Determining release of queens; medicating.
Jeff is smoking his coveralls to get rid of
any odors which may alert the bees.
Coveralls and hives are
white because that color helps keep bees calm.
A puff of smoke under the cover makes the bees think there is a forest fire coming their way. They rush to gather their honey stores in case they need to fly to a new home. When their abdomens are full of honey, they cannot bend over to sting and they are preoccupied during the keeper's inspection.
A little extra smoke is put into the frames once the cover has been removed.
Closeup of bees on top of frames being smoked. A keeper uses a cool smoke so that the bees do not get burned. A keeper is careful not to use too much smoke and choke the bees.
Removing the empty queen cage. The queen came in a cage so that the bees could get used to her pheromone (smell). A candy plug was removed by the bees during the past week, releasing the queen into the hive. A new frame will replace the space you see.
Jeff is now putting in that frame. Note the hive tool in his right hand, used to separate pieces of the hive.
Placing Apistan strips into hive full of bees. Apistan controls bee mites which are a problem nationwide. We are currently testing an all-natural, chemical-free way of controlling mites, but we need to use the Apistan for now since these are newly-established bees and might have brought mites with them.
Mites became a national problem after they developed a resistance to chemical treatments which were continuously overused, regardless of infestations, in the past. It is similar to the way bacteria become resistant to antibiotics which are overused.
NO chemicals are used when the bees are making honey for human use later in the season.
Jeff carefully uses the bee brush to remove stragglers as he replaces the hivetop feeder. The feeder is used prior to honey production to help the bees draw (make) the comb while nectar is scarce early in the year. It is filled with sugar syrup and medication, but is never used when honey is being produced for human consumption because people want honey made from flower nectar, not sugar syrup.
The queen cage is at the upper left.
These pieces of honeycomb were removed from the hive. If there is an open area in the hive, bees will make free comb in odd shapes. This is how they would build their homes in the wild. The bees put this free comb into the empty space below the queen cage while it was still in the hive.
Beekeepers like bees to build their comb onto manufactured frames, which are easier to work with. Now that this queen cage has been removed, another frame has been inserted, and the comb will now be drawn by the bees in a more structured way.
Note the natural hexagonal shape of each cell in the comb pieces. The bees create all cells like this by instinct. Cells can hold pollen (protein); nectar which becomes honey (carbohydrate); and eggs, larvae, and pupae (baby bees).