Selling at a Farmers Market

SellingataFarmersMarket Selling at a Farmers Market

Selling at a Farmers Market


Your apiary might produce the best-tasting honey in your area, but if you don’t get your honey to customers, no one’s going to know about it. A farmers’ market is an effective venue not only for direct sales but for getting the word out about your products and building a loyal customer base. These markets attract customers who are genuinely interested in purchasing products directly from farmers; they prefer natural foods to processed foods, and they enjoy talking with and getting to know growers and producers. Regular customers at these markets will become your best customers.

Renting a stall at a farmers’ market is affordable; daily rates can be as low as $25, and you can often rent on an annual basis for around $300. The markets are open at least one day a week (Saturdays are popular); if the market is open year-round, there may be a second opening day during the summer. One of the most famous farmers’ markets in the United States, Greenmarket at Union Square in the center of Manhattan, is open four days a week and attracts 60,000 people or more each day. If your apiary is within reasonable driving distance of New York City and you have lots of honey to sell, you might consider a full-time stall at this thriving market; Greenmarket organizers require you to fill out an application form, and fees vary depending on the size and specific location of your stall.

Because farmers’ market customers are knowledgeable about farm products and eager to learn more, provide lots of information at your stall. Design and produce an attractive brochure that describes your beekeeping operation, your personal interest in the occupation (how did you get started?), your philosophy and goals with regard to beekeeping, and your production methods. Include photographs, a map with directions to your apiary, and contact information. Also, have plenty of information about your specific products. If you sell bee pollen, put together another brochure describing the health benefits of this bee byproduct, even including some recipes or other tips for eating bee pollen granules.

SellingataFarmersMarketMiddle Selling at a Farmers Market

Additionally, put little signs around your display areas pointing out the best features of your honey and other products. Prices should be well marked; customers are often suspicious of items that aren’t clearly priced. And if your labels don’t have full nutritional details, provide those too; unlike supermarket shoppers who making quick and spontaneous decisions, farmers’ market enthusiasts tend to read the nutritional information.

You can be a little loose with pricing. As mentioned, you should establish prices for all your products and mark them clearly, but if a customer purchases several items and tries to bargain, be prepared to offer a discount. Your stall and your direct interface with customers is not only an opportunity for sales: it’s a marketing tactic that over time will increase the total volume of your business. If there are other beekeepers at your market, be sure to compare prices; you don’t want to be too far off the mark, unless you are truly offering a specialty, high-value product. If you’re not getting sales, your prices may be too high; if you can afford to, try lowering them slightly the following week and see if the results are better.

Customers at farmers’ markets love to sample food, so be prepared to give samples. Have an open jar of honey, some bread, and a toaster (or something else that’s good to spread your honey on). A bite-sized piece of toast (say, a quarter of a slice) with a teaspoon of honey is enough for a free sample. People who sample often feel obligated to make a purchase; don’t discourage them! You might even prepare snacks and sell them for direct consumption. For instance, you can bring boxes of waffles that can be heated in a toaster, spread them with honey and top them off with sliced strawberries. Price it so you cover your costs and make a little profit; $2.50 is not too much to pay for a small waffle slathered with honey and topped with strawberries. Serve your snacks on small paper plates, but try to keep them sized to be easy finger food. If farmers’ markets have tables and chairs at all, they’re probably off in some distant corner, and it’s awkward for customers to struggle with plastic knives and forks while standing and holding bags filled with produce.

Be ready to talk about your honey, bee pollen, beeswax, and other products. Suggest ideas for how to eat your products; if a tablespoon of your honey goes well in a milkshake, say so. Provide suggestions, and don’t lead customers astray. If a customer admits to having frequent gastrointestinal problems, raw bee pollen granules might be tough on his digestive system; you should say so. The customer will be grateful for the advice, and may as a result purchase some honey. Most important, be cheerful and active; smile at people passing by. Be a salesperson. Don’t bury yourself behind the counter reading a magazine; if customers don’t see any activity at your stall, they may think that it’s unoccupied and pass right by.

Likewise, keep things tidy, and keep your shelves restocked; don’t display empty shelves. If you have a sampling area or are selling snacks, keep these areas clean; honey tends to attract insects, and you don’t want flies swarming around your stall. If your range of products is limited, you might consider joining forces with another seller to offer variety — working with a baker might be a good match, for instance.

Finally, keep careful accounts of what you spend and what you take in. You’ll want to be able to gauge how successful your market stall is, not only in creating buzz about your business but in financial terms too. Most beekeepers find that a stall at a farmers’ market makes sense for their business, and if you plan and maintain your stall properly, you’re likely to find success as well.

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How to Sell Your Honey

HowtoSellYourHoney How to Sell Your Honey

How to Sell Your Honey


Most people take up beekeeping as a hobby; only a minority of beekeepers set out to make a full-time living off of it. Most commercial beekeeping operations in the United States are run by part-timers, hobbyists, retirees, and others who are drawn to the occupation more by their interest in beekeeping than by their interest in profit. But if you keep a dozen or more hives and have healthy bee colonies, you’ll have more honey and other bee products than you can consume yourself or distribute to friends and family; you should at least consider bottling and selling your honey commercially.

The most direct way to sell your honey and other products is to set up your own stand, either near your home (where, presumably, you have your hives as well), or along a roadside. If you decide to set up a roadside stand that’s some distance from your house and apiary — but better for catching bypassing traffic — you’ll need to have someone staff it. It will be difficult to make up the cost of this extra staff help in honey sales. For many reasons, think about building a sales area at your house and apiary; you can start out with simple wooden shelving for displaying honey and other products, indoors or even outdoors. You want people to linger and ask questions; be sure your sales area, if outdoors, is in the shade or under some shelter, to protect customers both from bright sunshine and precipitation.

You’ll have to rely on signage to lure customers, especially if your home is distant from major thoroughfares. Identify a few major intersections that see considerable traffic that are convenient to your location, and place some eye-catching signs, with the word “honey” prominently displayed. If you’re not artistically inclined, ask an artist or a friend with at least some talent to help you. Your signs can look “rustic,” but they should also be professional. And before putting up signs, you should check any local ordinances regarding signage, and be sure not to sink a signpost into someone’s private property.

HowtoSellYourHoneymiddle How to Sell Your Honey

Next, you’ll need to package your product. Honey is sold in various forms; the rawest form is known as comb honey, which is taken straight from the hive and sold still encased in its beeswax honeycomb. (The wax is edible, but some people spit it out or simply spoon the honey out of the comb.) Most beekeepers who sell their honey directly use an extractor to spin honey out of the comb; they then bottle this extracted product and sell it as raw honey. Raw honey tends to contain bee pollen granules, flecks of honeycomb wax, propolis, and even fragments of bees wings. Honey can be further refined; liquid honey is what is commonly found in supermarkets. This is processed honey; it has been filtered to remove all pollen, wax, and other particles, and heated to melt any visible crystals. Granulated honey or creamed honey is a blend of raw honey and liquid honey (usually nine parts liquid honey for one part raw honey). You can process your own honey to some degree at home, and will need to determine market demand in your area, but generally customers who purchase honey directly from apiaries are looking for raw, unprocessed products.

Beekeeping supply shops can sell you blank jars of various sizes; you should sell your honey in a few sizes, as different customers will have different needs. You will also need to produce labels for your jars. At this point, think about your signage, a good name for your business, and a logo. Even if you’re only in the beginning stages of your business, you’ll eventually want to establish a visual “corporate identity,” so that your local customers will easily recognize you and your products by the look of your labels, signage, brochures, business cards, and so on. Work with an artist at an early stage to create a uniform design that can be applied to signs of various sizes, jar labels, and the like.

Your labels should clearly state what kind of honey they contain — whether raw, liquid, or granulated. The word “honey” itself must be clearly visible. Even if you sell raw honey straight from the comb without any processing, be careful in using the word “organic”: you have no control over where your bees have collected nectar, and they may well have foraged among plants that have been fertilized nonorganically. Other required information for your label include the net weight of your product (excluding packaging), ingredients (if any, besides honey), and your contact information. Labels usually must also include nutritional information (which can be detailed on a second label, affixed to the back of the jar) and, if you intend to sell through third-party markets, a UPC bar code for scanners. The National Honey Board’s website provides detailed information about labeling requirements.

Finally, you’ll have to price your honey. To establish realistic prices, you should visit farmers’ markets, other apiaries, supermarkets, health food stores, online shops, and anywhere else where your target customers can source honey, to do price comparisons. Be sure to take your own operating costs into consideration; you don’t want to lose money with each jar of honey that you sell. And bear in mind that most customers are willing to pay a premium for natural products purchased directly at a farm; there is value in the experience of simply visiting an apiary.

Simple rows of honey jars can make for a visually uninspired display; use some imagination to dress up your shelves with some color — whether flowers, fruits or vegetables, brochures, or other elements. If any of your neighbors have extensive gardens, you might talk with them about selling their excess produce along with your honey; a bigger product mix will draw more customers. Cut flowers, squash, tomatoes, berries — whatever grows locally will work. And you can expand your own range of products to include bee pollen, propolis, royal jelly, beeswax, and more.

You’ll have to advertise to some extent, especially if your sales stand is off the main roads; your signs will attract some customers, but some days will be very slow. Take out ads in local newspapers, both print editions and online editions; local grocery stores may allow you to leave brochures or post ads on bulletin boards inside the stores. Think of other ways to get your business talked about; volunteer your apiary as a destination for school field trips, or talk with local reporters about your business. Local news stations are always interested in human-interest stories.

And, if you have sufficient supply, approach local markets, grocery stories, health food stores, and other retail outlets about stocking your honey. The retail price should match what you charge customers at your stand, but you’ll see less profit through sales at third-party stores, who will of course take a sizeable commission. But over the long term you’ll see greater profits through an increased volume of sales.

Your product is a winner: people love honey, especially bought fresh from the farm. Getting started with sales is easy, and with some skill and a little luck, you may soon have a thriving business.

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Beekeeping in Antiquity

BeekeepinginAntiquity Beekeeping in Antiquity

Beekeeping in Antiquity


Harvesting honey is one of humankind’s oldest activities; honey collecting has occurred for as long as records exist. Some of the earliest evidence of honey collection can be found in rock paintings that date to around 13,000 BC. Methods were primitive; bees were usually driven from their hive with smoke, and the honey then extracted. This would involve smashing the hive with rocks, destroying the hive and forcing the bees to relocate elsewhere. This nonsustainable method of honey collection persists to the present day among aboriginal societies in parts of Africa, Asia, Australia, and South America. Honey bees in Africa have adapted through evolutionary processes, becoming more aggressive in defending their hives; a hybrid between the African honey bee and a European honey bee produced the Africanized honey bee, known colloquially as the “killer bee,” now menacing parts of the Americas.

The domestication of wild bees began at some point during antiquity; artificial hives were made from hollow logs, wooden boxes, pottery, and woven straw baskets known as skeps. In ancient Egypt, the sun temple of Nyuserre Ini, dating to 2,422 BC, has drawings depicting workers blowing smoke into beehives as they remove honeycombs. The production of honey was an organized activity in ancient Egypt; inscriptions detailing beekeeping activities were found in the tomb of Pabasa (~650 BC), as well as depictions of workers pouring honey into jars. Pharaohs, including Tutankhamen (1333-1323 BC), were often buried with sealed pots of honey, among other grave items.

BeekeepinginAntiquity 1 Beekeeping in Antiquity

Ancient Greek civilizations, too, had advanced beekeeping activities. Various paraphernalia related to beekeeping have been found at Knossos, on Crete: hives, smoking pots, honey extractors, and more. Cretan civilization valued beekeeping as an advanced profession, controlled by overseers. These overseers wore gold rings engraved with beekeeping scenes rather than the religious themes typically found on Cretan jewelry.

Rehov was an Bronze Age and Iron Age city in the Jordan Valley, in present-day Israel. The city thrived some 3,000 years ago and was populated by Israelites (Hebrew speakers) and Canaanites. Rehov has long been an important archaeological site, and in 2007, thirty intact beehives and the remains of a few hundred more, dating to the mid-tenth century BC, were found among the ruins. The presence of so many hives, made of straw and unbaked clay and laid out in orderly rows, indicate a highly advanced apiculture. The apiary could have held up to a million bees, with a potential annual yield of 500 kilograms of honey and 70 kilograms of beeswax. The biblical phrase “Land of Milk and Honey,” once thought to refer to “honey” derived from dates and figs, took on new meaning with this discovery.

The remains of bees, bee larvae, and bee pupae were also found at Rehov. Using DNA analysis, researchers determined that the Rehov bees were a subspecies of the Anatolian bee, now found only in present-day Turkey. It is possible that the bees naturally migrated, but it’s also possible that the Rehov beekeepers imported their bees from Anatolia, because Anatolian bees are less aggressive and provide a better honey yield, up to eight times stronger, than bees native to Israel. This would indicate an active trade in honey bees among beekeepers of different civilizations.

There is further evidence of widespread commerce in bees throughout the eastern Mediterranean. Bees were transported in large pottery vases and portable beehives. An Assyrian inscription dating to the eighth century BC records a transaction in which a cargo of bees was transported 400 kilometers, from the Taurus Mountains in Anatolia south into Assyria.

Beekeeping advanced as a profession in classical Greece. Aristotle discusses the lives of bees and beekeeping in detail. The philosopher kept bees himself, in simple hives with wooden strip top-bars, and made numerous observations about their behavior in his History of Animals. He noted that foraging bees select one type of flower only during each foraging mission; that they use propolis to “narrow” hive entrances that are too wide; that some foragers “carry water”; and that bees “discharge their excrement in flight.” Aristotle also observed the division of labor among bees in the hive, noting that “some [bees] make wax, some make honey, some make [pollen], some shape and mold combs …” Dead bees are removed from the hive, and drones are expelled when food runs short. Interestingly, Aristotle makes constant reference to the “king bee,” assuming that a male must somehow be in charge. The belief in the existence of a king bee persisted for another 1,700 years.

Beekeeping was also written about extensively in ancient Rome; Virgil, Gaius Julius Hyginus, Varro, and Columella all wrote about beekeeping. Book IV of Virgil’s Georgics, published in 29 BC, is all about apiculture, written entirely in verse. Bee colonies are a model for human society: like man, bees labor, are devoted to a king, and give their lives freely for the sake of the community. However, bees lack the arts, and they have no capacity for love. This interesting discussion about bees then leads to the story of Orpheus and Eurydice and other mythological themes. Virgil followed up the Georgics with the more widely read Aeneid.

Beekeeping was also widespread in ancient China; the government minister Fan Li, of the state of Yue during the Spring and Autumn period (roughly 750-400 BC), stresses the importance of the hive in beekeeping. In his text Golden Rules of Business Success, he writes that the quality of the wooden manmade hive can affect the quality of the honey that bees produce.

There is ample evidence of beekeeping throughout the ancient world, with more evidence being accumulated by historians and archeologists and a regular basis. Beekeeping has always been an important profession.

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Wax Moths and Honey Bees

WaxMothsandHoneyBees Wax Moths and Honey Bees

Wax Moths and Honey Bees


Honey bees are susceptible to attack by many different kinds of pathogens and parasites, all of which seem to target a different feature of the bee colony, whether the brood, the honey and other food, or the bees themselves. Wax moths don’t attack bees but rather feed on the beeswax that makes up the honeycombs. Beeswax contains protein that is essential for the development of moth larvae development. Because honeycombs are used both to store honey and to shelter bee larvae, contamination by wax moths will lead to contamination and spillage of honey, as well as the loss of bee larvae. For beekeepers, this leads to loss of profit; for bees, the potential destruction of their colony.

There are two varieties of wax moths, both of which feast on beeswax. Greater wax moths are 1-1.5 inches in length (as adults); lesser wax moths are smaller, perhaps half an inch in length. The caterpillar larvae of both species are bred commercially; called “waxworms,” they are sold as food for terrarium pets and some species of birds, due mainly to their high fat content. These larvae are also popular as fishing bait, particular for sunfish; anglers refer to the larvae as “waxies.” Most beekeepers, however, are not keen on opening a bait shop as a sideline, and would prefer to rid their hives of these pests.

The moths tend to work at night; the early summer is their most active season. They enter a beehive through a top entrance, often unguarded by bees, and lay their eggs in small cracks within the hive that are inaccessible to the bees. The eggs hatch, and the young larvae then begin feeding on wax and hive debris, tunneling into capped cells and secreting an extremely sticky white web, not unlike a spider’s web but much more resilient. If such an infestation is left untreated, a colony will eventually abscond.

WaxMothsandHoneyBees 1 Wax Moths and Honey Bees
Wax Moths

Generally, wax moths will not attack healthy bee colonies. For the most part, bees are quite capable of defending their own hives against intruders; they can drive moths away, destroy larvae, and clean out any webs that have been left by the larvae. However, colonies already weakened by some other infestation — whether mites or a parasitic disease — are less capable of fending off a moth invasion, and are therefore more vulnerable. If you keep your hives healthy otherwise, wax moths are not likely to be a problem.

If your hive has an entrance at the top, bees will often not guard this entrance, especially in cooler weather when they tend to cluster together. Simply adding some screening to the entrance to prevent entry by moths is one preventative measure you can take. Some beekeepers have devised a wax moth trap that lures moths but not bees. Take a two-liter plastic bottle and drill a one-inch hole near the top, just below the slope of the neck. Add one cup of water, one cup of sugar, a half-cup of vinegar, and a banana peel. Within a few days, this mixture will begin to ferment. At that point, tie the bottle to a tree near your hives (with the hole facing out). Moths will be drawn to the fermenting mixture; they will crawl in through the hole but won’t be able to get out, and will drown in the liquid.

If your hive has already been infected with wax moths, you can take other measures. Wax moths do not take to cold weather; freezing the frames in an infected hive will kill all stages of the moth, including eggs and larvae. First, remove any unused frames and freeze those. Use a deep freezer where you can set the temperature, and freeze the frames for 4.5 hours at 20 degrees Fahrenheit, then 3 hours at 10 degrees, and 2 hours at 5 degrees. Once these frames have been sterilized, crowd your bees and remove all frames that don’t contain brood, and freeze those frames too. “Crowding” your bees will also have the effect of leaving less space for any adult moths to hide, and they will be driven out.

WaxMothsandHoneyBees 2 Wax Moths and Honey Bees
Honey Bees

As a reinforcing measure, you can fumigate a hive with a chemical such as phosphine; these sorts of fumigants are hazardous, however, and should be used only if you have experience. Find an experienced beekeeper to help with your fumigation as necessary. Paradichlorobenzine (PDB) is another chemical agent that will kill all forms of wax moths. After any fumigation, the combs must be well aired out for several days before use.

One other solution is to discourage wax moths by not providing their larvae with anything to eat. Many beekeepers use artificial honeycombs, for a variety of reasons. If bees don’t have to construct their own honeycombs, they have more time to make honey. Artificial honeycombs, made of plastic or even aluminum,  are stronger and better able to hold their structure during high-speed honey extraction. Bees are just as happy to raise their broods and store honey in plastic honeycombs, but these same combs are of no use to wax moths.

Beekeepers have devised several methods for preventing wax moth invasions, and of clearing hives that have already been infected. These pests are manageable, if you take the proper steps.

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How Do Bees Make Honey?

How Do Bees Make Honey How Do Bees Make Honey?

How Do Bees Make Honey?


Honey bees are remarkable creatures. These insects live in colonies numbering 40,000-50,000 bees; the behavioral patterns of bees in a bee colony are precisely defined, with each bee acting in the interest of the colony, not the individual. In the overall ecosystem, bees play a crucial role in plant pollination; because they pollinate food crops as well as other plants, bees are instrumental in the production of an estimated 30 percent of the food supply in the United States. Figures are similar worldwide.

And bees produce honey, which is consumed by people and other animals around the world. Beekeepers raise bees commercially for many reasons, but primarily for the honey that they produce. Honey is not an essential food item for humans, but it is healthier than sugar as a sweetener, and as a food additive honey can flavor a diverse range of dishes, from pumpkin soup to barbecue sauce. Honey has medicinal uses as well.

How do bees manufacture this food? Bees themselves rely on the honey the produce as a food source, so they must have a constant supply in storage, particularly during the winter months when plant life is dormant and the collection of nectar impossible. Bees make honey from nectar, which worker bees collect from various flowering plants as they make their rounds. Generally, the older worker bees are tasked with foraging; they fly from flower to flower, using their long proboscis as a straw to suck up liquid nectar and store it in a special sac in their bodies, the �honey stomach.�

Plant nectar is about 80 percent water; the remaining 20 percent is mostly sucrose (a disaccharide, or complex sugar). In a process called inversion, the worker bees are able to break these complex sugars down into glucose and fructose — which are monosaccharides, or simple sugars. This process occurs naturally while the nectar is still stored in the honey stomach, as the worker bee continues flying from flower to flower, drinking more nectar. The process is executed by an enzyme, invertase, which converts the greater part of the sucrose into glucose and fructose. A second enzyme, glucose oxidase, then breaks the glucose down further into gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide. Gluconic acid ensures that the resulting honey will have a low pH, rendering honey inhospitable to bacteria, mold, and fungi; the hydrogen peroxide provides short-term protection against microbes. These properties convert the nectar — and the eventual honey — into a food that is safe for consumption by bee larvae, who are the intended beneficiaries. In the process, these chemical conversions also enhance honey�s medicinal uses for humans.

bee001 How Do Bees Make Honey? How Do Bees Make Honey?
How Do Bees Make Honey Content How Do Bees Make Honey?

Once a worker bee�s honey stomach is full, the bee will return to the hive and regurgitate the converted nectar. However, the substance is still about 80 percent water, most of which must now be evaporated. Bees flood the converted nectar into honeycomb cells, and designated worker bees who reside in the hive full-time beat their wings furiously to evaporate the water content. The nectar gradually thickens into honey, which is only 14-18 percent water. Once this thickening process is complete, the bees will cap the honeycomb cells with beeswax, for later consumption by adult bees or feeding to bee larvae. Excess honey can be harvested by a beekeeper.

Each individual bee is only able to produce a small amounts of honey during its lifetime — a fraction of a teaspoon. However, a healthy hive with 50,000 bees can produce as much as 200 pounds of honey in a year.

Because bees themselves rely on honey as a principle source of food for themselves and their larvae, don�t beekeepers then �steal� food from bees when they harvest honey? In fact, bees typically make much more honey than they need. If a honeycomb that is spilling over with honey is removed from the hive, emptied by a beekeeper, and then replaced in the hive, the bees will see that it is empty and will immediately begin foraging, collecting more nectar and making more honey. Beekeepers usually install prefabricated wax honeycombs, sparing the bees the effort to make their own honeycombs. As a result, the bees then have that much more time to collect nectar and produce honey. Beekeepers of course cannot overharvest; they must ensure that their bees have enough honey for their own purposes, especially in getting through the winter months, when the collection of nectar is not possible. However, beekeepers learn how to properly manage their hives such that the bees produce enough honey for their own purposes as well as for the beekeeper�s profit.

Even in the wild, bees overproduce honey; it seems that this is what they are programmed to do. This kind of chronic overproduction might appear inefficient or wasteful, contrary to the otherwise strictly efficient laws of nature. However, as one beekeeper points out in a blog, we can also ask why some humans whose bank accounts are already bursting with money continue to work long hours at their jobs, making more and more money that they�ll never manage to spend. The question is worth some reflection.

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Honey Badgers and Bees

Honey Badgers and Bees Honey Badgers and Bees

Honey Badgers and Bees


Honey Badger Top Honey Badgers and Bees

Among the many wild predators that threaten honey bee colonies, perhaps none are as voracious as the honey badger. These omnivores are mustelids — members of what is commonly referred to as the weasel family. They do not occur in Europe, east Asia, Australia, or the Americas; honey badgers are mostly found in sub-Saharan Africa, the Arabian peninsula, and the Indian subcontinent. And, in these areas, honey badgers can pose major problems for beekeepers.

Honey badgers have a fairly long body length but are thick-set and broad across the back. Their loose skin allows them to twist and turn freely. Their heads are small and flat, with short muzzles and ears little more than ridges on the skin; their eyes are also quite small for their bodies. These diminished facial features are perhaps an adaptation to the honey badger�s tendency to fight — there is less to grab onto!

These fast-moving animals have short, sturdy legs, with five toes on each paw. The two forepaws have remarkably long claws, for both defensive and offensive purposes. They can run quickly and have extensive ranges in the wild, sometimes covering 30 or 40 kilometers in a day. Honey badgers are not quite 12 inches high at the shoulder and about 30 inches in length; males can weigh up to 35 pounds, females somewhat less. They are solitary animals and live in holes in the ground that they dig themselves, but during mating season they can pair up as mates. They are intelligent and capable of using primitive tools, such as moving logs into positions allowing them to climb and reach high objects.

bee001 Honey Badgers and Bees Honey Badgers and Bees
Honey Badger Middle Honey Badgers and Bees

But honey badgers are mostly known for their aggressive behavior. They hunt and eat throughout the day, and become nocturnal in areas inhabited by humans. Although they eat anything, they are primarily carnivores, devouring carrion, small and large rodents, birds, lizards, and even venomous snakes. (A snake bite can subdue and sometimes kill a honey badger, but the badgers can often take down a snake without getting bitten.) And, in areas of human settlement, honey badgers will relentlessly go after domestic poultry, and the various consumables that can be found in domesticated beehives.

Throughout Africa, honey badgers, apart from humans, are the most destructive mammalian predators of honey bees. With so many food sources, the badgers do not necessarily require the nutrition from a hive, but they target the bee brood and will gladly devour the honey as well. Traditional as well as commercial beekeepers in Africa lose substantially to honey badgers, sometimes more than 10 percent of their hives. In Western Cape Province, Cape Town�s hinterland in South Africa, honey badgers have been causing losses of more than $60,000 annually. Commercial beekeepers, whether in Africa or anywhere else in the world, are rarely able to sustain these kinds of losses over an extended period of time.

A honey badger will tear at a hive until he can get inside; the bees will swarm and sting the badger, but with his loose skin, he is able to absorb the stings.

Because honey badgers typically roll hives over and rip off bottom boards — which may be weakened by moisture — it�s important to maintain a strong hive, with sections fastened together. Simply rolling the hive may disturb the bee colony, but if the badger can�t get inside, the colony will remain safe. Using screws as pegs and securing the hive with taut wire connecting the pegs is a stronger solution than simply wrapping baling wire around a hive. Even stronger, the hive boxes can be secured with industrial steel straps wrapped around, which requires additional tools for crimping and tensioning.

In addition to such strengthening, hives in Africa are frequently raised off the ground, at least a meter. The stands or trestles obviously must be fully secure such that the badgers can�t knock them over, and secured to the ground with metal strap, pallets, or wires. Stands can be made of a variety of found materials: welded scrap metal, steel, discarded fence posts, even stacks of old tires. Barbed wire can be positioned around the perimeter of a hive area, but honey badgers are resourceful creatures and can often find a workaround for barbed wire.

In many parts of Africa, traditional beekeepers continue to use methods that have been in use for centuries and longer. According to such practice, beehives are suspended from the upper branches of tall trees. Such hives may be basket hives, or simply hollowed logs that bees can adapt to. Obviously, it�s much harder to maintain such hives and harvest honey from them; for starters, it involves having to climb the tree! But bees raised in such fashion are generally safe from honey badgers.

Keeping dogs to fend off honey badger attacks is not effective; in most duels, a honey badger will get the best of a dog. Some beekeepers attempt to trap and kill the badgers; if they are perceived as a threat to one�s livelihood, this is not an unreasonable response. However, because honey badgers generally have only two cubs at a time and they are already threatened by beekeepers, poultry farmers, and other humans, some concerned activists have waged campaigns in favor of protecting these animals. If you keep your hives safe by making them strong and tight and then positioning them above the ground, honey badgers will simply leave them alone; there�s plenty of other food they can eat!

Although honey badgers are not found in North America or Europe, some of these same techniques can be used to protect hives from native small mammals such as raccoons and skunks.

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Making Money at Beekeeping

MakingMoneyatBeekeeping Making Money at Beekeeping

Making Money at Beekeeping


The only reason for making a buzzing-noise that I know of is because you’re a bee…The only reason for being a bee that I know of is making honey….and the only reason for making honey is so I can eat it.

~ Winnie the Pooh in A.A. Milne’s ‘The House at Pooh Corner’

As in any agricultural profession, making a living at beekeeping is a difficult prospect. There are good years and bad years; beekeepers are dependant on the weather just like other agriculturalists, and they can’t always control their costs. In fact, most beekeepers in the United States and worldwide are hobbyists; they keep a certain number of hives, but also have day jobs. It’s a labor of love.

There are so many variables from year to year that figure into beekeeping that there is no established number of hives that you need to turn a profit. Most beekeepers recommend not going into debt to establish your business; it can take years to climb out of debt, if you ever do. Start slowly with a few hives, learn the business (and learn whether you like it), and move on from there. Four square feet of land is enough space to contain one hive; with a little luck and a lot of effort, you can shoot for having 50 to 100 hives, at which point the business might become successful. Some sideline beekeepers make US$20,000 a year with a hundred hives.

The primary cash crop from beekeeping is honey, and a hive with a good honey flow can produce up to 150 pounds of honey in a year. If you sell your honey at wholesale prices to an agent, you will get about a dollar a pound. However, if you jar your honey yourself and sell it locally, you can make from $3.00 to $6.00 a pound. Set up your own shop and create your own brand; take advantage of local farmers’ markets. Many consumers will be eager to purchase locally produced products, and a little bit of local advertising will go a long way.

bee001 Making Money at Beekeeping Making Money at Beekeeping
Making Money at Beekeeping Content Making Money at Beekeeping

You can also sell honey by arrangement through local shops, though these shops may take 50 percent of the sales price, significantly cutting into your profit.

Honey isn’t the only product you can harvest from your bees. You can collect bee pollen, propolis, and royal jelly, all of which are sold as health food products at premium prices. It takes special equipment and knowledge to harvest these byproducts from a hive, so it involves some up-front costs. And, because most customers for your honey will be unfamiliar with bee pollen or propolis, you will either need to educate your customers or market and sell through a local health-food store. However, if you can establish regular production of these byproducts and find a steady market for them, they do command premium prices, and can significantly add to your profits.

And there’s beeswax. This can be used to make candles or simply bars, which can be used as a lubricant. If you purchase small molds, you can produce beeswax knickknacks. These kinds of sideline activities will not bring in significant profits, especially if you consider the labor you put into them, but can help you through a period of limited honey flow.

Many beekeepers establish colonies and then rent them out for crop pollination. For this purpose, it’s helpful to establish a business in an agricultural area, where local farmers rely on bees for pollination. Many farmers rent beehives for a short period of time; these hives might travel from farm to farm before returning to their owner during the offseason. Fruits and many vegetables are commonly pollinated by bees; blueberries and apples are just two examples. Typical rental prices for one hive for a period of two-three weeks might range around $40; however, some California almond growers have paid as much as $100 to rent a hive for a few weeks, given precipitous drops in honey bee populations as a result of colony collapse disorder. If you have healthy beehives in a distressed area, you can profit significantly.

Some beekeepers develop other specialties, such as raising, packaging, and selling queen bees. Firms that sell bee colonies to prospective beekeepers and hobbyists always include a queen in the package, and if the queen arrives dead, the firm must then send a replacement. So there’s always a need. Beekeepers must first develop a reputation in this area, as well as industry contacts.

Finally, beekeepers can specialize in bee removal as another sideline. Homeowners frequently find nests of bees in unwanted areas — inside their walls and ceilings. Pest removal companies, however, may staff only specialists in ridding houses of termites and other more common creatures, keeping bee removal specialists on call. Beekeepers can earn good money in this activity, and they can take the unwanted bees back to their farms and establish new hives with them.

Beekeeping as a profession does not promise the most predictable income stream; for that reason, it’s mostly practiced as a sideline. However, with a hundred hives or so, some marketing savvy, and an ability to adapt to changing circumstances, one can turn a small profit and even make a modest living.

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Varroa Mites and Honey Bees

Varroa Mites and Honey Bees Varroa Mites and Honey Bees

Varroa Mites and Honey Bees


Varroa mites, sometimes referred to as varroa destructors, are parasitic mites that attack certain species of honey bees. Varroa mites are button shaped, 1 to 1.8 millimeters long and up to 2 millimeters wide; they are reddish brown in color. These pernicious mites can only replicate in a honey bee colony; they latch onto a bee’s body and suck hemolymph, which for bees serves as both blood and intestinal fluid. Hemolymph is not used for oxygen circulation, as blood is in mammals; bees respirate directly through their body surfaces. However, hemolymph is crucial in circulating nutrients such as proteins and sugars to the cells.

The varroa mites weaken bees by sucking hemolymph. In their weakened condition, the stricken bees become susceptible to RNA viruses (viruses with ribonucleic acid as their genetic material) such as deformed wing virus. With this condition, bees suffer from abdominal deformities, damaged appendages, stubby and useless wings, and eventually paralysis. Bees with deformed wing virus generally do not live longer than 48 hours and are often expelled from the hive before perishing. Additionally, if deformed wing virus spreads through a hive, healthy bees become susceptible to other pathogens. This sequence of destructive events is seen as a factor in colony collapse disorder among honey bee populations.

Varroa mites reproduce on a ten-day cycle; they lay their eggs on bee larvae, and new mites hatch as the young bees develop. As the young bee emerges from her brood cell, the mites are carried into the general hive as well, spreading to other bees and larvae. Mite populations can multiply exponentially. Most species of honey bee are completely defenseless against these mites, although some honey bees in Russia have become partially resistant. The mites have spread to most parts of the world, affecting honey bee colonies from the Americas to Europe, Russia, New Zealand, and Hawaii.

bee001 Varroa Mites and Honey Bees Varroa Mites
Varroa Mite Varroa Mites and Honey Bees

The mites can be controlled in a number of ways. There are various commercially available miticides that kill varroa mites, but these must be used carefully, to minimize any contamination of honey intended for commercial sale. Synthetic miticides include pyrethroid insecticides as well as organophosphate insecticides. Some naturally occurring chemicals can be effective as well, such as essential oils (lemon, mint, and thyme), sugar esters (in spray applications), oxalic acid (applied via trickling or as a vapor), and formic acid (applied as a vapor).

Some physical measures can control varroa mite populations without completely eliminating them. Some beekeepers employ a screened bottom board on their hives. Mites will fall off bees on occasion; with a solid bottom on the hive, the mite can easily climb onto another bee. However, if the bottom is a meshed screen, the mite will fall through, and out of the hive. Such a screened bottom can also improve air circulation in a hive, preventing condensation within the hive during the winter. And by placing a sticky board underneath the screened bottom board, the mites will be further hindered.

More advanced techniques, such as comb trapping and small cell foundation, have been shown to be more effective than installing a screened bottom. Comb trapping, a complex sequence of isolating combs in turn and remove infected combs, can remove up to 80 percent of varroa mites from a hive.

Some powders with a grain size between 5 and 15 micrometers, such as powdered sugar or talc, can be sprinkled over bees. The powders do not harm the bees — powdered sugar can even be a food source — but they make it more difficult for mites to attach themselves to bees. Bees also tend groom each other if they are dusted with powder, and the process of grooming also dislodges the mites.

If you are purchasing bees from an apiary, make sure that your new bees are free of varroa mites; you should ask the dealer how he controls mites. Some apiaries have stopped using chemical methods to kill mites, arguing logically that mites gradually build up resistance to chemical insecticides. These chemical-free apiaries attempt to breed stronger strains of honey bees, using only bee colonies that survive varroa mite infestations as breeder stock. Some long-standing apiaries have found success with such genetically based methods. Be sure to discuss varroa mites with any dealer you’re thinking of purchasing from.

Varroa mites are destructive and can kill off a hive. However, if you can detect an infestation early, you stand a good chance of fighting off the mites and averting disaster.

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Collecting Honey from a Hive

CollectingHoneyfromaHive Collecting Honey from a Hive

Collecting Honey from a Hive


We are familiar with bees primarily because of the honey they produce; some of us use this sweetener on a daily basis as a healthier, and tastier, substitute for sugar, as a spread for pancakes or bread, as a glaze or ingredient in a variety of recipes, and much more.

Bees make honey from the nectar they collect from flowers. As worker bees move from flower to flower, they use a long, tubular tongue (called a proboscis) to suck nectar out of the flower, storing it in special sacs called “honey stomachs.” While the bee continues to collect nectar, the stored nectar begins to react with proteins and enzymes in the honey stomach. These sacs can hold up to 70 milligrams of nectar; when full, a sac itself can weigh almost as much as the bee does. In order to fill the sac, a bee must visit from one hundred to over a thousand flowers.

When they return to the hive, worker bees transfer the nectar to other worker bees whose function is to remain in the hive and process nectar. These hive-bound bees “chew” the nectar for thirty minutes, enzymes causing further reactions in the nectar. Complex sugars are broken down into simple sugars that are more easily digested by bees and their larvae, and that are less susceptible to attack by bacteria during storage in the hive. Once the honey has been thoroughly processed, the hive-bound bees transfer it to a honeycomb — a receptacle of hexagonal cells that the bees make from beeswax. To further process the nectar into honey, it must be thickened; nectar is 80 percent water, whereas honey is only 14-18 percent water.

bee001 Collecting Honey from a Hive Collecting Honey from a Hive
Collecting Honey from a Hive Content Collecting Honey from a Hive

The bees facilitate the evaporation process by fanning their wings. When the honey has sufficiently thickened, the bees will cap the cells with more beeswax; the honey is stored until the bees need it to eat themselves or feed to their young. In a normal year, a bee colony can produce from 120 to 200 pounds of honey.

How do beekeepers collect honey without destroying a hive? Beekeepers build or purchase their own hives, into which they introduce bee colonies; bees will readily adapt to these man-made hives. One widely used man-made hive design is called a Langstroth bee hive, invented by the Reverend Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth in Philadelphia in 1851. Langstroth hives are noted for having removable frames. These frames are designed such that bees will build their honeycombs inside the frames without attaching the frames to other frames or to the walls of the hive with beeswax or propolis, a resinous substance that bees use as a sealant. The removability of these frames allows a beekeeper tremendous latitude in managing the hive. Also, because Langstroth hives open from the top, a beekeeper can visually inspect a hive’s population for disease and other problems.

A single hive can contain many frames for honeycombs; beekeepers know that a honeycomb is filled with honey when all the hexagonal cells have been capped. The beekeeper can then remove the frame by sliding it out of the hive. If the beekeeper sells “comb honey” — the whole comb, including the beeswax cells — then the product is nearly ready for market. All that’s required is packaging. However, most beekeepers will extract the honey from the comb so that it can be bottled, either for local sales or sale to a wholesale agent. In order to extract honey, the beekeeper will first shave off the capping wax with a heated knife, exposing the honey in each cell. The frame is then affixed to an “extractor,” which spins the frame, throwing off the honey by centrifugal force such that the honey drips into a tank.

The honey in the tank is then drained into a strainer and filtered through fine-mesh nylon. The resulting honey is still considered raw, as it still contains minute amounts of wax, pollen, and other impurities. Beekeepers often sell their honey in this condition, as many customers of locally produced honey have grown to prefer the raw product. However, honey that is purchased in bulk by agents and then produced commercially will be further refined through heating and additional straining. Commercial honey is a bit thinner than raw honey, as it contains very few impurities.

Beekeepers take the empty frames, with the beeswax comb constructions still intact, and reinstall them in the hives. The bees will clean up the frames nicely, moving any trace amounts of honey to other parts of the hive where new honey is being stored, and then refill the frames with new honey. Because the bees don’t have to produce more beeswax and build new hexagonal cells, they can get right to work collecting nectar and producing honey. They only need to produce new beeswax to cap filled cells.

Beekeepers must be sure that bees are left with enough honey for their own purposes — to feed themselves and their young. In particular, bees need enough honey to get through the cold season, when collecting more nectar is not possible. Fortunately, bee colonies produce far more honey than they need for their own sustenance. If they see an empty honeycomb, they will quickly get to work filling it with honey, regardless of whether they actually need the honey or not. In this way, the bees stay healthy and active, and the beekeeper, through careful hive management, is able to turn a profit.

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Carpenter Bees

Red Fire Ants and Beehives Carpenter Bees

Carpenter Bees


 

When we think about bees, honey bees and bumblebees most readily come to mind. However, there are 25,000 distinct species of bees around the world classified into 9 broad families; the bees most familiar to us make up only a small percentage of the total. And each species has its own distinct features and behavioral patterns.

Carpenter bees are large and hairy; like honey bees and bumblebees, they belong to the Apidae family, but unlike their honey-producing cousins, carpenter bees are solitary rather than social insects. They are often confused with bumblebees because of their relatively large size, but whereas bumblebees are hairy throughout (including their abdomens), carpenter bees have shiny, black, metallic abdomens. There are some 500 species of carpenter bees; they are distributed worldwide, and nearly all build their nests by burrowing into dead wood, bamboo, or timber. The tunnels that they bore in wood are usually close to the surface, so if they nest in structural timber, the resultant structural damage is slight.

A nest will usually have a single entrance but be composed of several adjacent tunnels; entrances are nearly perfect circles, 16 millimeters in diameter. A tunnel will go straight into the wood for an inch or two, then turn 90 degrees, running parallel to the wood�s surface to create the first tunnel. This tunnel will contain eggs and may extend two feet or longer in length. The bees do not eat the wood they bore through; they use their mandibles for boring, and will either discard the resulting bits of wood or use the scrap wood to build partitions between cells within their nests. The tunnels serve both as quarters for bee eggs and then larvae as well as storage for pollen and nectar, which the bees gather from flowers just as honey bees do.

CarpenterBee Carpenter Bees
Carpenter Bees

Females will sometimes live together with their female offspring or their sisters, thus creating small social groups. It has been observed that cohabitating females tend to divide their labor; one female may spend most of her time guarding the nest, while another will forage for provisions. Even carpenter bees who live alone tend to leave near others of their species; they seem to prefer the comfort of occasional company.

Different species of carpenter bees follow different mating patterns. Among some species, males will search out females by patrolling, or hovering near nests, waiting for passing females; the males will then follow in pursuit. Among other species, the male will release pheromones from a glandular reservoir; these pheromones advertise the male�s presence to nearby females, who then make themselves available to the males. Male carpenter bees looking to mate can be quite sociable, approaching humans and other animals. These males are in no way trying to be threatening; they are merely curious!

Both male and female carpenter bees hibernate in their tunnels during the winter months. Mating occurs in the spring, and females lay eggs in the tunnels. Carpenter bee eggs are among the largest in the insect world. The bees will feed their newly hatched larvae through the summer, and the young bees then emerge in August, feeding on nectar through the early months of autumn in preparation for hibernation. The cycle then begins again.

Because they gather nectar, carpenter bees are important pollinators of plants, as are most varieties of bees. Azaleas, daffodils, and pansies are favorites of carpenter bees. Occasionally, however, they will damage flowers by slitting the sides of the flower to get at the nectar deep inside. Males are harmless because they do not have stingers; females are capable of stinging, but they are docile and will not sting unless they�re trapped in clothing or caught in the hand.

Because carpenter bees are docile and perform a service in the pollination of plant life, you can leave them alone. However, if they begin nesting in timbers in your home, obviously you�ll need to get rid of them before they cause structural damage. If you find a hole to a carpenter bee nest, do NOT plug up the hole; the nest likely contains larvae or young bees, and the adult (or adults) will drill their way out, or drill their way back in, creating new holes in your timber. Rather, you should consult with an exterminator regarding the best way to rid yourself of the bees.

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