🐝 A Deep Dive and How-To on HoneyBees

We break all the rules and just let the bees be bees.

Oct 22, 2023

Each month, I’d like to take a deep dive on a subject. I imagine these will vary widely, but will not stray too far from the general theme of gardening, seasonal living, and “homesteading” type subjects. I include the latter because a subject like honeybees doesn’t seem to fit exactly with gardening and seasonal living (although I could argue it does), but its a subject I’m interested in and want to share about. I’m interested in sharing because it’s a subject that I believe is overcomplicated by many and avoided by most - simply due to the fact that people think it’s hard to keep bees, requiring specialized knowledge and specific care. While you can certainly make keeping honeybees complicated, you don’t have to. Especially if you just want to keep a couple hives for your own honey and aren’t interested in any type of commercial operation. If that’s you, then this letter is for you. I hope you enjoy.

Inside

🌸 Honey - What is it and how is it made?

🐛 Life Cycle of a Honeybee

🐝 How We Manage our Honeybees

🍯 Harvesting Honey

🧰 Equipment Needed

📷 Photos from our Honey Hunt

First, before we dive in, I need to say something. I’m not a bee expert. I have just enough knowledge to be dangerous. And enough experience to feel justified in sharing this knowledge. Some of what I write, would be scoffed at by the “bee experts”. Particularly in the section where I share how we manage our bees. We break a lot of the rules that most beekeepers follow and that’s precisely why I’m writing this letter. I’m not so sure the rules should be the rules. I’d like more people to know that beekeping doesn’t have to be complex or labor intensive.

So with that said, let’s dive in.

🌸 Honey -What is it and How is it Made?

Let’s start with nectar. Nectar is a sugary solution produced by flowers as an attractant for pollinating insects. These insects come to these flowers to eat the sugary solution produced by these plants (nectar) and in turn these insects bump against the reproductive organs of these flowers (stamen and pistil) and either pick up pollen (from the stamen) or deposit pollen (onto the pistol) in the process. This is one way flowers are pollinated, and in turn reproduce themselves (make seeds). Honeybees are an example of one of these insects.

Honey is processed nectar.

Honeybees, when they ingest nectar, will store it in a special 'honey stomach,' also called a crop. Upon filling these special stomachs with nectar, they return to their colony, where they will regurgitate this nectar and pass it among their fellow bees, who will then continue this strange behavior by regurgitating and passing it along. While this is happening, enzymes are being added to the nectar that break down the nectar’s complex sugars into simpler forms of sugar. When the bees feel that it’s just right, they put this regurgitated, processed nectar into honeycombs. Before they cap this regurgitated liquid, groups of bees will stand over the filled honeycomb and fan their wings over it. Doing this causes the water in the liquid to evaporate and eliminates the excess water in it. Once its water content is at a suitable level and the processed nectar is not at risk of spoilage, it is then capped and left to season. This capped, regurgitated, processed nectar is what we lovingly refer to as honey

🐛 A Bees Life Cycle

Now that we know how bees make honey, I want us to look at a bee’s lifecycle. This is important, because it lays the foundation for the management practices I will lay forth in the following section.

Bees are insects. Remember from middle school that insects have six legs and three body segments-head, abdomen, and a thorax-among other key characteristics. Also remember that many insects (not all) go through four stages of life and its called ‘complete metamorphosis’. Bees are such insects.

Stage 1: Egg

The queen, the only fertile female in a honeybee colony, lays individual eggs in individual honeycomb. Fertilized eggs become female worker bees, and unfertilized eggs become male drones. The choice to fertilize is the queen’s.

Stage 2: Larva

After about three days, the eggs hatch into larvae. For the first few days of a larva's life, worker bees feed it 'royal jelly,' a special secretion produced by worker bees. After a few days, the larva's diet changes to a substance called 'bee bread' - a mixture of pollen and honey. Once the larva is big enough, the cell is capped.

If a larva is fertilized and identified as a potential queen, they will continue to feed it the aforementioned 'royal jelly.' This special diet will trigger specific queen characteristics in the chosen larva, including a larger body, fully developed reproductive organs, and a longer lifespan compared to other female worker bees.

Stage 3: Pupa

Once capped, the pupa spins a cocoon and undergoes pupation. During this phase, it undergoes metamorphosis, changing from a larva into a fully formed bee

Stage 4: Adult

Once development is complete, the pupa will chew through the cell cap and emerge as a fully formed adult. At this stage, newly emerged workers immediately begin their tasks within the hive, such as cleaning, nursing, and guarding the entrance. Drones have one purpose, which is to mate with queens from other hives. They will leave the hive on mating flights to find other queens to mate with.

Queen Bee Development

Once an egg is laid and hatches, a larva emerges. This larva is fed royal jelly. If a larva is fed more royal jelly than usual, it will trigger changes that lead to the development of a virgin queen. Once this specially selected female larva pupates and then chews through her cap, a virgin queen bee will emerge.

Swarming

At this point, the old queen bee takes a hint and sends a signal to her most loyal subjects and off she goes. She leaves the hive with as many as half the workers. This is called a ‘swarm.’ When bees swarm, it is an old queen and roughly half of the hive’s workers that leave their old hive where they will look for a resting place nearby, usually on a tree branch. If you see this, you will see a mass of bees bundled together. What you are seeing is all of the queen’s loyal workers, surrounding and protecting her. While this is happening, scout bees are sent out from this group to find a new location to establish a new colony. Once a site is found, the bees and the old queen make their way to this new location and begin the process of building a new colony.

Virgin Queen Transfer

In the old hive, there is now a new queen. And she is a virgin. So, before the hive can resume its work and building, there must be eggs laid and workers replenished. So it is at this time that the new virgin queen must leave the hive to go on mating flights. While doing so, she will mate with drones from other colonies. This virgin queen can fly up to 9 miles to find a waiting group of drones to mate with.

After mating, the colony’s next generation will be inside her. She brings diverse genetics that will spur new vigor and energy into the colony and will increase the chances it can stave off diseases and pests.

This is the natural reproductive cycle of a honeybee and their colonies. And it is with this natural cycle in mind that I manage our honeybees.

🐝 How We Manage our Honeybees

It’s in your best interest if I give you the link to Gene Logsdon’s blog post on beekeeping. Here it is. It’s a blog post from 2008, but it’s from his book Practical Skills, written in 1985.

In the linked article, he describes how he manages his hives. It’s his footsteps that I followed and tried to step in.

Beekeeping 101 - The Contrarian Method

I, too, break the same rules; and I, too, have had the same success as Gene. I always fear I misquote the years, but our current hive is going on 7+ years and we just got our biggest honey haul yet: 2+ gallons from one hive.

I essentially follow the method Gene lays out in the linked article. It goes like this:

We keep our bees in two large supers stacked on top of one another. I never open these up.
I place a queen excluder on top of the second super. This prevents the queen from going past the second super and confines her egg laying to the bottom two supers. This is important because I only want honey in the top super. If she lays eggs in there, it will make extraction very difficult.
In the late spring (April/May) I put a third honey super on the hive.
In October of each year I remove the third super and harvest the honey for our family.
I don’t seek to manipulate the bee lifecycle in anyway. They swarm freely, manage their own pest issues, rely on their own honey stores for winter.
I barely care for the hives. I don’t insulate in cold winters, I don’t have a proper bee entrance (I just let them have the whole bottom entrance), and the surrounding grass routinely grows up along the hive. However, the last part is an area that needs improvement and if we lived on the farm I would do better at keeping the area surrounding the hive clear and clean.
Whenever I periodically visit the hive to check on it, here is what I look for:
1. Is there activity at the hive? Are bees coming in and out? If so, great!
2. As bees are coming in and out, the next thing I look for is whether or not they are carrying pollen. If pollen is being carried into the hive that is a strong indicator that a queen is present and active in the hive because pollen is used to feed the brood.
3. If it is a cooler day and later in the afternoon, closer to sunset, visible bee activity will be low. Sometimes there will be no visible activity at the hive. This is when I do the tap test. The tap test is simply taking a knuckle and lightly tapping the hive while listening closely. If there are bees in the hive, you will hear their vibrations increase and be audibly present after a couple taps.
4. Occassionally, even if the tap test confirms there are bees in the hive, I will still pop the lid off to look inside. Typically, if I see a good amount of bees at the top, then that is sufficient evidence of a healthy hive for me.

🍯 Harvesting Honey

Each October, we remove the third super by pulling out the frames, brushing off the bees from the frames back into the hive, and then taking the frames of honey away to the location where we will extract.
We use a serrated uncapping knife to cut the caps off the honey. We save these cuttings and use the wax for various items like candles.
The decapped frames we put into the extractor and spin until the honey is out. This honey we drain into big pots that we then filter using a kitchen colander before filling up our mason jars with delicious honey.
The wax clippings we let sit over night to drain and filter. We store the wax and add the filtered honey to our other jars.

🧰 Equipment and Tools

Bee Hive
1. 3 Deep Supers (8 frame or 10 frame. I have an 8 frame)
2. Screened bottom board
3. An inner cover - that will sit on top of the hive, underneath the lid, or outer cover.
4. A lid, or outer cover.
5. Queen Excluder
Bee hood and gloves.
Hive Tool
Smoker
Bee Brush
Extractor
Serrated Uncapping Knife