Honey Bee Farming For Beginners

Setting Up An Apiary Rearing Equipment

Besides the hives, you will need other equipment and tools like the hive stand, nucleus box and smoker to run your business smoothly. You will also need various equipments and machinery for handling and processing of honey, beeswax, for manufacture of comb foundation sheets, and for other operations. Few are described as below:

1. Hive stand: A four legged wooden, metal pipe or angle iron, rectangular support to the hive. It helps to protect the bottom board from rot and cold transfer.

2. Smoker: The smoker is used to protect beekeepers from bee stings and to control the bees. Smoke is the beekeeper’s third line of defence. You may use “smoker”– a device designed to generate smoke from the incomplete combustion of various fuels to calm down the bees.

3. Protective Clothing: To protect beekeepers eyes and nose from stings at the time of work near the apiary, proper cloths are required. As novice beekeepers you should always wear gloves and a hooded suit or hat and veil. The face and neck are the most important areas to protect, hence you should wear atleast a veil.

Also Read: Where Should An Apiary Be Located

4. Comb foundation sheet – is made up of wax. It is artificially provided for the colonies during honey flow season by cutting them to a proper conical size and attaching them to super frames by means of thread or fibre. It is a thin sheet of beewax embossed with a pattern of hexagons of size equal to the base of natural brood cells on both sides.

5. Dummy division board/Movable wall: It is a wooden board slightly larger than the brood frame. It is placed inside the brood chamber. It prevents the bees from going beyond it. It can be used as a movable wall thereby limiting the volume of brood chamber which will help the bees to maintain the hive temperature and to protect them from enemies. It is useful in managing small colonies.

6. Porter bee escape board or super clearer: It is a device which allows the bees to go through a self closing exit. A board having one way passage in the centre can also is used. It is kept in between honey super chamber and brood chamber. It is used for clearing the bees from super chamber for extracting honey.

7. Drone excluder or drone trap: It is a rectangular box with one side open. The other side is fitted with queen excluder sheet. At the bottom of the box there is a space for movement of worker bees. There are two hollow cones at the bottom wall of the box. Drones entering through the cones into the box get trapped. The narrow end of the cone is wide enough to let the bees pass out but not large enough to attract their attention or re-entry. This device is used at the entrance to reduce the drone population inside the hive.

8. Swarm trap: It is a rectangular box used to trap and carry the swarm. It is fixed near the hive entrance with one (or) two combs inside during the swarming period.

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This box traps and retains the queen only. But the swarm coming out from the hive re-enter the hive and settles on the comb, since the queen is trapped. Thus the swarm is induced to settle in the frame, which can now be transferred to a hive at a desired place.

9. Pollen trap: Pollen trapping screen inside this trap scrapes pellets from the legs of thereturning foragers. It is set at the hive entrance. The collected pollen pellets fall into a drawer type of receiving tray.

10. Division Board / Sugar Feeder: It can be hung along with the frames. A wooden strip or cut bits of leaves kept inside serve as float which prevents the drowning of bees in the sugar syrup.

11. Hive tool: It is a piece of flattened iron with flattened down edge at one end. It is useful to separate hive parts and frames glued together with propolis. It is also useful in scrapping excess propolis or wax and superfluous combs or wax from various parts of the hive.