More Related Content
What's hot
What's hot (20)
Similar to Introduction to bees and beekeeping
Similar to Introduction to bees and beekeeping (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Introduction to bees and beekeeping
- 2. Contents 1. Honey Bees 2. Bee Hives 3. Annual Cycle 4. Apiculture (Beekeeping)
- 4. There are 20,000 Bee Species Globally ~7 produce honey
- 5. Humans and Honey Bees First domestication, Egypt, 2000 BCE Global European honey bee distribution, today Wild honey hunting in cave art, Spain, 6000 BCE A long relationship
- 6. Worker Queen Drone European/Western Honey Bee Apis mellifera
- 7. Queen
- 8. Drone
- 9. Worker Hive cleaner Climate controller Undertaker Wax comb builder Queen’s retinue Nurse Guard Honey maker Forager
- 10. Wax comb builder
- 11. Nurse
- 12. Guard
- 13. Honey maker
- 14. Forager
- 15. Bees forage over 2 miles from the hive
- 16. Regulating Foraging and Honey Making
- 17. The “Waggle Dance” guides others to food sources
- 18. 2. Bee Hives
- 19. Three Types of Comb Brood comb Pollen (“bee bread”) Honey Capped honey Uncapped honey (Lower in the hive) (Higher in the hive)
- 20. Wild Honey Bee Nests
- 22. Basket Hives
- 23. Langstroth Hives
- 24. Langstroth hives have removable frames Bee space = ⅜”
- 26. 3. Annual Cycle
- 28. Late Winter: California Almond Bloom “The world’s largest managed pollination event” -- Scientific American 1.7 million hives from all over the country (and the world), ~80 billion bees, come to CA Farmers pay ~$150 per hive Honey bee pollination estimated to contribute $318 billion/yr to global agriculture
- 29. Spring/Summer : Foraging and Swarm Season The queen lays eggs while workers race to build the hive, forage, and store honey Colony reproduction: With crowding, the queen leaves with approximately 60% of the worker bee population The swarm clings to a branch or building for a day while scouts search for a new home The old hive rears a new queen and carries on
- 30. Winter: Hunker Down for Warmth As cold weather begins, bees stop foraging outside the hive, the queen stops laying eggs, and any drones are ejected from the hive The winter generation of workers may live 6 months (compared to 2-3 weeks in summer) The colony clumps in a ball for warmth around the queen, in the center of the hive, and lives off its honey stores
- 32. There are Approx. 2.7 Million Honey-Producing Hives in the US... Commercial apiary
- 33. ...And Thousands of Roof-Top Hives in Urban Areas
- 34. Beekeeping Gear Starter kit: Hive components Protective clothing (veil/jacket/gloves) Smoker Hive tool Entrance feeder
- 35. Annual Beekeeping Activities Install new hives Check hives every ~2 weeks for growth, comb pattern, disease, pests, signs of swarming Spring Summer Fall Winter Feed with pollen and sugar water for wax production Treat for varroa mites Add levels as the colony grows Remove levels as the colony shrinks Harvest honey if hive has sufficient surplus
- 36. Honey Extraction 1. Remove capped honey frames 2. Uncap and extract honey Scrape / crush -or- Centrifuge
- 37. Honey Extraction 3. Strain the honey to remove wax particles 4. Jar it!
- 38. Honey and Wax Products Candles and wax products Skin care products Honey and creamed honey Honeycom b Royal jelly Mead
- 39. Getting Involved Find your local beekeeping guild http://www.sanmateobeeguild.org/http://www.sfbee.org/ http://www.alamedabees.org/
- 40. BZZZZZZZ
Editor's Notes
- 20K bee species in the world 4K in North America ~44 in the genus Apis, that makes honey
- Humans have a deep history with honey bees, beginning with hunting/robbing wild hives, now to modern apiary Now you see they are spread all over the world
- There is no biological difference between Apis mellifera living in the wild and those in managed hives.
- - Lifespan 3-4 years - At the beginning of her life she makes one mating flight to mate with multiple drones. Once she returns to the hive, she will never leave again unless in the case of a swarm - Her main job is to lay eggs - She also controls hive with pheromones. Her chemical signals influences how the workers spend their time and energy
- Lifespan summer months -Drones are produced by an unfertilized egg – they are clones of the queen (no other genetic material) -Their only role is to mate with new queens on mating flight. They do not have the ability to sting. -Drones often spend days outside at a Drone Congregation Area, a point where several drones will sit and wait. They return to the hive for warmth at night. -Drones are often the first to be kicked out of the hive before winter or when food is in short supply
- - Worker bees pass through many jobs during their lifetimes (see list on the slide). - Summer lifespan: 3 weeks, with the forager role outside the hive (the bees we see in everyday life) coming last. The forager role is hardest on the bees’ bodies and wears them out quickly - Winter lifespan: Up to 150 days. Depending on the climate, bees stay in the hive and live off honey stores during the cold winter months. Worker bees born at the beginning of this hibernation period live much longer than those born in the summer, in part due to less physical demand that would wear out their bodies in the summer (no foraging in winter, for example).
- Some examples of worker jobs: Glands on the bottom of the worker bee’s abdomen produce scales of wax that the bees then chew and shape into the wax comb they use to rear larvae, store pollen and honey.
- Some examples of worker jobs: Some worker bees will spend a period of their lives focused on caring for and feeding larvae. Here you can see the white curled larvae in the comb, and nurse bees attending to them.
- Some examples of worker jobs: Some worker bees will spend some of their time guarding the entrance of the hive from invaders such as bees from other hives or robbers like wasps who would try to steal the bees’ honey. Note that honey bee stingers get stuck in elastic human skin. The stinger then gets pulled out along with the bee’s entrails, killing the worker. Bees stingers do NOT get stuck in this way when used against their primary foes, such as wasps. In those cases, bees can sting and live to sting another day.
- Some examples of worker jobs: When foragers return to the hive, they pass nectar to honey makers. Honey makers dehydrate the nectar and increase sugar content by processing internally, adding enzymes, and, once deposited in cells, fanning with wings to further dehydrate
- Some examples of worker jobs: Foragers go out to collect nectar (to make honey) and pollen (protein rich food for the bees) from flowers 1lb of honey: 2 million flower visits, 55,000 miles of flying, lifetime work of 800 bees
- Foragers may range over a radius of 2 miles from the hive. This means that many claims to honey from a single type of flower are dubious… beekeepers can’t control exactly where their bees get nectar!
- Among the most fascinating and complex bee behaviors in the way in which foragers communicate inside the hive when they return from a flight. Suggest further reading by searching “waggle dance” online, or following the link on the slide. Simplified, when a forager returns from a flight, she searches for a honey maker to unload her cargo of nectar. - If the wait is too long there is a shortage of honey makers in comparison to the amount of nectar being collected. So, she does a shaking “Tremble Dance” which tells more workers in the hive to switch over to the job of honey maker If the wait is very short and she has just had success collecting nectar from outside, it means there are plenty of honey makers and there is actually an opportunity to collect more necatr outside if more workers switch over to foraging. So, she does a wobbly “Waggle Dance” to recruit more workers to switch over to the job of forager. Read more: http://www.beeculture.com/a-closer-look-nectar-collection-processing/
- The Waggle Dance not only recruits other works to be foragers, but it indicates where the dancer found a supply of nectar (usually, productive flowers in bloom). The direction and duration of the dance indicates the direction and distance of the nectar source: - Direction on comb = direction of food source. Vertical = sun - Amount of time waggling = distance Pollen on the worker tells others what type of food source it is. Watch more: http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/weirdest-bees-dance
- - Brood comb: Used for rearing larvae (usually in the lower levels of the hive) - Pollen comb (also called “Bee Bread”, rich in protein): Packed with pollen for storage (usually just above/around brood comb) - Honey: Filled with honey and “capped” with a thin layer of bees wax once the cell is full (outside/above pollen comb)
- - Center: Apis mellifera makes hives naturally in places such as tree hollows. - Left: A hive like the one on the left, created in open air, will likely not survive colder weather, as bees need to maintain a hive temp between 32 and 35 degrees C to rear their brood. - Right: Bees may also attempt to locate their hives in man-made structures, such as eves of houses.
- In some places, people still “hunt” honey from wild hives. Here, a honey hunter in Nepal risks life to collect the sweet fluid from hives clinging to an overhanging cliff. Watch the lengths to which honey hunters go to access wild honey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ppk3gz3KWgc
- Medieval beekeepers baited bees to create hives in woven baskets. Once ready to harvest, the beekeepers would crush the hive and capture the honey that flowed out. This killed the hive.
- In 1852 in Massachusetts, Reverend LL Langstroth invented the modern hive that still carries his name. This design had several advantages including ease of inspection and the ability to harvest honey without destroying the hive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langstroth_hive
- Langstroth’s discovery was that bees will leave a “bee space” = ⅜ inch clear for crawling when building. So, Langstroth determined that he could create a hive with vertical hanging sheets, or frames, on which the bees could build comb. Bees will draw out the comb on frames in a Langstroth hive but (unless something is wrong) they will leave a gap of ⅜ inch between the comb of the frames. Beekeepers can then remove individual frames to harvest honey, thus leaving the hive intact. Other hive types include “top bar” hives and the recent “FlowHive” design
- Hive innovation continues. One notable recent invention is the Flow Hive, which allows honey extraction without opening the hive, resulting in minimal hive disturbance. See Flow Hive’s video for an introduction: https://player.vimeo.com/video/127851841
- This chart indicates a typical annual fluctuation of colony bee population, with the vertical axis representing number of bees in the hive/colony.
- Notable recurring milestones Read: Mother Jones - http://www.motherjones.com/food/2015/05/almonds-now-require-85-percent-us-beehives/ Listen: NPR’s Planet Money - http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/02/24/517076055/episode-756-the-bees-go-to-california
- Notable recurring milestones Read: NYT on Honeybee Democracy - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/science/28scibks.html Learn how to report swarms in your area. In San Francisco: SFBA (415) 99SWARM
- Notable recurring milestones
- Urban beekeeping is taking place in cities across the world. One example of an organization supporting this practice: http://urbanbeesf.com/
- The primary supplier of beekeeping supplies in the western Unites States: https://www.mannlakeltd.com/
- Typical annual beekeeping activities. Timing varies based on climate/location. For more on the cycle of beekeeping activities and an enormous wealth of scientific bee-related insights, explore: http://scientificbeekeeping.com/
- The process for removing honey from a Langstroth hive: Once a beekeeper sees that frames are full of honey and capped, frames are removed from the hive (bees are either excluded from the level of the hive with honey before extraction, or shaken off the frame in the moment) Extensive YouTube guidance is available on how to extract honey from frames. In brief, there are two approaches: A beekeeper can simply scrape all wax and honey from the frame and leave it to drain, through a sieve, overnight until most of the honey has run out of the mashed wax. This is wasteful as much honey is left over and the frame of wax comb is destroyed A beekeeper can carefully scrape/remove just the caps of the honeycomb, then place the entire frame in a centrifuge to extract the honey. This requires more work and equipment, but captures more honey per frame, and leaves the wax comb intact. If put back into the hive, the bees will eagerly clean/consume the remaining honey traces from these “spun frames” and then reuse the wax comb that it took so much energy for them to create in the first place.
- Honey and its by products have long been used by humans in myriad ways. There is early evidence of beeswax used for dental fillings in the neolithic. Some modern uses: Skin care products like Bert’s Bees use bees wax Creamed honey is actually pure honey whipped until full of tiny air bubbles, creating a thick creamy consistency that will not crystalize as regular liquid honey does Mead is honey fermented in water. Though highly disputed, some say that the origin of the term “honeymoon” comes from ancient traditions of consuming mead for celebratory or symbolic (fertility) reasons during the first month of marriage Wax can be used for candles Whole honeycomb can be cut from frames and sold in chunks Royal Jelly is a protein-rich honey-alternative produced by bees to feed larvae and adult queens. Commercial sellers of Royal Jelly make various health claims for humans, though scientific support for such claims is limited.
- Bee populations have been in massive decline in the past 15 years. I won’t dwell on the threats here, but they include habitat loss, pesticides and other chemical pollutants, destructive extreme weather events such as hurricanes, parasites (mites), invasive species and other animals that live from robbing hives (wasps, rodents). The best thing you can do is buy honey products (supports beekeepers) and consider getting involved. More on threats to bees: https://www.perfectbee.com/a-healthy-beehive/threats-to-bees/overview-of-main-threats-to-bees/