Table Of ContentBEGINNING
BEEKEEPING
EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO
MAKE YOUR HIVE THRIVE!
Tanya Phillips
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BEGINNING
BEEKEEPING
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Beginning Beekeeping
4
Contents
1 All About Honeybees . . . . . . . . . 9
Creating a Well-Planned Apiary ..........56
Creating a Garden for Your Bees.........58
Why We Need Honeybees ..............10
Attracting Swarms to Your Hives ..........60
Common Species of Honeybees ..........12
Catching Swarms .............................62
The Honeybee Hive ..........................14
Buying and Installing Bees ..................64
Stages of Honeybee Development .......16
Installing a Queen ............................70
The Queen ......................................18
The Drone .......................................20 3 Maintaining Your Hives . . . . . . . .73
The Worker .....................................22
Anatomy of a Healthy Hive ................74
How the Hive Works .........................24
Handling Bees Safely ........................76
How Bees Communicate ....................26
Inspecting Your Hives ........................78
What Bees Eat .................................28
Maintaining a Queenright Colony .......82
2 Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . .31
Replacing the Queen (Requeening) ......84
Swarm Causes and Controls ...............86
The Evolution of Beekeeping ...............32
Controlling Overcrowding ..................88
The Pioneers of Beekeeping ................34
Storing and Using Drawn Comb ..........90
Why Become a Beekeeper? ...............36
Recordkeeping .................................92
Urban Beekeeping ............................38
Hive Inspections ...............................94
Rural Beekeeping .............................40
Hive Box Maintenance ......................98
Beekeeping on a Budget....................42
Top-Bar Hive Considerations ............100
The Beekeeper’s Toolshed ...................44
The Beekeeper’s Closet ......................46 4 The Harvest . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
The Langstroth Hive ...........................48
Products of the Hive ........................106
Langstroth Foundations and Frames ......50
Setting Up Your Honey Extraction
The Top-Bar Hive ..............................52
Space ..........................................108
Other Hive Types ..............................54
How to Remove Bees from a Super ....110
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Contents
5
Extracting and Filtering Honey ...........112 Laying Workers and Drone-Laying
Queens ........................................154
Bottling and Labeling Honey .............114
Managing a Tiny Colony .................156
Honey Extraction in a Top-Bar Hive ....116
Preventing Robbing ........................158
Harvesting Wax .............................118
Preventing Absconding ....................160
Building a Solar Wax Melter ............120
Moving and Transporting Hives .........162
Harvesting and Storing Pollen ...........122
Handling Aggressive Hives ...............164
Uses for Honey ..............................124
Uses for Wax ................................126 7 Seasonal Beekeeping . . . . . . . 167
5 Pests and Hive Treatments . . . .129
Beekeeping in Spring ......................168
Beekeeping in Summer ....................170
Common Threats to Bees..................130
Beekeeping in Autumn .....................172
Minimizing the Risks for Colony
Collapse Disorder (CCD) .................132 Beekeeping in Winter......................174
Bee Mites: Diseases and Treatments ...134 Dealing with Flooding .....................178
Brood Diseases and Treatments .........136 Feeding Your Bees ..........................180
Viruses ..........................................137 Resources and Suppliers ..................184
Significant Threats to Your Bees .........138 Organizations and Magazines .........185
Small Hive Beetles ..........................140
Other Pests ....................................142 Index ............................................186
Approaches to Pest Management ......144
Using Integrated Pest Management
(IPM) Techniques .............................146
6 Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Managing Queen Issues ..................150
Preventing Dead Bees .....................152
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Beginning Beekeeping
6
Introduction
Welcome to the amazing world of honeybees!
Until I became a beekeeper, I had no idea just how fascinating and intelligent honeybees were. They’ve survived
for centuries using their keen senses of vision, taste, and smell to thrive and multiply throughout most areas of the
world. They’re one of the few living creatures that cause no harm in order to live their day-to-day lives. In fact,
when they take what they need to eat for survival, they actually benefit others through their pollination of plants, in
the creation of beeswax, and in the making of excess honey that we get to harvest and eat.
This book is designed to give you all the information you’ll need to get started with keeping bees and some of the
best techniques to use for hive management as your colony grows from season to season and for years to come.
Bees are truly remarkable and resilient creatures that I hope you’ll come to respect and admire as much as I do.
Every beekeeper has their own story as to why they started keeping bees. I read about a class on top-bar hives
that was advertised in a Craigslist ad and thought it looked interesting to me. I thought it might be a fun hobby
to try with my husband, so we signed up for the class. Once I committed to ordering bees and got my husband
working on hive construction, I started researching beekeeping and joined a local county bee club to learn more.
I learned bees were having trouble surviving—and dying from something called CCD—and suddenly, it wasn’t
about having a hobby anymore. I was on a mission to save the honeybee.
We began our ventures into beekeeping by rescuing bee swarms, and our apiary quickly grew to 20 colonies
our first year. We’ve easily doubled our numbers each year with swarms and splits. What started as a little hobby
quickly became my full-time business.
How will your bee story begin?
— Tanya Phillips
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