Archive for the ‘Beekeeping’ Category

PostHeaderIcon Processing Raw Honey

After the beekeeper collects the honey it’s processed immediately after harvesting because it crystallizes when it’s allowed to sit. It has to be heated up between 150-170 degrees because it carries the bacterium that causes botulism, which can be dangerous since this is the very bacterium that causes food poisoning. Honey is actually sweeter than table sugar, but the problem with table sugar is that it’s bleached white since actual unprocessed raw sugar is brown. Honey is pasteurized to kill off the bacteria like botulism to make it safe to eat and to put in food.

Honey actually doesn’t have that golden color it’s actually white and pasty looking before it’s cooked down to the point that it caramelizes. Honey also serves a purpose in medicine and in many vitamin supplements since raw unprocessed honey carries a high level of antioxidants and enzymes and aids in digestion and other health properties.

Hopefully the information presented so far has been applicable. You might also want to consider the following:

What is great about honey is that it’s slowly taking the place of corn syrup being used in a lot of the food that we eat today because it’s been linked to cause diabetes because people eat it in such an increased amount. Honey is being used because it’s produced naturally since corn syrup is mechanically processed. Honey is also being used in beer and other beverage like teas and is readily becoming a hugely useful product that puts a lot of beekeepers back in the spotlight to produce high quality honey. For the past 2700 years according to history honey was used in medicine to provide topical relief for rashes and skin irritation like the condition called MRSA (pronounced mersa-a type of resistant staph infection). Honey is also good for mixing it with a little lemon to treat laryngitis and was used to treat contagious conjunctivitis (pink eye).

There are 7 different ways honey can be processed the most common are comb honey that’s heated and treated through pasteurization and then you got the raw honey which is the base for pasteurized honey you see mostly in the stores today. Parents are advised to be careful in giving infant honey products because of the acid levels and potential exposure to the botulism bacteria. That’s why it is wise to eat honey that’s been pasteurized since you don’t know what kind of exposure the bees who produced the honey has been around so it’s better to eat honey that’s been pasteurized or produced by an organic farmer that does raw honey because that’s probably the safest kind of honey you can eat that isn’t going to expose you to harmful bacteria.

Many beekeepers are trying to take the honey they produce to the organic level because they don’t believe in producing a product using harmful pesticides and chemicals. If anything organic is your best bet because these farmers only produce a product on land that’s not treated with chemicals. Organic farming also have standards they adhere to in terms of what the market expects of the product and beekeepers are usually about the natural way of things especially when it comes to the honey they produce.

Take time to consider the points presented above. What you learn may help you overcome your hesitation to take action.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO

PostHeaderIcon Beekeeping and the Apple Orchards

The country is full of apple orchards. Apple orchards are where the apples you buy in the supermarket come from. Applesauce is made out of apples grown in orchards. People who drink apple juice and apple cider enjoy the produce provided by the hardworking orchard owners. Without apple orchards there would be no apple pies. The world would be a sadder place without apple orchards.

In the springtime people drive past apple orchards and see tidy row after tidy row of apple trees, their spreading boughs fragrant with the scent of delicate apple blossoms. In the summer they can drive past the same orchard and see the same trees, leaves shining in the sunshine. In the fall those same trees are laden with apples, crunchy and full of juice. In the winter, the spreading limbs of the apple trees spread wide and are blanketed with a layer of glittering snow. When they stop to admire the artistic trees they notice that unlike other types of agriculture endeavors the only time they see anyone working amongst the trees is when the trees are heavy with fruit and the farmers are picking the apples. It doesn’t take very long for the passer bys to start thinking about how easy it would be to own an orchard. When the opportunity to purchase an apple orchard comes along, these people can hardly walk away from the opportunity.

The reality is that there is a lot more to owning an apple orchard then picking apples and pulling in money.

I trust that what you’ve read so far has been informative. The following section should go a long way toward clearing up any uncertainty that may remain.

The casual passerby thinks that owning an apple orchard won’t be much work, the reality is that a great deal of backbreaking labor goes into maintaining the orchard. The trees have to be pruned. The trees have to be sprayed to protect them from being ravished by insects. In addition to caring for the trees there is a lot of general maintenance chores that have to be taken care of. There is also the task of removing the old, unproductive trees and replacing them with young trees.

The next thing to consider when purchasing an apple orchard is the size of the orchard. According to the experts an apple orchard has to be at least ten acres large in order to break even. That’s just breaking even. In theory a larger orchard means a larger profit margin for the orchard owner, but a larger orchard also means that the owner will have to buy more insecticide, rotate more trees, hire more employees, and spend more money on the equipment needed to maintain the orchard and harvest the apple crop.

Perhaps the biggest error newcomers to the apple orchard business make in the spring time when the apple trees are in bloom. In order for the trees to bear fruit the flowers have to be pollinated. Although the wind can help pollinate the flowers, honey bees are better. Many new orchard owners think that there are enough bees in the wild to pollinate the acres of apple trees. These owners are making an assumption that could harm their yearly yield. Experienced owners know that to ensure they get a profitable harvest they need to work with local beekeepers. They lease the hives and the honey bees from the beekeepers. The hive owners set up the hives in the orchards. The extra bees assist in the pollination.

Take time to consider the points presented above. What you learn may help you overcome your hesitation to take action.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO

PostHeaderIcon How to Make a Honey Extractor

In order to get honey from your beehive you have to be able to extract the honey from the honey comb. In order to do this you have to have to have a honey extractor. There are manufactured honey extractors available on the market, they typically cost approximately $200 to $300, the average cost of starting a new hive of honey bees. If there is a group of beekeepers in an area they will sometimes pool their money together to purchase a honey extractor that they share. If you are not in a large beekeeping environment and do not want to spend a few hundred dollars on a manufactured honey extractor you might want to make your own.

The materials you will need to build a honey extractor include; a metal rod that is at least one meter long and is thickly threaded, two bicycle wheel rims, two pieces of wood, one meter of 2-3mm fencing wire, a large metal drum, ten bolts for the metal rod, four 400mm sections of 8mm threaded rod, a self centering bearing, six coach screws, and one pillow block bearing. When choosing a large metal drum for your homemade honey extractor make sure that is was never used to store potentially toxic materials. The tools you will need for constructing your honey extractor include; an electric drill, a welding machine (and preferably some welding experience), a socket set, and a hack saw.

The first thing your going to do is remove the end of the drum that does not have two pouring holes, the newly opened end will be the top of your honey extractor. Use the coach screws to attach one of the pieces of wood across the bottom of the drum. Once the wood is in place use coach screws to secure the pillow block. After inserting the threaded rod through the center of the first bicycle rim, securely bolt the rim to the rod approximately ten centimeters from the end of the rod. At the opposite end of the rod you will want to thread a but for the other wheel, the second wheel will rest on this nut. When both of the wheel rims are in place you will want to drill holes in four spots around each wheel, when this task is complete you use the 8mm rods to lock the wheel rims together. Use two nuts onto the rod. Make sure that two cm of rod protrude.

When this is complete you are going to cut a slit that is10mm deep and 3mm wide into the end of the rod. After this thread the lock the nuts together at the end of the rod. After you think the nuts are in place use the welding machine to permanently lock them into place. Fasten the wire to the the spokes of the bottom wheel rim, approximately 5-8cm from the rim. You have now successfully made the basket of your honey extractor.

You may not consider everything you just read to be crucial information about Beekeeping. But don’t be surprised if you find yourself recalling and using this very information in the next few days.

Take your newly crafted extractor basket and place it into the drum, settling it on the pillow bearing. Now you’re going to want to bolt a second piece of wood to the sides of the drum and the self centering bearing.

After drilling a screwdriver bit into the chuck, place the chuck into the slit into the slot in the top of the threaded rod.

Detailed instructions and photos about making a homemade honey extractor can be found at www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2005/september/honeyextractor.htm

As your knowledge about Beekeeping continues to grow, you will begin to see how Beekeeping fits into the overall scheme of things. Knowing how something relates to the rest of the world is important too.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, proud owner of this top ranked web hosting reseller site: GVO

PostHeaderIcon Acquiring the Bees

The following article covers a topic that has recently moved to center stage–at least it seems that way. If you’ve been thinking you need to know more about it, here’s your opportunity.

As long as you aren’t allergic to bee stings beekeeping is a way for someone who doesn’t have a great deal of money and acres of land to take an active role in agriculture. The start up expense of the average hive is approximately $300 per hive (you only need one to get begin with). Once you have purchased a hive it can be kept in a remote corner of your back yard, it is not uncommon to see some suburban homes with a bee hive.

If you are considering starting a beehive the first thing you should do is call your local Cooperative Extension office. They will be able to tell you if you live in an area that restricts keeping bees. They will also be able to give you the contact information of your states beekeeping organization where you can become a registered beekeeper.

The next thing you need to do is select a site for your potential honey bee hive.

Once you have selected a site for your beehive you will need to go about acquiring the equipment needed to successfully maintain a beehive. Some of the equipment you will need can be purchased used on EBay. If you are unable to find the equipment you need on EBay there are several on-line sites where you can purchase equipment. If you need further assistance finding and purchasing a beehive and other beekeeping equipment call your local Cooperative Extension office or the Federation of American Beekeepers.

Before acquiring bees for your hive it’s important to make sure that you are properly protected, this means you have to purchase beekeepers gear.

The best time to learn about Beekeeping is before you’re in the thick of things. Wise readers will keep reading to earn some valuable Beekeeping experience while it’s still free.

Once your hive is in place and you are confident that everything is in working order it’s time to order your honey bees. The easiest way is to order Honey Bees from an established Apiary. You should plan on placing you bee order early in the winter, the average beekeeper orders their bees in January and February. The order is typically shipped in March and April. Most Apiary’s ship their bees through the U.S. postal service. When the bees arrive at the post office your mail carrier will call and ask that you pick up the bees. Very few mail carriers are comfortable driving all over the county with a car full of young angry bees in their car and most bees are healthier if they don’t have to spend several hours in a hot car.

When you pick up your bees they should have been packaged in a special carrying case that is designed just for bees. This package will be a wooden framed “house” that has a screen covering the outside. This packaging allows air to circulate to the traveling bees and keeps handlers, such as post office employees, from getting stung.

When you get your bees, do not be surprised if you see a few dead bees laying in the bottom of the package. Traveling is hard on bees and they can’t all be expected to live through the trip. The rest of the bees should be clutching the sides of the container.

You will notice that one bee in the container has been separated from the rest of the hive.This is your queen bee. The rest of the bees in the container will make up the rest of your bee hives hierarchy. Some Apiaries ship the queen with a couple of nurse bees. The top of the queen’s container will be covered with piece of sugar candy.

You should also see a container that is filled with a sugar solution. This sugar solution is what the bees feed on while they are traveling. Once you get your bees home offer them something to drink. You do this by taking a spray bottle and covering the container with a very fine covering of water.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, proud owner of this top ranked web hosting reseller site: GVO

PostHeaderIcon Selling Honey to a Local Market

One of the reasons people become involved with beekeeping is so that they can market the honey. Many beekeepers chose to sell their honey to a local market.

Beekeepers who choose a local market for their honey typically sell their product to friends, family members, and neighbors. They typically set up a roadside stand to display their product, selling the honey produced in their hives along side berries, apples, and vegetables that they have grown in their gardens. If they produce a quality product their honey may start to appear in stalls at farmers markets. Some small honey producers will gain enough local credit to sell their honey at local grocery stores. Beekeepers that sell their products locally typically only a few active bee hives. The key to a successful local marketing technique is to provide the customers with a quality product and good customer relation skills. Beekeepers that market their honey typically enjoy face to face contact with their customers. Often the sale of the honey has as much to do with friendship as it does with the product.

Beekeepers that sell their honey locally should take an active interest in their product. They should make sure that their display is kept clean. They should spend a significant amount of time designing the package. Bottles that are filled with honey should be made of clear plastic and glass. The bottle should be attractive, something that will catch a customer’s eye. Glued on the bottle should be a label. The label be clear an easy to read. Clearly printed on the label should be the type of product, honey, and the name of the beekeeper who produced the honey. The bottle of honey should be something that the customer will want to display on the their kitchen counter or table.

Knowledge can give you a real advantage. To make sure you’re fully informed about Beekeeping, keep reading.

If you are a beekeeper that is planning on marketing your honey at a roadside stand you should make sure that they have a sign that can be easily read by drivers. In large letters the sign should read Honey for Sale. The sign should be eye catching, but simple. If the sign is to complex, drivers won’t be able to read it. Try to keep shade over your road side stand, a comfortable customer is one who is more likely to take their time and spend some their money purchasing your product.

Keep an eye on the honey you are selling. If you notice that one of the bottles on honey is stating to crystallize immediately replace it with a fresh bottle.

Many beekeepers claim that setting up a hive near their roadside stand helps attract customer interest. Successful beekeepers pass out literature that gives customers insight to the art of beekeeping seems to increase sales. Handing out cards that have recipes that use honey gives customers an idea about how they can use the honey they are purchasing. Many beekeepers encourage handing out free samples and promote spending time getting to know potential customers.

When you are pricing your honey make sure you consider the demands on your time and the cost of all the products you are using to turn your honey into a marketable commodity.

Don’t limit yourself by refusing to learn the details about Beekeeping. The more you know, the easier it will be to focus on what’s important.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, proud owner of this top ranked web hosting reseller site: GVO

PostHeaderIcon Starting your own beekeeping business

In today’s world, it seems that almost any topic is open for debate. While I was gathering facts for this article, I was quite surprised to find some of the issues I thought were settled are actually still being openly discussed.

Starting a beekeeping business may sound exciting and fun, but in all reality it’s a lot of work and is time consuming. Most people who are in this are actually doing this as a hobby. Having a hobby and a livelihood are two entirely different areas since one is something you invest time and in some cases money and one is when you’re trying to make a living at. Beekeeping is like farming you have to stay on top of the market demands and be technologically savvy because much of the business is going to depend on how fast you can produce a single product.

Yet this is where you’re going to learn that beekeeping isn’t even like that because if you expect to make a profit you would have had to have been in the business for a long time and following the trends on what the market demanded of the time. Today if you don’t even have a website consider yourself a fossil in the area of business because that’s your only link to the rest of the world by having a website or even a page.

It’s really a good idea to probe a little deeper into the subject of Beekeeping. What you learn may give you the confidence you need to venture into new areas.

Most of the companies today are commercialized because the small businesses today are just not equipped to handle the mass production of honey and small businesses won’t make a lot giving the fact you are paid by the pound and the average amount after weighing the whole season isn’t a whole lot. Commercial beekeepers average a couple thousand pounds, but farmers have to really push production if they want to average at least $15-30 a year. This is a competitive field to be selling honey and producing beeswax products since the beekeeping industry doesn’t function as a co-op like many organic farmers do in this day and age where they work together beekeeping is sub-contract work and many of these small businesses are sub-contracted by these major corporations to produce honey under their label and their food line.

Sub-contracting may sound good and all, but you are also competing for these contracts as well with other small businesses and the high risk is that you can lose your contracts if the companies who hire you aren’t happy with something for whatever reason it could be the quality of the product to anything. That’s why this is a risky business to get into because you never know what the outcome is and how the market will fair during the season since this is what a beekeeper bases their financial output by which is how much they anticipate to make on a seasonal basis.

Beekeepers almost have to base their financial gain through good weather and season with the market demand, but you can’t always predict good weather, which is what many worry about. They have more to worry about than crop farmers since they can make the difference when they get rain and lower climate suitable to the food they’re growing. Beekeeping is dependent on the activity of the bees and how well they produce honey since bees produce in certain climates and temperatures. If you’re expecting to thrive in this business understand that it’s a lot of work and a lot of time invested into making this work for the long run.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO

PostHeaderIcon The Life Cycle of the Honey Bee

The only way to keep up with the latest about Beekeeping is to constantly stay on the lookout for new information. If you read everything you find about Beekeeping, it won’t take long for you to become an influential authority.

A beekeeper, whether a casual hobbyist or a large commercial producer, can not be successful unless they fully understand the life cycle of the honey bee.

The honey bees life cycle is a unique and fascinating process.

It all starts with the egg. The hives queen bee lays an egg in one of the cells constructed for the soul purpose of laying eggs. Once queen has laid the egg and moved on to lay another (during the spring months the queen can lay an average of 1900 eggs daily) the egg is attached to the cell with a mucus strand.

You can see that there’s practical value in learning more about Beekeeping. Can you think of ways to apply what’s been covered so far?

When the egg hatches a larvae emerges. Nurse bees are in charge of caring for the young larvae. They feed the eggs bee bread. Bee bread is a strange mixture of gland secretions and honey. The larvae will go through five distinct growth stages. After each of these stages the larvae sheds its outer skin. When the larvae is six days old, a worker bee comes along and caps the larvae, caccooning the larvae in its cell. The larvae stays the in the cocoon for for eight to ten days, when it emerges from the cocoon it is a fully formed young bee.

The average length of life average honey bee depends on what purpose the bee fulfills in the hive. A queen bee can live for two years providing that she was able to get herself inseminated with enough sperm during her nuptial flight. A good strong queen bee can lay as many as 2000 eggs a day. She is in charge of killing her sisters and mothers. The queen bee doesn’t have to worry about taking care of herself, she is always surrounded by an entourage of worker bees who feed her and remove her waste. It is not uncommon for the elderly queen bee to leave the nest in the springtime when the rest of the hive is getting ready to swarm. Experts believe that the queen produces some sort of pheromone that prevents the hives workers bees from becoming interested in sex. A queen bee who has not made her nuptial flight is called a virgin queen. Drone bees are male bees that live only to impregnate queen bees during the queens nuptial flight.

After mating with a queen the drone dies. During the winter months, a worker bee can live up to one hundred and forty days old. During the summer months the worker bee is lucky to live for forty days, the short summer life span is because the worker bees are literally worked to death. The worker bee’s duties are wide and varied. Worker bees called nurse bees are in charge of caring for the young larvae, other workers are sent out to gather pollen to be made into honey. Some workers spend their time capping off honey combs, other workers are responsible for taking care of the queen. Worker bees are in charge of starving the unwanted drone bees and cleaning the hive. There can be any were from twenty thousand to two hundred thousand worker bees in a single hive. Worker bees are always sterile. If a worker bee lays an egg it becomes a drone bee. Workers bees are the bees that people see defending the hive.

The survival of the bee hive depends on the hive having a healthy queen that is laying eggs. If something happens to the queen the hive will die.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO

PostHeaderIcon Family owned beekeeping companies

If you’re seriously interested in knowing about Beekeeping, you need to think beyond the basics. This informative article takes a closer look at things you need to know about Beekeeping.

Beekeeping isn’t just something you go into it’s something you’re raised and brought up in. Most companies that deal with beekeeping and providing beekeeping supplies are family owned. Dadant and Sons, a company based out of Hamilton, IL has been in the business of providing beekeeping equipment and attire for the past 140 years. They sell everything from beekeeping attire from the head to the torso, and even full body suits with headwear. They also sell journals that are published about beekeeping and also selling copies from the archives as well.

They have a large selection of books for giving you a short course on beekeeping to candle making since many beekeepers also not only collect and sell honey, but they make things out of beeswax as well like candles. Most family owned beekeepers usually produce the honey and beeswax items on their farms and sell the products they make at local stores. Usually it’s a family business that has been a long-standing tradition.

If you don’t have accurate details regarding Beekeeping, then you might make a bad choice on the subject. Don’t let that happen: keep reading.

Most beekeeping families have been at this for several generations so it’s not a new thing many families get into with this. A lot of children grow up making this into their livelihood since it’s how their ancestors made their living. Many companies now are in fact commercially owned since so many family-owned businesses are forced out because of the rising cost of running a business and many mom and pop places that were not technologically advanced were the ones who suffered because those who had the resources to invest in websites and tools needed to stay ahead in the business were the ones who made the transition into the 21st century with their businesses. This was a business that began as a simple hobby and just a small way to make extra money on the side or to just have something extra for the dinner table since honey was super popular to be put on hot biscuits and toast for dinner and breakfast since it was used as a marmalade.

Honey wasn’t really a huge resource at the time since people used sugar and other things like molasses to put in their food, but when it was discovered that honey was cheap and inexpensive to make that’s when beekeeping had become a hugely popular and profitable business for many families in regions that beekeeping was a widely practiced activity. As a result of how inexpensive it was to produce honey, which became what beekeeping has developed into today. The only issues was in this day and age more pesticides was being used and the problems with having to treat much of the honey that was being made which left a lot of people wondering how safe it was to consume such a product.

It was a concern since you have the organic food movement that totally goes against the use of pesticides and any means to chemically alter or treat food or livestock used for food products. Today you have family owned companies at the commercial level that produce honey products and beeswax used in cosmetics and candle making.

So now you know a little bit about Beekeeping. Even if you don’t know everything, you’ve done something worthwhile: you’ve expanded your knowledge.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO

PostHeaderIcon Training to be a Beekeeper

Do you ever feel like you know just enough about Beekeeping to be dangerous? Let’s see if we can fill in some of the gaps with the latest info from Beekeeping experts.

Training to be a beekeeper is a time consuming skill that many take seriously because you have to share a passion for something that was once declared a simple hobby to which has joined the billion-dollar food market. The beekeeping industry has come a long way from it being a simple hobby to where it’s going on tables across the world. Many beekeepers that have not been brought up in a family that practiced this are going to have to really learn fast from an experienced beekeeper that has had years of experience from knowing the biology and study of bees and what to expect when they turn out a good product of honey. What many people aren’t aware of is and this may sound kind of gross, but honey is actually regurgitated food because bees not only make honey, but they eat it as food during the winter months since there are no flowers around when it’s cold so it’s a way for them to sustain food through the cold months.

It’s amazing that bees have mastered the art of survival during the winter months. Beekeepers also have to keep in mind that certain times of the year there may not be any honey production since bees are most active during the warm months so that’s why many of them are actually farmers since they have to have a way to make a living when it gets cold. This is an expensive hobby and it may look cheap because you can make a box put some slides in them and allow the bees to come there, but the thing is that you have to know where to put the boxes for the bees to build their hives in.

Most of this information comes straight from the Beekeeping pros. Careful reading to the end virtually guarantees that you’ll know what they know.

You have to train yourself to be knowledgeable in the area of entomology because you have to know what insects will be compatible around bees because some insects will feed on bees, yellow jackets, hornets, and wasps which are primarily mites and are one of the most annoying insects because they’re so relatively tiny that you need a microscope to see them up close. Science plays a huge part in a beekeeper’s training and gaining experience since most people aren’t savvy to science and the elements of it which is important and necessary because you have to have some idea of how to manage bees and what to do to keep their habitat healthy and to keep pests from overtaking the hives and killing the bees. There are a lot of steps involving the proper education and training of a beekeeper and what you’re looking for is someone who is serious and dedicated to a way of life that’s been a tradition in some families for generations.

Many people learn through the ranks of great grandparents, grandparents, and parents and it’s just a family tradition and way of life that’s taught to children. It wasn’t even about making money it was actually just one other chore on the farm, but in the years it slowly progressed into a farm staple that was being sold like it was produce, meat and dairy, but it’s still a profitable market anyway you look at it and it’s one of the sweetest things in the world.

The day will come when you can use something you read about here to have a beneficial impact. Then you’ll be glad you took the time to learn more about Beekeeping.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO

PostHeaderIcon The History of Beekeeping

No one really knows when the first time someone thought about collecting the honey from hives. We do know that the art of beekeeping has been around for a long time. Archaeologist have discovered cave drawings depicting collecting honey. These caves were found in Africa and Spain’s eastern regions. Archaeologist believe that the cave drawings were created in 7000BC. Most of these pictures show people scooping honey out of rocks and trees but a few of them depict images of humans standing, unstung, in the midst of a swarms of bees. Scientist believe that these early cave dwellers somehow learned that smoke had an interesting affect on bees.

The earliest artificial bee hives were made out of pottery, clay vases and bowls, and straw baskets resembled the trees and rock crevices that the bees were drawn to in nature. Early beekeepers learned how to capture swarms of bees in these containers. Once trapped the bees proceeded to turn the containers into a bee hive.

Evidence that many ancient civilizations, such as the Myans, raised bees and collected their honey.

Aficionados of Roman history know that bees and honey played a role in the Roman culture. The Goddess Mellona, was the protector of the bees.

The Greeks also had a great deal of respect for the honey bees. On Mt. Olympus, the home of Zeus, they sipped the nectar provided by the gods (experts believe that the nectar that the Greeks referred to was honey). Greek mythology claims that bees were responsible for building Apollo’s second temple. When he wrote his book, The History of Animals, Aristotle wrote about how bees were able to locate flowers.

Is everything making sense so far? If not, I’m sure that with just a little more reading, all the facts will fall into place.

In the period of time between the 1500′s and 1851 was an evolutionary time for beekeeping. The first critical change in beekeeping happened late in the 1500′s. It was during this time that information was learned about the life cycle of the honey bee. Once beekeepers understood the way that bees lived they were better able to take care of the winged insects.

Adaptations to artificial hives started taking place. As beekeepers, agricultural enthusiast, and scientists, yearned to learn more about the life cycle of bees, beekeepers look for ways to design a hive that would allow them to easily see inside the hive.

An American, Lorenzo Langstroth, designed the first mobile bee hive.

By the time the 1850′s got here the European honey bee was introduced to California. After California the honey bees were introduced to Oregon and Canada.

It is believed that there are over 210,000 beekeepers currently in the United States. Collectively these beekeepers keep and maintain over three million active bee hives.

Those who only know one or two facts about Beekeeping can be confused by misleading information. The best way to help those who are misled is to gently correct them with the truths you’re learning here.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO