeping, while for the autumn brood-rearing period it is to enable the bees to get through the winter smoothly, which helps improve the economic benefits of the second year.

2. Stimulative feeding is actually rather similar to supplementary feeding in method; usually sugar water, syrup, honey and so on are used for feeding, but with stimulative feeding, feeding generally only needs to be done once every evening.