Research More

• Resource Hives
• condensing method - Greg Rogers - about wintering with no condensation?
• Scientificbeekeeping.com
• Larry Connor Books
• Brother Adams

Purchases?

• Medium boxes - 4
• Bee excluder - 2
• Book?

Talks

Chemistry of Processing Honey - Bob Binnie

Honey has over 180 different substances. Some make our body process it differently. Not everything is known still about all the effects of honey. There're 30-40 uncommon sugars.

Temperature

Temperature can ruin all the benefits of honey.

Presence of active enzymes is what makes food "Alive." Enzyme activity is required to be labelled "Raw"

Enzymes in honey: invertase, glocose oxidase, diastase
Glucose oxidase is what alters the PH of honey to make it stable by making gluconic acid. The reaction creates hydrogen peroxide at the same time

It takes time and temp to kill enzymes

Time/Temp to kill diastase
68 - 1000 days
122 - 14 days
179 - 30 seconds

"Processing Honey a Closer Look" Bee Culture Magazine

Heat will mess up honey even faster if it has debris.

Time

Materials

Honey reacts to all metals. Honey will also leech plastic. The two metals it reacts too the least is gold and silver. 316 is better than 304 when it comes to stainless steel.

Plastic #1 (PETE) or #2 is best (HDPE).

Moisture

So easy to fix but nobody does it.

Unless you're in an arid environment, all handling or exposure adds moisture

60% humidity turns into 18.3%moisture
50% 15.9 - Favorite
80% = 33.1%

Keep honey house < 50% humidity and it will remove moisture

Cross stack supers with a dehumidifier with a fan on top and dehumidifier and you'll drop moisture in just a few days.

Watch out for beetles

Crystallization

High dextrose content makes crystals faster.
57 is the perfect crystalization temp

yeast in honey is not the same as bread and beer

The number 18.6 depends on yeast spore amount

cold stops yeast at 52

Filtration

1000 micron filter is what he uses

Grade A Fancy must be "free of defects that affect appearance and may not contain particles that affect clarity"

Grade A Fancy makes customers trust it more and more shelf stable.

If you've got time just let honey settle first. Light clear goes top, dirt goes to the bottom

Making Grade A Fancy will likely kill the honey and remove a lot of its unique character and content.

Oxalic Acid-Glycerin Extended Release Treatment - Greg Rogers

Study with Dr David Tarpy at NC State University

Runs deep and medium with a condensing method. Half entrance. 4 per Pallet

There is consesnsus that non-varroa resistant genetics they need 3 treatments a year.

Experiment
December:
Oxalic Acid
4 Gram
3 Times
7-10 days apart

No Srping Treatment

August:
Test

Results were 3rd treatment is needed

So what is the schedule?
December:
Oxalic Acid Vapor

March/April/May:
Thymol
Formic
Amitraz
Oxalic - Glycerin

August/Sept
Same

Sustainable Beekeeping - Larry Connor

What makes a good bee yard?

1. Nutritional Assessment

Pollen Cycle:
Late WInter: Early Willow, Maple, Alder, Elm
Early Spring: Other WIllows, other mapels
Main Spring: Fruit trees, Black locust, basswood
Early Summer: Tulip Poplar, Clovers, Alfalfa
Summer: Sumac, Spotted Knapweed, Purple Loosestrive, Corn, Soybean
Fall: Goldenrod, Aster

Look at what you have of these in your area.

Garden Plants for Honey Bees - Peter Lindtner

2. Local Genetics

Sample bees for mites
Check for biting behavior
Create abundant target drones to saturate the area for queen mating
Put a medium in a deep to stimulate drones, transfer to another hive to supress their drones and their genetics
Queens might mate with 15-60 drones. The number keeps getting higher.

3. Management (Skilled Husbandry)
   Starlight strain they made had queens laying 1500 eggs a day because 1800 had no honey due to consumption

They may need protein

4. Setting up an apiary

• Minimum of 2 hives
• Make a nuc your first season with a conversion board
  • Add a queen to the nuc
• 3 frames of brood makes 15k in 3 weeks, 5 makes 25k, 8 makes 40k
• Position colonies in the sun

Bee-sentials
Increase Essentials
Swarm Essentials
Bee Equipment Essentials

Going from Hobby to Sideliner and Beyond - Jake Osborn

Hobbiest - Few hives, does it for fun
Sideliner - Substantial amount of colonies that produces income in addition to another job
Commercial - Sole income from bees and many hives

Become the best beekeeper, save your money.

Want to do this seriously

• Get good queens
• Treat for mites
• Feed

Picking good locations is hard but important

• Weather, other bees

Uses palets instead of bottom boards

Income Streams

Selling bees - Nucs/Queens

Chris Warner is the best at raising queens

Honey

Retail then wholesale, 3 magic words "Pure raw local"
Local means same plants

Offer samples

Going Commercial

Don't give up!
Must be mobile, need a flatbed truck

kyhoneyfarms@gmail.com
jakeosborn@ohiovalleyins.com

Sells beekeeping insurance. Helps with drought.

Expanding Your Apiary - Bob Binnie

You can make a small fortune in beekeeping. Just need a big fortune to start.

Goals

Hobby: 1-50
Sideline: 50-300
Fulltime: 300+

Go into it ready to absorb mistakes
It can get expensive house

Forecast your purchases by defining your goals: Buy right or buy twice

Growing from 5 to 500 you will crash and burn unless you have experience

If you're smart and passionate you can triple every year

Consistency = efficiency = productivity: Keep things the same

He likes Deep brood medium super with 8 frame because of his cowen

Diversify your income, don't depend only on honey

Getting bees

• catch swarms
• purchase packages
  • Don't buy the earliest packages
• purchase nucs
• walkaway split
  • Easiest to do but worst quality queen UNLESS you have good nutrition and lots of young bees, feed thin syrup, shake extra bees
  • You can come back 4 days later and kill all the new queen cells
  • Year old pollen makes terrible pollen
  • Not all pollen is equal. Wind blown pollen (Pine, corn, etc) is not nutritious.
• split colonies (Making nucs)
  • rotate comb, rotate equipment, control stock, cost effective, investing in equipment but not bees
  • known benefit to rotating comb every 3-4 years, 8-12 years is fine.
  • Put old comb into the split
  • Shake all the bees into the lower box until you find the queen
  • Put an excluder on the box
  • Put new box up top with brood and food
  • 24 hours later pull the frames into the nuc
  • 1 foundation 1 food 2 brood 1 drawn
  • Feed 1:1 or 1:1.3
  • introduce queen, ready in 3 weeks
  • Easiest to do in a nectar flow
    • Pre-occupied with collection, not anything else so acceptance is easiest
• split with swarms
  • Swarm cells make the best splits
  • consider swarmed colonies as a harvest
  • double screen boards are awesome
  • If you do this too much you can breed for swarming behavior
    • Don't use pre-mature swarms
• purchase colonies
  • Good for experienced keepers
  • You can split them quickly
  • Use them to pollinate or honey production
    Lots of ways to increase from increase colonies. All have pros and cons
    Consider dedicating hives to splitting.
• Works if there is pollen coming in.
• Split, feed, repeat in 4 weeks
  Double Screen Board
• Same as above but just replace the excluder with a double screen and queen
• See a swarm? double screen between them
  Mated Queens or Queen Cells
• Mated means ready in 3 weeks
• Cells take 5
  Making Queens
• Wait for lots drones when mating queens
• Should be at least 2-3 weeks old
• Likes to wait with them hatching
  Best queens are new queens that went through 1 winter
  Beekeeping in Buckfast Abby - Brother Adams
  Fat Bee, Skinny Bee

Cost

Time

Methods

Single Brood Chamber Management - Paul Kelly

What happens in the brood chambers

Spring
Double - They're in the top box and slowly build down
Single - Dead center of single box towards the entrance

Small-Scale Queen Rearing - Larry Connor

LJConnor@aol.com
www.wicwas.com

Queens and their development

Tom seely book - Trimming drones

Cell to Emerged queen is 16 days

Non Grafting Queen Rearing

Use your swarm cells
Move the frame w/ the cells into a new hive

Nicot Sysetm

Special tool for queens to lay in

Miller Method

Cut frames was in a pattern to induce queens

Starter System - Doolittle

Take a nuc seal with ventilation
Put 3-4 food frames. NO brood
Shake a lot of bees, no queen
Optional a sponge soaked in water in the bottom
If you're gonna graft from a frame, brush don't shake
Bees are stuck inside, no escape
24 hours later
Add the graft cells

Grafting age is a few days old larvae

Prime cups with royal jelly
Transfer larvae with a grafting tool

Graft when you have drones that are the right age. Drone age is sealed for 5 days. Or have purple eyes

Grafts go back into the starter box
Come check 24 hours later

Finisher Colony

Add brood box to another colony with a queen excluder