This PPT describes the various products from honey bees. The benefits of honey bees include pollination services, pollen, honey included comb honey and creamed honey, beeswax, royal jelly, propolis, and bee venonm. Other topics include harvesting, dehydration and processing.

1. Products Of
The Bee Hive
First Lessons in Beekeeping
by Keith Delaplane
Chapter 6
PPT by Tim & Jane Donohoe,
LA Master Beekeeper Advisory Group Members

2. POLLINATION OF
AGRICULTURAL
CROPS BY
HONEY BEES

3. Honey bees pollinate a vast
number of farm crops
including fruits, vegetables,
nuts, and grasses such as:
alfalfa, apple, almond,
artichoke, asparagus,
blackberry, blueberry,
broccoli, brussels sprouts,
cabbage, cacao, cantaloupe,
carrot, cashew, cauliflower,
celery, cherry, citrus,
cranberry, dill, eggplant,
fennel, garlic, kale, kola nut,
look, lychee, macadamia,
mango, mustard, nutmeg,
onion, passion fruit, peach,
pear, plum,
pumpkin, raspberry, sapote,
squash, sunflower, tangerine,
tea, watermelon
Apisuk.com
Superboostbee.com
Thehive-trust.blogspot.com

4. As they gather pollen and nectar for their
survival, bees pollinate a vast number of plants
including fruits, vegetables, legumes, grasses,
and nuts that require insect pollination for
successful crop yield and quality and to produce
an abundance of food that is nutritious and safe.
Known and valued since ancient times for
the production of honey and beeswax, we now
realize that honey bees also play a vital role in
the survival of man as pollinators of a vast array
of agricultural crops.

5. The most easily manipulated pollinating
insect for the largest variety of agricultural crops
which man has been able to control is the honey
bee. No other insect pollinator compares to the
honey bee when it comes to placing large numbers
of pollinators on a specific crop at a specific time,
and demand for the rental of beehives has grown
steadily.
“It’s estimated that there are about 2.4 million colonies in the U.S. today, two-
thirds of which travel the country each year pollinating crops and producing
honey and beeswax. More than one million colonies are used each year in
California just to pollinate the state’s almond crop! The $14.6 billion
contribution made by managed honey bees comes in the form of increased
yields and superior quality crops for growers and American consumers — a
healthy beekeeping industry is invaluable to a healthy U.S. agricultural
economy.” American Beekeeping Federation http://www.abfnet.org

6. WHAT’S HAPPENING
IN THE HIVE
Forums.dayzgame.com
Debbeeshive.wordpress.com

7. POLLEN
During foraging trips, bees gather pollen and
nectar from plants for the production of their own
food. Beekeepers collect and sell pollen for health
uses. The collection of pollen requires a pollen
trap installed at the hive entrance and pollen
accumulation during an intense pollen season.
Environmentmagazine.com

8. Pollen contains the primary source of protein
that is an essential part of the diet of brood bees
and adult bees. Honey bees are equipped with
special pollen baskets in which they pack and
carry pollen gathered from the stamens of flowers
back to the hive. In the hive, the pollen is mixed
with nectar and bee saliva containing enzymes,
fungi, and bacterial organisms forming small hard
granules called bee bread or ambrosia, which are
stored in honeycomb cells.
Nashvillescene.com
Honeybeehaven.org

9. HONEY
Bees store honey for their own nutritional
needs and store it for use in the winter; it is their
source of energy and heat. Bees make honey by
collecting nectar from flowers and combining that
nectar with an enzyme that converts the sucrose in
the nectar to glucose and fructose. This process
gives honey its unique properties. Honey varies in
flavor, color, and crystallization characteristics
according to the plant from which nectar is
gathered.
CURBSTONEVALLEY.COM

10. At each flower visit, a bee sucks up a tiny
amount of nectar and adds it to her honey sac. A
bee’s body contains a honey stomach, which is
separate and apart from her digestive stomach and
intestines, where a special enzyme is added to the
stomach’s contents changing the nectar into the
simple sugar found in honey.
Honeybees live only about 6 weeks in summer. They
literally work themselves to death, wearing out their wings.
These enzymes begin working on the nectar
as soon as the foraging bee takes it into her
honey sac. One average worker bee will make
1/12th of a teaspoon of honey in her entire lifetime.
A foraging bee makes from 100 to 1500 flower visits to
fill her stomach with 70 milligrams of nectar, 85% of
her body weight.

11. When foraging bees bring nectar into the hive,
it contains about 80% water. Upon returning to to
hive, she transfers the nectar to a house bee and
takes off for another load. The house bee, in turn,
takes the nectar into her body, adding more
enzymes and continuing the curing process. She
and other house bees deposit the honey into empty
honeycomb cells for evaporation. The house bees
must then reduce the moisture content to
approximately 18% to make the honey into a more
concentrated product.
WORLDTRUTH.TV

12. The warmth of the hive, which is always about
95° F, along with the action of worker bees fanning
the uncapped cells evaporates water from the
honey until the resulting liquid is approximately
18% water, the consistency we are accustomed to
in honey. Bees will not cap honey until it reaches
the proper amount of moisture. At that point, the
bees put a fresh, white beeswax cap on the cell,
which keeps the honey pure and prevents spoilage
until the cap is removed.
Beesomebody.wordpress.com
The Romans used to pay their taxes
with honey.

13. BEESWAX
Bees also manufacture wax from sugars and
carbohydrates found in honey. Bees use wax to
construct honeycomb, which is where the brood is
raised and honey is stored. Bees eat their own
honey to get the energy to make wax, consuming six
to eight pounds of honey to make one pound of wax.
www.naturalcosmeticsupplies.com
www.pinterest.com

14. Flakes of wax are secreted from glands on
the underside of the abdomen of nurse bees.
When the wax comes out of the nurse bees’
glands, it is clear. The bees transfer the flakes
from their hind legs to their front legs and then
into their mouths. They chew the wax flakes,
which softens them and makes them malleable
enough to form honeycomb. The new beeswax
is snowy white.
Zeebeeman.com

15. ROYAL JELLY
Royal jelly, the hugely potent food that is
fed to all bees for the first three days and then to
the queen eggs for their entire gestation, is
secreted from the hypopharyngeal glands in the
heads of young worker bees and is fed to all
young larvae; but, the queen larvae are fed
about 20% more than worker larvae. The worker
bees continue to feed the queen royal jelly
throughout her adult life.
Votemeyo.com

16. PROPOLIS
Propolis, or bee glue, is gathered from tree
buds or pitch from coniferous trees and is used for
plugging holes, fastening frames, reinforcing
comb, narrowing entrances, or sealing over dead
intruders, such as mice, which cannot be carried
from the hive. While propolizing the hive indeed
helps protect it from the elements, the most
important contribution of propolis is its amazing
ability to inhibit fungal and bacterial growth. It is
the resinous “glue” that keeps the inside of the
hive safe from disease. The honeybee hive is one of the most sterile and
cleanest environments to be found in nature.
En.wikipedia.org

17. HONEY
SUPERS
A honey super is simply a hive body box
filled with frames used for the production of
honey rather than as a brood chamber. Supers
serve as food chambers for the bees. After
making sure the bees have a sufficient quantity of
honey to make it through the winter, surplus
honey is harvested by the beekeeper.
Beavercreekbees.blogspot.com

18. The use of supers also makes it possible to
separate various flavors and colors of honey in
areas where they can be obtained. Honey is
marketed as extracted honey, comb honey,
creamed honey (finely crystallized), and chunk or
cut comb honey. Apiaries must be properly
equipped with the necessities for whichever end
products the beekeeper wishes to harvest.
Production of comb honey requires much closer
attention to detail and more frequent manipulation
of bees than the production of extracted honey.
Healty-family.org Indulgy.com

19. PROCESSING
HONEY
Ncse.org
NORTHHAMPTONHONEY.COM
PINTEREST.COM

20. HONEY MOISTURE
A chief concern with producing honey is
avoiding fermentation, which is caused when
honey is harvested before it is “ripe”. Honey is
“ripe” when the bees have done the job of
removing enough moisture from the nectar to
prevent yeast growth and spoilage. Unripe honey
has poor flavor and ferments quickly. Ripened
honey has had its moisture reduced to 18.6
percent or lower, thus making the sugars more
concentrated.
Honey was found in the tombs of Egyptian Pharaohs - and was still edible!!
Peacebeefarm.blogspot.com
Sfgate.com

21. Cappings on the comb
indicate that the bees have
done their work and the
honey in the cell is “ripe”.
If some cells remain
uncapped, a quick test for
ripeness is to remove a
frame from the super, hold
it by the end bars and near
the top of the frame, and
try to vigorously shake the
uncapped honey out of the
comb. If no drops of
honey fall from the frame,
it is ripe.
An inexpensive
pocket refractometer
can also help you
measure the water
content in honey and
aim for the 18.6%
level or lower that is
suggested.
Nationalanalyticalcorp.com

22. HARVESTING
HONEY
First, the beekeeper needs to remove the
honey-filled supers from the hive. When filled
with honey, the approximate weight of a shallow
super is 35 pounds, a medium super is 50-60
pounds, and a deep super is up to 85-90 pounds.
In addition to the weight of supers, this can be a
tricky process because the bees, understandably,
become agitated when part of their home is
dismantled.
Littlehouseonthebighill.com

23. Full honey supers must be emptied of bees
before they are removed from a hive and brought
indoors for processing. Once cleared of bees, the
honey supers must be covered quickly with top
and bottom lids or placed into a covered
container to prevent robber bees from entering
the supers.
In small apiaries, bees can be removed by
shaking them from individual combs. Frames are
lifted one at a time and held at both ends of the
top bar between the fingers and the base of the
thumb. They are then shaken with quick up and
downward motions. Any remaining bees are
brushed off with a bee brush.
Callenshoneyfarm.wordpress.com
Redoubtreporter.wordpress.com

24. Other methods of removing bees include
using a bee escape or a bee blower. A bee
escape is a funnel-like device inserted between
the honey supers and the brood chamber
wherein bees pass through the escape and into
the brood chamber and are unable to return to
the supers. If all goes well, the honey supers
are usually cleared of bees by the following
morning. A bee blower is a machine made with
a leaf blower that has screen covering the inlet
and is used to create a blast of air that will
dislodge the bees from the frames. A large
volume of air moving at high speed is required
to quickly clear a super of bees.

25. Chemical bee repellents on fume boards
drive bees out of supers within a few minutes on
warm, sunny days if the ambient temperature is
above 70°F. Fume boards offer a practical and
efficient honey harvesting approach, and several
fume boards running at the same time can keep
one person fully occupied.
Davesbeeadventure.blogspot.com

26. Sunlight warms the repellent, and the evaporating
fumes drive bees downward as they retreat out of
the honey supers. Care should be taken not to
drip repellants onto frames to prevent honey from
becoming contaminated. In this manner, you can
proceed downward, harvesting one super at a
time.
Ocbeeclub.org
A fume board is lined
with absorbent material
and is the same size as
an inner cover. They
are sprayed with
commercially available
repellants and placed
over the honey supers.

27. POST-HARVEST
DEHYDRATION
Remove the honey supers from the hive
immediately after bees are removed from them. If
honey is left unattended in the hive, it may take up
moisture and lower the quality of the honey. Once
the supers have been removed, they are taken to
the “honey house” where they will be extracted.
The honey house can be a garage, a kitchen, or a
dedicated building, anywhere that can be closed
off to the bees who will be eager to take the honey
back to their hives.

28. If honey is not extracted right away, special
care must be taken to store it in a clean
environment that is free of pests and where bees
cannot enter. Keeping the humidity in the storage
space low is also advisable to maintain the quality
of the honey.
Beekeepers can
remedy borderline
moisture levels in
honey supers by
dehydrating them
in a honey house
before extracting
the honey.
Cedar-run.net

29. To remove excess moisture, stack honey
supers in a criss-cross fashion so that the ends of
each super are exposed. Running a heater, fan,
and a dehumidifier in the room for several days
where harvested supers are thus arranged can
help reduce the water content of the honey later
extracted. Check the honey with a refractometer
until the 18.6 percent or lower moisture level is
achieved.
Peacebeefarm.blogspot.com

30. EXTRACTING HONEY
Before extracting the liquid honey from the
comb, the beekeeper must remove the wax
cappings covering the cells using tools such as a
bevel-edged knife, a heated knife, or a capping
fork or scrapper that simply scratches the surface
of the capped honey. The frame of honey is then
set on a bar above an uncapping tub. A nail point
that sticks up from the bar helps hold the frame in
place.
Honeyberryapiary.comHoneybeesandme.com

31. Forgottenacresfarm.com
public.fotki.com
A common honey harvesting tool is a heated
uncapping knife. Where the knife doesn’t reach or
open, a scrapper can be used.

32. A square or rectangular galvanized or plastic
tub with a one-inch drain hole cut in one end and
fitted with a honey gate serves as a receptacle to
hold and strain the wet cappings. The uncapping
tub is fitted with a mesh grate which permits
honey to drop through onto the floor of the tub.
Using the uncapping knife with a gentle, sawing
motion and cutting from top to bottom, the
cappings are sliced off each side of the frame.
Any remaining uncut cappings are opened with a
capping fork or scrapper. The cappings are then
set aside for another use, like candle making, and
the honey is then drained through a strainer.

33. In the simplest, low-tech version, the honey
in the uncapped frames is left to drop into a
waiting container with gravity doing the work.
The majority of beekeepers prefer to use a
mechanical extractor. Most extractors depend
upon centrifugal force to fling the honey from
frames. The size and style of extractors affect the
time and convenience of extracting.
Gwbuxx.com
Waywardspark.com

34. The most basic extractor is just a barrel that
holds the uncapped frames. The frames are loaded
into the extractor, and it can be turned by hand or
electronically, allowing centrifugal force to fling the
honey out of the frames. Smaller home-use
extractors hold two to six frames, larges ones hold
nine, and commercial ones hold many more. When
the honey from the frames has been spun out, the
frames are removed and filled frames are put in their
place. This is repeated until all the frames are
emptied.
Mosssopshoney.co.nz

35. A honey extractor is a can with a revolving reel
or basket. The reel spins rapidly so that centrifugal
force throws honey out of uncapped combs. The
smaller type extractor should be placed in the honey
house in a convenient place and on a platform high
enough to allow a four or five gallon food-grade
bucket to be placed below the honey gate or outlet
valve of the extractor. The extracted honey collects
in the bottom of the extractor, then is poured out
through the honey gate into the bucket. It is then
poured through a strainer to clear the honey of small
particles of wax and other debris, and then into a
settling and bottling tank. Let the honey settle at
least 24 hours in a closed container with a spigot at
the bottom. The honey is then put into jars.

36. Honey is most commonly bottled in
standard one pound or two pound jars or in
plastic honey bears. State agriculture
departments regulate label standards. Most
labels from well-known suppliers meet these
standards, which are highly uniform throughout
the country.
Lovelygreens.com

37. PRODUCTS OF THE
BEE HIVE
Country Creek Honey

38. Honey
Honey in liquid, extracted form or in the
comb is the premier product of the bee hive. It
contains protein, vitamins, minerals, and enzymes.
A specific honey varietal is the result of a
beekeeper paying close attention to what is in
bloom in the area around his or her beehives.
When the specific bloom is finished, the beekeeper
collects the filled honey frames and takes them to
a safe storage place until it is time to extract the
honey. This ensures that no other nectar will be
mixed in and that the honey will remain a single
varietal. In the United State alone, there are more
than 300 specific honey varietals.

39. Many beekeepers simply allow their bees to
forage freely within a two to five mile radius
around their hives. In this case, the mixed honey
is unique and a true reflection of the flowers and
trees in bloom in the neighborhood of the bees.
Some honeys are prone to granulation, which
does not affect the quality of the honey.
Granulated honey is easily returned to liquid
state by re-heating it in a pot of hot water that
has been removed from the heat source.
Melodyacreslowlines.com

40. Comb Honey
Comb honey production is considered to be
one of the highest forms of the beekeeping art.
This is honey in its purest, most basic, and ancient
form. The honey comb is made of 100% pure honey
and the edible wax created by the bees. The comb
is cut from the frame in the hive with no processing
involved other than cutting and packaging. The
goal of producing comb honey is to produce
perfect, fully-filled and fully-capped combs of
honey.
Idealhoneybees.com

41. Comb honey requires the use
of special, extra-thin 100% beeswax foundation to
enhance the delicate palatability of the product. It
is the most unprocessed form in which honey
comes — the bees fill the hexagon shaped wax
cells of the comb with honey and cap it with
beeswax. You can eat comb honey just like a
chewy candy. Because the honey in the comb is
untouched and is deemed to be pure,
honey presented in this form comes
with a relatively higher price tag.
Gentlebreezehoney.com
En.wikipedia.org

42. Naseerahmad.com
Cut Comb or Chunk Honey
Cut comb or chunk honey is simply a hunk
of honeycomb submerged in a jar of extracted
liquid honey. Chunk honey is a product that is
somewhat similar to cut comb honey, but it
involves smaller pieces of comb that are placed in
jars and then surrounded by liquid honey.

43. Creamed honey that is sold in markets
is granulated honey for which the
crystallization process is controlled to
result in tiny crystals rather than large,
unsightly, chunky ones. Over time,
harvested natural honey can crystalize.
Tandysinclair.com
Although the honey is not bad and won't taste any
different, the chunky crystals aren't pleasant on the tongue.
Making creamed honey involves using a
process to control the formation of crystals
so that very tiny, smooth, oval shaped
crystals are created. This end product is
non-drip, very spreadable, and velvety
smooth on the tongue.
Creamed Honey

44. BEESWAX
Beeswax is a by-product of extracting honey,
and the capping wax is virgin wax that is free of
debris and contaminents. Cappings are washed
and dried, then melted using indirect heat and
poured through a filter into molds. This premium
beeswax has a distinct, pleasing aroma and is
light in color.
Beeswax is highly valued in candle making.
As a natural and renewable resource, beeswax
candles are highly regarded as an environmentally
friendly product. Because of their high melt
point, beeswax candles are the most dripless,
smokeless, and longest burning candles you can
buy.
Heathmonthoney.com.au

45. Beeswax is used in a multitude of products
including: beauty products and cosmetics,
soaps, shampoos, moisturizers, lotions, lip
balms, healing salves, creams and ointments,
lubricants, furniture polishes and conditioners.
Additionally, it finds its way into a myriad of
industrial products and uses.
Localhoney.co.uk
Getlippie.blogspot.com

46. POLLEN
Bee pollen is packed full of nutrition and many
consider it a “super food”. It is cleaned and dried
and sold most often in health food stores and at
farmer’s markets. Bee pollen is consumed to
boost energy, aid digestion, and reduce
symptoms caused by air-born allergens.
PROPOLIS
Propolis is a highly effective antiseptic,
contains antioxidants, and has anti-inflammatory
properties. Its uses include skin healing products
and it seems to be effective against some
bacteria, viruses, and fungi.
Saskpropolis.com
Frostvillefarmersmarket.com

47. ROYAL JELLY
Royal jelly is rich in essential amino acids which
cannot be biosynthesized. It is used for a wide
variety of general health conditions such as
asthma, hay fever, insomnia,
stomach ulcers, skin disorders
and for boosting the immune
system.
BEE VENOM
Even the venom of the dreaded bee sting is thought
to have amazing powers in treating arthritis. Many
beekeepers report being cured of arthritic hands
and joints after being stung.
Carevitaminsonline.com.au
Dna2life.com