Keeping Bees

 Keeping Bees

Bees are kept in wooden boxes – 8 or 10 frames in each, 2 sides to each frame. Each frame has a mid rib of honey comb pattern, to ensure the bees build the shape required to be able to extract the honey efficiently.

Hives are worked in boxes of 1, 2 or 3 stacked on top of each other, number depending of strength of hive, amount of honey etc. These boxes have a top and bottom – removable – weather proof, with closable openings.

A three storey hive on average would contain approximately 50 – 60 thousand bees.

When bees have taken nectar back to their hive, they then fan their wings to get the moisture out of it, before they seal it with wax – they make from their glands.

Bees keep their hives at a fairly constant temperature of 22 degrees celcius. by fanning their wings. On a hot summers day you will see them hanging in bunches out of the hives, trying to get cool.

Worker bees hatch out moving like wobbly babys – slow and unsure, But queens hatch out, immediately very active and aggressive, and the first one out kills all remaining unhatched queens. Therefore beekeepers have to be very vigilant if trying to raise queens, and be ready to place them right to time, in hives made ready for them – called nukes.