4H Leadermete - Backyard Beekeeping

Rough Draft Notes - not formatted

Shawn Heaton 801-226-8268 - he will help you
Sam

Terms -

• Apiary - where your hives are
• Bee Space - amount of space a bee needs to crawl 
• Brood - unborn bees
• Brood Box - the box where the bees are raising their bees, usually the bottom 2 or 3 boxes, leave honey for the bees, above boxes are honey for you
• Boxes can go 7-8 high
• Comb - where they store the honey
• Draw - to draw comb ..... missed it
• Frame - must be removable by law, 
• There is a beekeeping liscence
• Hive - one column or one or more super
• nectar - from flower
• package - container of bees with a queen in the mail
• beemaster.com - how to load the package of bees
• pollen - what a bee lives on - protein
• propolis - bee glue 
• save it -worth $25 an ounce
• sealed barges?
• super - a box you gather honey into, can be same box for the hive
• when full can weigh 60 lbs.
• shallow supers are easier to move around
• bee brush to sweep bees off

 3 types of bees in a hive - queen, worker, drone


Queen - 2000 eggs a day from up to 20 drones in a day or 2, lay eggs for 3 years
queen hatches after 16 days

Workers - 21 days
Drone -24 days

Photo - comparison of the three types of bees from :http://www.honeycouncil.ca/siteimages/108-Bees.jpg

if you don't have enough brood each time you check the hive, then your queen is gone
if you kill the queen you need to get another one
the queen bee is proof that you are what you eat, queen becomes queen from eating royal jelly
http://www.honeycouncil.ca/index.php/canadianhoney_teachers

the queen will be surrounded by about 12 younger bees


Bees never go to sleep and live 45 days in the summer but 5 months in the winter,  they don't go to the bathroom all winter long if it is really cold


package pop. growth chart
queen lives 3-4 years, but isn't much good after 2 years
if the half moon shape is not a solid pattern, then she is worn out.
why do bees buzz?
you'd buzz too if someone stole your honey

buy beekeeping for dummies
First lessons in beekeeping
hardware -

• half suit
• jacket with hood and net on face
• hat with net $25 
• buy online
• jones bee in SLC 5th south 24th west
• twilla - harvest lane honey
• gloves that go up to elbows
• paint suit
• turn collar up
• 
  

mostly stung in ankles
will sting through clothes
wear loose pants - coveralls
225-5868 LeRoy Heaton in Orem has lots of boxes he built for others

• the more you get stung the less it hurts
• don't grab stinger and squeeze 
• it puts venum in
• use sharp  thing to get stinger out
• don't pinch, scoop it out

• reactions - normal
• red
• swelling
• not normal
• second or 3rd sting will determine if you are allergic
• purposefully get stung 3 times before investing in bees
• allergic 
• swell, cant breath, rash, 
• remove stinger out right away, put a penny on the spot, or a wet tea packet, or honey
• don't swat at a bee, move it lightly
• don't move quick, your eye lids move quickly so duck your head, cover eyes, stop moving, cover in bush, move methodical

smoking works because
- queen makes a queen substance to communicate
smoking makes them not be able to communicate, and they think there is a fire, so they put their head in to get the honey out,
or they want fresh air, instead of stinging you
covers attack pheremone
if you smoke it too much they may grab all your honey and take off
put syurp on bees and then they are busy licking themselves off instead of stinging you

bees sting more based on the conditions of the day - time, weather, what is going on, working bees won't sting so if it is cloudy -the bees aren't working as hard, watch out

powdered sugar
diseases -fowl brood, mix medicine with pow. sugar to fix it

to get the honey out you slice the cappings off
then you put frame in the spinner and the wax is spun out
capping - turn into wax, for candles and chapstick

take honey off the end of july

some places will give you 1/2 the honey if you will let their hives sit on your land


make the holes too small for a mouse to get into
what do you do in the winter time?
put boxes that don't have honey in them where they are safe from mice

if we could only be as good as a bee


1 April - bees collect from early blossoms
Apri, may June, july Aug - queen lays eggs
April - May Swarming time
May 15- Aug - building honey
June
July
Aug - Sept - take off honey
Oct - March - dormant period, ball of bees clustered in the middle

how far from the house should you put a hive?
laws abt this - some people put them on their back porch
90 plants that bees love, on web site - what kind of field
blue leatrice - favorite purple flower
licence $10 a year for up to 20 hives
$25 for more
annual fee
because bees are endangered, and problem-matic govt wants control to do studies to know how bees are doing and information,
65% of what you eat has to be pollinated.

feed them syrup -

When do you set up your first hive? - April 1st
put package in in mid april
order the end of december or there might not be any to buy

Italian Honey Bee - beginners use it

• mild

Russian - good wintering bee

Carniolans - colder weather

• mild

Ferrel Bees - wild ones, nearly all gone

Natural Beekeeping - not use chemicals

Dadant.com - has books to buy

$60 for bees
to get started
1. books, library, magazines
2. clugs - local chapter of bee keepers -Utah County does a good job
  -essay contest "be a beekeeper"- prizes = 2 brood boxes, bottom board, clothing, tools
http://www.utahbees.net/county.php?name=sanjuan

http://www.utahbees.net/
3. people - mentors
 - beekeeping clubs will assign you a mentors
4. online
5. friends


used to be 4,000,000 colonies, now only 2 million
government is involved in promoting it


Take raw honey to the neighbors to prevent them from being angry or causing problems, tell them how good the honey is for them, allergies, food storage,