Table of Contents
Protect it from bears, raccoons, skunks, and mice. Repair or Replace Damaged Beehive Parts. Install Entrance Blocks in Winter. Install Excluders and Supers. Replace Any Lost Beeswax. Install a Rain Cover and Shade Structure. Provide Adequate Ventilation for Your Beehive. Provide a Windbreak. Control Woodlice and Termites.
How easy is it to keep a beehive?
Time. Keeping bees requires small amounts of regular time with the bees. You typically have to spend around half an hour per week with a hive. Most beekeepers would like to spend more time with their bees rather than less, as beekeeping is highly addictive.
Can you keep a beehive in your garden?
You are allowed to have a beehive in your garden as long as you meet the current legal requirements related to the minimum or buffer distance between the hive, neighboring houses, public walkways and public buildings.
How much land do you need to keep bees?
We hear from dozens of potential beekeepers, each season, that purchase all the beekeeping supplies and honey bees and find out they cannot have bee hives on their property. Generally speaking, most backyard beekeepers have 1 to 2 acres of land with 2 or 3 bee hives.
How do you start and maintain a beehive?
Follow the steps on How to start a beehive: Learn the basics of beekeeping. Find out about any local beekeeping regulations in your community. Inform your neighbors. Buy the beehive. But other necessary equipment. Pick out a location for your hive. You need some safety gear. Purchase a swarm to start the colony.
Do you need a Licence to keep bees?
You don’t need a licence to keep bees but Camilla says it is good to belong to a local association to keep you in touch with local expertise, local problems and conditions.
Is the best time to start bee keeping?
Much like gardening, beekeeping tasks are best divided by the season. The best time to start your hive is in the spring so that the colony you begin with has time to build up, lay brood (baby bees), increase in number, and store honey before the winter sets in.
How far should a beehive be from a house?
Instead, place your hives ten feet or more from the property line. Make sure there is a fence around your hives or yard to keep any inquisitive neighbors from accidently getting too close to your hives or walking into the bees’ flight path.
Where’s the best place to put a beehive?
Ideally the hive will be placed in a location that is protected from harsh winds billowing into the hive entrances during the winter. Any obstruction blocking wind from the hive is good for temperature regulation, and can prevent hives from tipping in heavy storms.
Should beehives be in sun or shade?
The hive should be placed in early morning sun. This gets the bees out of their hive earlier in the day to forage. In the Northeast, hives can remain in the full sun for the entire season. However in places with warmer climates, hives should receive some afternoon shade.
Do you have to harvest honey from a beehive?
You can keep honeybees without harvesting honey but its not recommended due to several negative consequences. Your bees won’t have enough room to store excess honey, will become overpopulated, and then swarm. Swarming of unmaintained colonies increases the spread of disease and pests to other healthy colonies.
Can you keep bees in a small yard?
If you have a small yard, finding the space to keep bees can be tough, but there are a few tricks that could make it possible. The first option is to screen your hives. This is done by building or growing a 6ft tall barrier around your hive(s) to direct bee traffic upwards.
How many hives should I start with?
The average backyard hobbyist should always start with 2 hives or more. Why? With two hives, you can compare the hives to each other. If one colony loses its queen, then you can place a frame of brood with young larvae from the other hive into your queenless hive and they will raise their own.
How do I start a new beehive?
The easiest way is to simply order a queen bee, instead of raising your own queen. Once you have the new queen, you’ll need to transfer bees from your existing colony to the new hive. Take three frames of capped brood from the hive–and all the bees that come with it–and put them in the center of your new beehive.
How much honey do you get from one hive?
How Much Honey Can One Beehive Produce? One hive can produce 60 lb (27 kg) or more in a good season, however an average hive would be around 25 lb (11 kg) surplus. Bees fly about 55,000 miles to make just one pound of honey, that’s 2.2 times around the world.
Do beekeepers get stung?
Yes. It happens. Bees do sting, occasionally. However, they usually only sting if they feel threatened.
Is it legal to keep bees in a residential area?
No person may keep bees on any premises unless: The bees are kept in an approved beehive in an area inaccessible to children and animals and it is in the shade at all times. The bees are supplied with a source of drinking water within 5m of the hive.
How much is a nuc of bees?
A nuc will cost from $100-$150 depending on the seller’s asking price. As with a package, orders are usually placed early in the year and the buyer is given a date when bees can be picked up.
How much does it cost to buy bee’s?
How Much Do Bees Cost? The average cost of a bee package is $175. Spring nucs average about $200 while overwintered nucs are closer to $250.
How do you feed bees?
Medium to strong bee colonies can be fed dry white table sugar placed on hive mats or in-trays under the hive lid. Bees need water to liquefy the sugar crystals. They will source water from outside the hive or use condensation from inside the hive.
How do you get a queen bee?
A bee becomes a queen bee thanks to the efforts of the existing worker bees in the hive. A young larva (newly hatched baby insect) is fed special food called “royal jelly” by the worker bees. Royal jelly is richer than the food given to worker larvae, and is necessary for the larva to develop into a fertile queen bee.
