Beekeeping Through the Ages

For thousands of years, honey bees have played an important role in history. Many societies throughout history have kept and benefitted from bees and the many products they give to us.


Egyptian hieroglyphics show early beekeeping practices

In ancient Egypt, honey bees were kept in pottery jars. Egyptians used honey in various foods as well as to keep their skin beautiful. Archaeologists even found honey in King Tutankhamen’s tomb that was roughly 2,000 years old. Because honey never spoils, however, it was still edible! Would you like to taste it? In ancient times, honey and beeswax were used to pay taxes, rent, and other fees. It was so highly valued that many people accepted it in place of money!


Beekeepers in the Middle Ages kept bees in hollow tree trunks

In the Middle Ages, beekeepers kept their honey bees in hollow tree trunks, since the trees provided natural shelter for the bee and made it possible for the beekeeper to care for his hives. Honey and wax were also very important. People did not use refined sugar, so honey was their only sweetener. They also made candles out of beeswax, which provided a source of light as well as a wonderful smell!



Reverend L.L. Langstroth

The first hive of honey bees appears to have come to the United States from England in 1622. By 1853, honey bees made it into California. Honey bees are now kept in all 50 US states – maybe there is a beekeeper near you! In 1851, Reverend L.L. Langstroth invented the modern-day beehive. It had removable frames (where the bees stored food, the queen laid eggs, etc.) which allowed the beekeeper to inspect his bees up close. Langstroth's invention is still being used 160 years later!



Anyone can be a beekeeper!

In 1984, NASA took bees into space for an experiment, demonstrating bees’ abilities both on and off the planet! There are currently about 2,491,000 maintained beehives in the US with beekeepers of all ages involved in beekeeping – maybe someday YOU will be a beekeeper too!

Hive for Rent: Parts of a Beehive

When most people think of beekeeping, the first things they think of are white boxes sitting in a big green field. Would you believe that those hives actually have 8 or more different parts to them? Just like your house, bees have different “rooms” and entrances to their home. Let’s take a look at some of those parts and how they are used! 

Hive Stand: The hive stand is on the very bottom of the hive. It is a short wooden box that is used to keep the hive off the ground. Some of them even have an angled landing ramp for the bees to land on to get into the hive.

Hive stands can help the bees stay warm in the winter by
Keeping warm air trapped under the hive!

 Bottom Board: There are a few types of bottom boards, but the most common is a solid bottom board. It is used as a tray to catch any dead bees or leaf litter that comes into a beehive. It also helps keep the hive warm in the winter by sealing off the bottom of the hive from the ground. 

Some bottom boards have screens on the bottom so they stay cooler in the summer,
and also to keep any dead bees away from the other bees!

Entrance Reducer: A small piece of wood, plastic, or metal is called an entrance reducer. Beekeepers use it to keep robbers out in the springtime when a colony is weak and to keep mice out in the winter.

The entrance reducer has several different size openings it can be set to!

Deeps (Hive Bodies) and Supers: The white boxes where beekeepers keep their bees are called hive bodies. They are kind of like the outside walls of your house. Deeps are the larger boxes that the bees fill up first. The deeps are where all the new baby bees are born and also where the bees will store honey for the winter. Supers are where bees store the extra honey that beekeepers harvest from the hive. Supers are smaller than deeps because honey is very heavy, and smaller boxes are easier to lift. Still, a small super with frames full of honey can weigh 30-40 pounds!

Hives can be a large variety of colors, no just white!

Queen Excluder: This is a very special screen beekeepers put in between the deeps and supers to prevent the queen from traveling into the supers to lay eggs. The screen is a special width so only worker bees can fit through. The queen excluder ensures there is only honey in the supers.

Queen excluders can be made from metal or plastic!

The foundations can also be black
which makes the eggs easier to see
when a beekeeper is looking a the frame.

Frames: Frames are what beekeepers put inside of the deeps and supers where the bees build out their comb. Each frame is like a little room in the bees’ house. There are 8-10 frames in each box, and each one has foundation on it. The foundation is a thin sheet of plastic or beeswax with a hexagon pattern for the bees to start building out their comb. Did you know that bees naturally build their comb in a hexagon-shaped pattern? They are very smart and never waste space!

Beekeepers can put bucket feeders full of syrup on top
of the hole in the center of the inner cover!

Inner Cover: The inner cover goes on the top of the highest box. It has a hole in the center so bees can climb through. Sometimes, beekeepers put a feeder full of sugar syrup over the hole during late fall or early spring to serve as a food supplement.

There can be very fancy outer covers too!
Some look like roofs on a house. They
are very popular among gardeners!

Outer Cover: Similar to a roof, the outer cover telescopes over the inner cover and the top box. They are usually covered with metal to make sure rain and snow don't get into the hive. 

There are many other pieces of equipment that advanced beekeepers use, but these are the really important things that most beekeepers use. Can you relate each part of the hive to a part of your house?

Creative Communication!

Communication is important in all relationships. Humans communicate with one another on a regular basis to share information and thoughts. This communication is important in helping people bond with one another. Some forms of communication include speech, sign language, body language, and facial expressions. Did you know that honey bees communicate with each other as well? Honey bees live in large colonies, with an average of 40,000 to 60,000 bees in each hive – you can imagine how important communication is in such a large family!




The Path of a Waggle Dance

Honey bees use several different means of communication, with the most popular being dancing. Honey bees perform a specific dance in order to share the location of a food supply with the other bees in colony so that they, too, can gather food from that area. To perform the dance, a bee will walk forward, waggling her body from side to side. Then, she walks normally in a half circle and starts on the path again, waggling her body. The distance forward that the bee walks, the speed of her waggling, and the direction she is facing provide incredibly accurate directions to the other bees, who then go and collect the food. The directions are based off of the location of the sun, which the bees can sense even inside the dark hive.



Bees release pheromones to communicate important information, such as
if the queen is present in the hive or if there are intruders in the hive. The
other bees respond appropriately to the messages from these pheromones.

Another form of communication is the release of pheromones. Pheromones are distinct smells that the bees release to convey messages. The queen releases a special pheromone that helps the bees sense that she is in the hive and healthy. Worker bees also release pheromones. Guard bees, who protect the beehive from intruders, release a special alarm pheromone whenever there is an invader. This pheromone smells like ripe bananas!

Just as people communicate in different ways, so do honey bees. Communication allows the members of the colony to bond and to help one another, making the entire hive stronger. Communication - whether through speech, sign language, dancing, or pheromones – plays an important role in daily life. How do you communicate?

To see a bee perform a waggle dance, visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lhVBNQ-Ik8

Honey It's Cold Outside! How Bees Survive the Winter.

For many animals and insects, winter is the time for them to find a nice cozy place to snuggle up and hibernate. But for honeybees, the winter is just another day in the hive. How in the world do they survive the cold, you might ask? Well, let’s find out!

Some people like to wrap their hives with black
tar paper so the heat from the sun warms
the hives. These hives have been left unwrapped

In northern states, honeybees go into what is called a dormant state in the winter. They aren’t hibernating, but they aren’t as active as they are in the summertime. During the spring and summer, worker bees are busy making extra honey and storing it away so they have food for the winter. When the cold arrives in October or November, the worker bees kick all the drone bees out and let them die. They do this because the drones didn’t help them make any of the honey, so why should they get to eat it? Then, the worker bees form a large cluster around the Queen bee to keep her warm. The bees on the outside work their way to the inside and the bees on the inside work their way to the outside. Honeybees even shiver to make heat! All the moving around keeps the inside of the hive at a constant temperature of about 92 degrees! They use all the honey they stored during the spring and summer as food during the winter.

Migratory Beekeepers haul their bees on large trucks to
where ever they are going. They also put nets over
the hives to prevent excess bee loss during travels

Some beekeepers who don’t want to leave their bees in the snow for the winter will move their bees to warm states like California, Texas and Florida. Beekeepers who do this are called migratory beekeepers. They transport their hives to warm places so they can do an extremely important job called pollination. Beekeepers are paid to have their bees pollinate crops such as almonds, oranges and grapefruits. If those types of crops don't have honeybees for pollination, they wouldn’t make any fruits or nuts. Can you believe that honeybees pollinate about 90 different crops? Not only do they provide delicious honey for us, honeybees are an invaluable resource to U.S. agriculture.

On these cold, winter days when all you feel like doing is sleeping, just remember that even honeybees stay busy in the wintertime! 

New American Honey Queen & Princess

The new American Honey Queen and Princess were selected at the American Beekeeping Federation convention in Hershey, Pennsylvania.  

2013 American Honey Queen: Caroline Adams, Texas
2013 American Honey Princess: Emily Campbell, Minnesota

They will be posting about their travels on behalf of the beekeeping industry.  Keep an eye out for new facts, beekeeping topics and videos throughout the year.

2013 American Honey Queen Caroline Adams &
2013 American Honey Princess Emily Campbell

Becoming a Beekeeper!

Beekeeping is a great activity for your
whole family! 

In the United States there are around 200,000 beekeepers! Most of these beekeepers are hobbyists, or small-scale beekeepers, with less than 25 hives. Other beekeepers are commercial, and they might have hundreds or even thousands of hives of bees. All of these beekeepers had to start somewhere; some of them grew up in a beekeeping family, while others may have heard about beekeeping through a friend, a club like 4-H, or even by reading about it. If you want to learn about beekeeping, here are some ways to find out more.

Beekeepers in a meeting learning about the industry!

The first step you can take to become a beekeeper is to join a local beekeeping organization. Beekeeping clubs usually involve a group of beekeepers coming together to share with each other the knowledge they have about keeping bees. Often these clubs meet every month, and even have speakers that present to the group, so everyone can learn more. There are even big conventions held in different places throughout the year. These conventions may be one day to a week long, and are great ways to learn more about keeping bees and meet other beekeepers. To find a club in your area, you may have to do a little research. Ask an adult to help you look online, in newspapers, or another source for information on clubs in your area. If you know a beekeeper, you can try asking him or her for information on local or state organizations.

This is a beekeeping supply store in Kentucky!

Many beekeeping clubs have ways of helping youth get involved with beekeeping through scholarships, or providing you with a mentor that will help you along. Some clubs may even give you your first package of bees and the equipment you need to get started. The club might also offer a class you can take that teaches you everything you need to know to start beekeeping. Once you have learned a lot about honeybees and beekeeping you can get started!

The equipment you will need depends on how many colonies of bees you start with. I recommend starting with two hives, which gives you the chance to compare one hive to another. You can buy equipment from a beekeeping supplier, which is a store that sells almost everything you need to start keeping honeybees!

Queen Alyssa and Princess Danielle are getting ready to head to a convention this month in Hershey, Pennsylvania, so even they can learn more about keeping bees!

Good luck!

Holiday Honeybee Gift-Giving!

Honey makes an amazing gift!

For many people, the holiday season is a time for exchanging gifts with friends and family members. For many beekeepers, the holiday season is a time for giving homemade gifts made from products of the hive. You can join in all the fun and give homemade honeybee-themed gifts, too!

Honey is the gift that keeps on giving. It is pretty inexpensive, but it can last forever because honey never spoils. For gifts for your family and friends this year, try buying honey from a local beekeeper and repackage it in smaller decorative jars. You can even ask your parents to help you buy a few varieties of honeys from different regions of the United States, packing it in tiny containers, and gifting a sampling of many unique honeys, as well. Or, for a more fun idea, use craft supplies such as felt or foam sheets to “dress up” your honey bears in festive holiday wear. Who wouldn’t love a honey bear wearing a scarf and hat, or one dressed like Santa Claus?

Winter is cough and cold season for many people. Luckily, honey is able to soothe a sore throat and can help reduce coughing, as well. A cheerful coffee mug filled with a variety of herbal tea bags, along with a honey bear would make a great gift! Your friends and family will be able to enjoy a hot cup of tea with honey to recover and relax.

Hand-crafted beeswax ornament.

Beeswax is another great product of the hive that has many uses. Beeswax candles burn bright and clean and make perfect gifts. With an adult’s help, you can quickly make molded beeswax candles of all shapes and sizes in many decorative designs. Beeswax also can be poured into shallow molds to make ornaments that you can decorate and personalize. In addition to candles and ornaments, you might consider using beeswax to make homemade lip balm or hand lotion. There’s nothing better than homemade beeswax hand lotion when it comes to moisturizing dry skin in the winter months. Here is a link to a great beeswax lotion recipe.

In recent years, honeybees have been mysteriously disappearing and scientists are not sure what is causing their decline. We all need honeybees to pollinate our food crops. Every person has the power to protect honeybees. This holiday season give your friends packets of pollinator-friendly wildflower seeds. Not only will they be able to grow beautiful flowers in their own yards, but they will also help to provide great sources of nectar and pollen for our honeybees.

Honeybees provide wonderful products of the hive that can be used to create a variety of gifts for the holiday season.