how do you start a honey bee farm
What do you need to start a bee farm?
What do you need to start a bee farm? The initial cost of beekeeping can be intimidating to new beekeepers. You will need to invest in supplies such as a hive, proper protective clothing, a smoker, and hive tool. As of this writing, a single new hive may cost about $150, clothing and gear may cost about $160, and a package of new bees may run …
How to set up your first beehive?
How To Set Up Your First BeehiveSelect Your Apiary Location. Site your apiary in a location that will keep hives dry,buffered from the wind,and with good sun exposure.Prepare your hives. …Packaged Bees vs. …Installing Packaged Bees. …Installation of Nucs. …Installation Follow Up. …Feeding Hives. …Go get your bees! …
Is harvesting honey harmful to the Bee?
Harvesting honey is not harmful to the bees. The reason why harvesting honey from the bees is not harmful to them because bees produce honey round the clock as long as they have a good supply of nectar and pollen. As such, the honey you are harvesting is actually the surplus that the bees don’t need.
Are honey bees hard to raise?
You can raise honeybees in your backyard with a minimal investment of time and money. Of course, you’ll need beekeeping clothing, a smoker, a few tools, hives, and bees. But, with a little bit more knowledge, you’ll be able to raise bees for yourself and your family successfully.
Where to buy bees?
So, now that you have successfully set up your beehive and chosen the prime location, it’s time to source your bees. This is considered the most important question for a new beekeeper, where do you buy your bees?
How to build a bee hive?
Placing your beehive in the best location possible, is a whole article in itself – creating a honey bee habitat. These are the basic considerations to help you achieve prime apiary location when you start out: 1 Ensure the entrance of your hive is facing to the east or south; 2 Place your hive on a stand such as a table, small dresser, wooden or cement blocks. Bees are arboreal creatures, so the higher the better.
How to get bees?
One way to get bees is to buy bees and a hive together. If you happen to know a beekeeper in your area, you might be able to persuade them to sell you some bees or you could be lucky enough to purchase an entire hive. Another way to get bees is totally free! Get your name down on a local swarm list with your local fire and police departments.
What is a package hive?
The term refers to both the smaller size box as well as the size of the colony inside. A package hive is a wooden frame box used to transport bees to a new hive. Package hives are sold by weight and will contain more bees than a nuc hive.
What is the difference between a nucleus and a package hive?
An important understanding to have is the difference between a nucleus (nuc) and a package hive. When ordering your bees , you can choose between a nucleus or nuc hive or a package hive. A nuc colony is a small colony of bees created from a larger colony. The term refers to both the smaller size box as well as the size of the colony inside. A package hive is a wooden frame box used to transport bees to a new hive. Package hives are sold by weight and will contain more bees than a nuc hive.
What does it mean to buy a package hive?
Buying a package hive means that in an instant, you will go from being bee free with no beekeeping experience to a thriving, full strength working hive…diving right in at the deep end!
How to get bees for free?
Another way to get bees is totally free! Get your name down on a local swarm list with your local fire and police departments. This is a list of beekeepers who volunteer to retrieve a swarm when one is reported at a home or business premises. Some pest control companies may also maintain a swam list.
14 Steps To Start a Bee Farm
The first step to starting a bee farm is to choose your business’ name.
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How to Start a Bee Farm FAQs
Starting a bee farm is not hard, but it takes a lot of time and effort. You’ll need to make sure you have enough space for the hives. You’ll also need to be able to provide enough food for the bees. In addition, you’ll need to be prepared for the work that comes with keeping bees, such as collecting honey and pollen.
How to Carry out Honey Bee Farming?
First decide a place where you will keep your hives. Take all needed permission so that you don’t land up in trouble. Maintain all required cautions if necessary. Now chose the hive you fee would be best for extraction. There are two types. One is where you can routinely extract honey while the other is where you have to extract annually or at the end of summer season.
How much money do you make from honey bees?
The initial stage of honey bee farming isn’t profitable given the investment and time it requires. You will require at least a year to get the first production of honey that may give you profit. If you have only one colony or one hive then it is less profitable. One hive produces 50-60 Lb. of honey and each Lb. of honey is sold at $5-10. Therefore on year basis your return will be not more than $400-500. From second year your profit will grow given you increase the colonies and hives.
How does a honey bee make honey?
Honey bee as the word says produces honey. It does it by collecting honey from flower nectars and accumulating it on its nest known as the beehive .
How to get honey from hives?
You need to put the honey hive in the harvesting machine. The machine revolves in a centrifugal force where the hive is rotated in a high speed thus separating honey from hives. You can heat the hives so that the honey leaves the hives at ease.
How do farmers collect honey?
Many of the farmers in the village area collect honey from beehives and then they sell it in the market. Many of them do it by searching beehives but now this method of farming has been professionalized. There are many new entrants who are doing beehive farming in a more professional way. Here’s an introduction of beehive farming.
What equipment do you need to extract honey?
Proper equipment like smoker, beehive extractor, safety material, medication, dress and many more. Honey extraction room or center where you can extract the honey. A proper guide how to do the farming and types of honey, their uses, nutrition and benefits. If anything goes wrong then you may feel the heat.
What do you need to bee hive farming?
What all do you need to do beehive farming? You need a decent place, you need to have a warm place where you can keep your hive. You need a beehive. Now beehives come of different types. Here are few of them mentioned.
What is a Bee Farming?
But, bee farming does not have to involve thousands of hives. Some small scale beekeepers have 50 or less beehives. Your apiary can be any size.
What can be sold to beekeepers?
Beeswax is another product beekeepers can sell. Beeswax is left over from honey harvesting. This beeswax can be sold raw to other beekeepers and businesses.
How do beekeepers make money?
Many beekeepers produce income from selling bees or beekeeping equipment. This can be a profitable side of beekeeping. Raising bees with success revolves around temperatures, weather conditions and foraging conditions. As the bee farmer, you can only control some aspects of bee production.
How many hives are there in a bee farm?
Maximize every aspect of beekeeping that you can. This is true whether you have a small bee farm of 4 hives or thousands of hives spread across several bee yards.
What is a honey bee farm?
Honey Bee Farm. When you start with bees, you are starting a farm. Your livestock lives in hives not a barn. When they go out to forage, they are free flying and not contained within fencing. So you can easily see how it is difficult to keep your bee livestock safe and under control.
How long has beekeeping changed?
The art of beekeeping has changed a lot in the last 30 years. Educate yourself about honey bee management before getting that first hive.
What are the conditions that affect the amount of honey that a colony of bees can produce?
Weather conditions such as : too much rain, too little rain, late frosts or high winds affect the amount of honey that a colony of bees can produce. When selling honey, what you are able to charge will depend somewhat on the average price of honey in your region. But don’t give your honey away for dirt cheap prices.
What type of hive do bees use?
Inside, the bees create their comb and fill the cells with honey on waxed frames that hang vertically inside the super. Langstroth is the type of hive we chose to use. Warre – The Warre has been compared to a cross between a hollowed out tree and a top bar hive.
Why are skeps no longer used?
This is no longer used because it is hard to remove the honey from the skep and this type of hive is difficult to clean and can become unsanitary. Although they are no longer used, skeps can be a decorative addition to a collection of vintage farming equipment.
Why do you need a NUC?
The advantages of buying a nuc when starting beekeeping is that the bees are already starting to produce comb and honey when you bring them home. You simply put on your bee protective clothing and transfer the ten frames from the cardboard box, into your hive.
What is the practice of keeping and maintaining bees and their hives?
Apiculture is the practice of keeping and maintaining bees and their hives. The beekeeper is also referred to as the apiarist and the entire colony set up is called the Apiary. Beekeeping has grown in popularity in recent years and the raw honey, beeswax, and royal jelly are much sought after products. A bee on a flower.
How do bees make combs?
The bees make their own comb by drawing it down from the wooden bar inside the top of the hive.
What do bees eat?
Grasses, trees, herbs, flowers, and weeds all produce pollen that is used by bees to feed the hive. You don’t need to have a flourishing flower bed in your yard, but having a varied garden will help the bees get enough food.
How to raise a hive from ground level?
No matter which type of hive you start with, use cinder blocks, a table or stacked pallets to raise the hive up from ground level.
What is beekeeping equipment?
Beekeeping equipment encompasses the physical tools and supplies that you’ll be using to set up and run your beekeeping business. With that being said, the equipment that you decide to purchase will ultimately play a large part in determining how efficient your business is, after all, there’s only so much a beekeeper can do with his bare hands, and thus the quality of your bee tools will help streamline your efforts.
What is a bee smoker?
A bee smoker is a device used to by beekeepers to insert smoke into the beehive. This smoke acts as a harmless agent to help relax the bees, to allow for you to enter the hive without frightening or spooking them. Afterall, we want to keep the colony calm as we inspect, install or extract items from the hive.
What is a beehive tool?
Simply put, a beehive tool is a necessary tool that every beekeeper needs. It will help you gain access to the beehive, allowing you to wedge it open.
Why do we need a bee feeder?
The reason why we use a bee feeder is simple, you want for you bees to thrive, without having to go hungry and potentially have bees dying, and secondly, we don’t want for the bees to be too hungry where they’re consuming large amounts of honey, because we want some of that…. Although let’s not be greedy now.
Why do beekeepers wear suits?
A beekeepers suit is used to protect your body from stings, and therefore making sure that you get the best one out there, which is both comfortable, lightweight yet provides quality protection is of the utmost importance.
Where to go for beekeeping advice?
Well, the best place to go for this advice is your local beekeeping association , since there will be tens and potentially hundreds of local beekeepers who will have advice for you in this department.
What equipment do you need to bees?
As far as non-essential, but helpful equipment goes, you’ll want to look at getting the following: A brush — Used to push bees away from your work area. Knife — A knife gives a sharper edge where the hive tool fails. Containers — Elegant designs in place of mason jars.
