Building Beehives For Dummies

Howland Blackiston

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781119544388
• eBook ISBN: 9781119544432
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Agriculture
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Building Beehives For Dummies (9781119544388) was previously published as Building Beehives For Dummies (9781118312940). While this version features a new Dummies cover and design, the content is the same as the prior release and should not be considered a new or updated product.

The easy way to build your own beehives and beekeeping equipment

Building Beehives For Dummies is the follow-up book to the bestselling Beekeeping For Dummies. It provides everything you need to learn how to build some of the world's most popular hives and beekeeping accessories. For each design the book includes a detailed materials list (what lumber, hardware and fasteners you'll need), step-by-step building instructions, and illustrative drawings that show how the components all fit together. There are over a dozen plans in all, including the traditional Langstroth hive, the eight frame garden hive, designs for elevated hive stands, the Warre hive, screened bottom board, the Kenya top-bar hive, four-frame observation hive, hive top feeders, and more.The book contains introductory chapters that teach you the basic carpentry skills necessary to build any of the plans in the book.

Whether you are a new beekeeper or a seasoned ol'timer, Building Beehives for Dummies provides you withthe information you need to plan and succeed at building beehives (and other cool accessories). You'll discover what type of hive to build, hints on how to maintain your equipment, what bees need to stay happy and healthy, where to locate your hive, and much more.

• Covers "bee space, " the critical technical measurement within a beehive that's crucial for easy inspection of your colonies
• Offers guidance on keeping both urban and suburban neighbors happy, getting proper permissions, and understanding regional laws and regulations
• Provides creative ideas for dressing up hives for fun and profit

In today's world of self-sufficiency, back-to-basics and sustainability, building beehives is a fun hobby that both you and your bees will appreciate and benefit from.

Part 1

The Buzz on Beehives

IN THIS PART …

Here’s where I set the groundwork for finding out the basics of building beehives. First I cover the structure of a beehive, and then I tell you how to select the best hive for your needs and skills, where to place your hives, and what tools and materials you need to build them. I even give you some suggestions for fine-tuning your carpentry skills. This part has all the info you need to get ready for your adventure in building beehives and beekeeping equipment.

Chapter 1

Getting Sweet on Building Your Own Beehives

IN THIS CHAPTER

Getting the scoop on bees and their lives

Seeing the advantages of building (versus buying) hives

Planning your beehive build

Putting together the right workspace, tools, and materials

Honing your woodworking skills

Digging into beehive designs

My backyard beekeeping adventure started in 1983, and I’ve never ceased to be amazed by these endearing creatures — the profound contribution they bring to gardening and agriculture through their pollination services; their remarkable social and communication skills; and, of course, that wonderful bonus of a yearly harvest of pure, all-natural, delicious honey. It’s no wonder that beekeepers speak with such warmth about their girls.

As a beekeeper, it doesn’t take long to expand the scope of your hobby into related beekeeping adventures, such as candle making, mead brewing, and a host of other honeybee-related activities. And if you have even a remote interest in woodworking and building things, it’s only natural to want to learn how to build a home for your beloved bees.

In this chapter I include some information to help you get ready for building your own beehives and accessories. I start with Honeybees 101 — a mini review of the bountiful bee and what goes on inside a beehive. Then I turn to some ideas for setting up your beehive-making shop, fine-tuning your woodworking skills, and deciding which of the plans in this book best meet your needs and skills.

Bee-ing in the Know about Bees

So you want to build some hives for your precious bees? You’re going to have fun! You have many options regarding the hives you can build, but before you dig in, it’s helpful to understand a little bit about these extraordinary creatures.

WHY HONEYBEES ARE GREAT POLLINATORS

Honeybees can outperform all other types of pollinators in nature for a number of reasons.

• The honeybee’s body and legs are covered with branched hairs that effectively catch and hold pollen grains. When a bee brushes against the stigma (female part) of the next flower she visits, some of the pollen grains from the previous flower are deposited, and the act of cross-pollination is accomplished.
• Unlike other pollinating insects that lie dormant all winter and then emerge in the spring in very small numbers, the honeybee colony overwinters, with thousands of bees feeding on stored honey. Early in the spring, the queen begins laying eggs, and the already large population explodes to many tens of thousands of bees that carry out pollination activities.
• The honeybee tends to forage on blooms of the same kind, as long as they’re flowering, versus hopping from one flower type to another. This single focus makes for particularly effective pollination.
• The honeybee is one of the few pollinating insects that can be introduced to a garden at the gardener’s will.

Honeybees’ most important job: Pollination

Honeybees are a critical part of the agricultural economy. They account for more than 80 percent of all pollination of crops. In fact, honeybees pollinate more than 100 cultivated crops, including various fruits and vegetables, nuts, herbs, spices, and numerous ornamental plants. According to the agriculture department at the University of Arkansas, honeybees add an estimated $15 billion to the U.S. economy each year in increased crop yields.

Since 2006, the population of honeybees has been dwindling at an alarming rate. The reasons for this die-off of colonies are not yet fully understood at the time of this writing. But the consequence is laser-sharp. A spring without bees would seriously endanger our food supply. Building hives and establishing some colonies of bees in your neighborhood makes an important contribution to reintroducing pollinating bees to your neck of the woods.

The products of the honeybee

In addition to the wonderful pollination services that honeybees provide (see the preceding section), they produce products that you can harvest and put to all kinds of uses. These products include:

• Beeswax: Honeybees secrete wax from eight glands located along their abdomen. They use beeswax to build the hexagonal cells in which they raise their brood and store their honey and pollen. You’ll probably get several pounds of surplus wax for every 100 pounds of honey that you harvest. You can clean and melt down this wax for all kinds of uses, including candles, furniture polish, and cosmetics. Pound for pound, wax is worth more than honey, so it’s definitely worth a bit of effort to reclaim this prize.
  In this book, the Kenya top bar hive and the Warré hive (see Chapters 5 and 8, respectively) give you a lot of beautiful wax because, with these particular hives, you remove and crush the honeycomb to harvest your honey. To render the wax you collect from your hives, use a solar wax melter (see Chapter 16 for instructions on how to build one).
• Honey: Bees use honey as food, just like humans do. It’s their carbohydrate. For people, eating local honey is said to relieve the symptoms of pollen-related allergies.
  There’s something magical about bottling your own honey, and I can assure you that no other honey tastes as good as the honey made by your own bees. How much honey can you expect? The answer to that question varies depending on the weather, rainfall, and location and strength of your colony. But producing 40 to 80 pounds or more of surplus honey per hive isn’t unusual.
  In this book, the best hives for producing copious amounts of the precious liquid gold include (in potentially dwindling order of abundance) the Langstroth hive (see Chapter 10), the British National hive (see Chapter 9), the Warré hive (see Chapter 8), and the Kenya top bar hive (see Chapter 5).
• Pollen: Bees use pollen like they use honey — as food. And why not? Pollen is one of the richest and purest of natural foods, consisting of up to 35 percent protein and 10 percent sugars, carbohydrates, enzymes, minerals, and vitamins including A (carotenes), B1 (thiamin), B2 (riboflavin), B3 (nicotinic acid), B5 (panothenic acid), C (ascorbic acid), and H (biotin).
  You can harvest pollen from your bees using a pollen trap (they’re available from any beekeeping supply house). You can sprinkle a small amount on your breakfast cereal or in yogurt (as you might do with wheat germ). I like to sprinkle some on salads as a colorful addition. It’s said that eating a little local pollen ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Part 1: The Buzz on Beehives
• Part 2: The World’s Most Popular Beehive Designs
• Part 3: Sweet Beehive Accessories
• Part 4: The Part of Tens
• Index
• About the Author
• Advertisement Page
• Connect with Dummies
• End User License Agreement