Detailed Explanation of the Key Points for Getting Started with Bee Farming Techniques

Introduction to Bee Farming Methods

Beginner beekeepers need: 1. Beehives 2. Beekeeping tools 3. Bee species 4. Four-season management 5. Disease and pest control, and other aspects. There is a lot of content and space is limited, so here is a brief introduction to some of it.

I. Beehives, hive frames, foundation, honey extractors, hive scrapers, veils, smokers, queen excluders, and other equipment.

Standard hive boxes. At present, the most commonly used beehive in China is the 10-frame standard hive, also known as the Langstroth hive. It consists of 10 hive frames, the hive body, the hive bottom, the entrance board, the inner cover, the outer cover, and the division board. Ten-frame hive: non-deforming red pine, white pine, Chinese fir, or poplar and other sturdy, durable woods can be used. The board thickness should be no less than 2 cm. The inner dimensions of the hive are 465 mm long, 380 mm wide, and 245 mm high. There is a handhold on the outer side of each of the front and rear walls for easy carrying. A groove 8 mm wide and 25 mm deep is cut into the upper inner side of each of the front and rear walls. An iron strip guide is nailed at the groove opening, and the upper edge of the guide is 17 mm from the upper edge of the hive body. 2. Hive cover a. Beehive outer cover b. (inner cover) screen cover. 3. Hive bottom.

II. Beekeeping Tools

There are many types of tools for bee feeding and management. In addition to beehives, foundation, honey extractors, veils, hive scrapers, bee brushes, and queen excluders are all essential. They should be selected according to the scale of beekeeping. Other bee tools, such as equipment for producing royal jelly and bee pollen, can be purchased as needed.

1. Foundation

Foundation is the base installed in the hive frame for bees to build comb. It is a artificially manufactured beeswax sheet pressed by a foundation machine, with a base sheet that has comb cell bottoms and comb cell walls. There is Italian bee foundation for keeping European bees; drone foundation for producing drone pupae; and Chinese bee foundation for keeping Chinese bees. Combs built using foundation are neat, flat, sturdy, and have few drone cells.

2. Veil

The veil is a tool used during colony management to protect the operator's head and neck from bee stings.

3. Hive scraper

A specialized tool for beekeeping. One end is a curved blade, and the other end is a flat blade. It is used for prying, scraping, and shoveling things. For example, prying open the inner cover, and scraping and shoveling dirt inside the beehive and on the hive frames.

4. Smoker

A tool for subduing or driving away bees. It consists of two parts: a smoke barrel and a bellows box. When in use, light paper, dry grass, or burlap, place it into the smoke barrel, cover the nozzle, and work the bellows to make it spray thick smoke, but do not let sparks come out.

5. Bee brush

Mainly used to brush off bees attached to combs, hive bodies, queen-rearing frames, and other bee equipment. It is a long fan-shaped long-bristle brush. Generally it has two rows of bristles, with bristle length of 65 mm, made from white horse mane or horse tail hair that does not absorb water easily.

6. Beekeeping tool stool

Can hold beekeeping tools and a record book for management. Used as a stool when inspecting bee colonies.

7. Queen excluder

The queen excluder is a grid plate used to control the queen's egg laying and movement, strictly separating the colony into the brood-rearing area and the honey-production area, so that larvae, pupae, pollen, and other substances will not mix with honey, while worker bees can pass through freely. The wire queen excluder made of No. 14 galvanized wire is sturdy, durable, and not easily deformed; the gap between two wires is about 4.4 mm, and the queen cannot pass through, but it is relatively expensive. The bamboo-strip queen excluder made of bamboo strips 7.5 mm in diameter is easy to source in southern China, easy to process, and low in cost, but its sturdiness is poorer and it deforms more easily. Queen excluders are divided into flat queen excluders and frame-type queen excluders. The flat queen excluder separates the brood comb from the honey storage super, making honey extraction easier and improving honey quality. The frame-type queen excluder is inserted into the beehive and can confine the queen to several combs for egg laying.

8. Feeding utensils There are many types of utensils for supplementary feeding of honey syrup, sugar syrup, or water. Commonly used ones include:

(1) Entrance feeder, also called bottle feeder, consists of a wide-mouth bottle and a base. Several small holes are nailed in the bottle cap with a small nail. The bottle filled with honey syrup is inverted and inserted into the base. Under atmospheric pressure, the honey syrup can be sucked out by bees without dripping. At night, insert the entrance feeder base opening into the hive through the entrance. It is suitable for reward feeding and can avoid causing robbing. For weak colonies that do not fill the hive, it can be placed outside the division board inside the beehive for feeding. The plastic cup feeder developed by the apiary of Hebei Agricultural University is convenient to carry. After filling with sugar syrup, cover the bottom lid, turn it upside down with the bottom lid facing down and place it flat, and insert it into the hive through the entrance.

(2) Frame feeder

A long, flat feeding trough similar in size to a standard hive frame. There are wooden and plastic ones, and they can also be made from thick bamboo. Inside the feeder, there are thin wooden floating strips for bees to stand on and feed. The frame feeder is suitable for supplementary feeding. In addition, a rectangular shallow groove can be chiseled into the top bar of the hive frame and can also be used for feeding a small amount of honey syrup.

(3) Top feeder

A large feeder placed on top of the beehive, dish-shaped and similar in size to a shallow super. It is suitable for emergency supplementary feed and feeding winter feed, and can hold 5-10 liters of sugar syrup at one time.

9. Queen introduction cage

Commonly used queen introduction cages include wooden cage introduction cages, safe introduction cages, and frame-type introduction cages, among several types.

(1) Wooden cage introduction cage

The wooden cage introduction cage is a flat iron wire gauze cage. A small hole is opened in the wooden plug at one end, equipped with a pullable iron sheet, and a thin wooden board is inserted into the open end of the iron gauze cage.

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