The Thinking Beekeeper by Christy Hemenway

Author:Christy Hemenway [Christy Hemenway]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781550925111
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Published: 2012-12-11T16:00:00+00:00

What Things Look Like

I remember going to beekeeping school. There was a lot of information presented, lots of equipment to learn about and lots of requirements about when to do what and at what temperature and which chemical went where when. I knew when I finished bee school that I was supposed to inspect my hives. But I had not the foggiest notion what I was inspecting for. I could not have told you a larva from a pupa from a drone cell from a queen cell.

Because I know that novice beekeepers struggle with what things look like and what they should expect to find during an inspection, I will do my best to give you pictures and drawings to make caring for your bees easier.

What follows next is a very general time line describing what you may find during an inspection, based roughly on the age of the hive. You may need to compensate for the variables, like size and weather, that affect each and every hive. You will note that the range of days shown for each illustration frequently overlap. Partly this is a demonstration of what you will see in reality, especially if you have more than one hive, and partly this is my attempt to keep you from falling into the habit of relying upon a calendar-based checklist.

The imprecision of the chronological progression of a beehive through the seasons is another good reason to keep a bee log—especially as a novice starting a new colony. When you know the day the bees were hived, you can at least anticipate what to look for, based on the age of the hive.

This description begins with Day One, having installed bees into the top bar hive as described in detail in Chapter 5. It follows the colony through the season to a full-fledged thriving colony of healthy bees and combs full of healthy honey, and then through winter shutdown procedures.

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