- Honeybees and their colonies
- Colony manipulation
- Bee products
- Disease and pest control
When a beekeeper requeens a colony, he removes the failing or otherwise undesirable queen and places a new one in a screen cage in the broodnest. After a few days the colony becomes adjusted to her and she can be released from the cage. A strange queen placed in the cluster without this temporary protection usually will be killed at once by the workers. Queens usually are shipped in individual cages of about three cubic inches (50 cubic centimetres) with about half a dozen attendant bees and a ball of specially prepared sugar candy plugging one end of the cage. When the cage is placed in the hive, the bees from both sides eat the candy. By the time the candy is consumed and the bees reach each other, their odours have become indistinguishable, and the queen emerges from the cage into the colony and begins her egg-laying duties.
Standard tools of the beekeeper are: the smoker to quell the bees; a veil to protect the face; gloves for the novice or the person sensitive to stings; a blunt steel blade called a hive tool, for separating the frames and other hive parts for examination; the uncapping knife, for opening the cells of honey; and the extractor, for centrifuging the honey from the cells.
The worker bee sting is barbed, and in the act of stinging it is torn from the bee. It has a venom-filled poison sac and muscles attached that continue to work the sting deeper into the flesh for several minutes and increase the amount of venom injected. To prevent this, the sting should be scraped loose (rather than grasped and pulled out) at once. Bee stings are painful, and no one becomes immune to the pain. Immunity to the swelling is usually built up after a few stings, however.
Normal reaction to a bee sting is immediate, intense pain at the site of the sting. This lasts for a minute or two and is followed by a reddening, which may spread an inch or more. Swelling may not become apparent until the following day. Occasionally, acute allergic reactions develop from a sting, usually with persons who have other allergic problems. Such a reaction becomes evident in less than an hour and may consist of extreme difficulty in breathing, heart irregularity, shock, splotched skin, and speech difficulty. Such persons should obtain the services of a medical doctor immediately.
If liquid (strained, extracted) honey is desired, additional supers are added directly above the brood nest. When one is largely filled, it is raised and another is placed underneath. This may continue until several have been filled, each holding from 30 to 50 pounds (14 to 23 kilograms), or until the nectar flow has ended. After the bees have evaporated the water until the honey is of the desired consistency and sealed in the cells, the combs are removed, the cells uncapped with the uncapping knife, and the honey extracted. The removed honey is immediately heated to about 140 °F (60 °C), which thins it and destroys yeasts that can cause fermentation. It is then strained of wax particles and pollen grains, cooled rapidly, and packaged for market.
In production of honey in the comb, or comb honey, extreme care is necessary to prevent the bees’ swarming. The colony must be strong, and the bees must be crowded into the smallest space they will tolerate without swarming. New frames or sections of a frame with extra-thin foundation wax, added at exactly the right time for the bees to fill without destroying them, are placed directly above the brood nest. The bees must fill and seal the new comb to permit removal within a few days, or it will be of inferior quality. As rapidly as sections are removed, new sections are added, until the nectar flow subsides. Then these are removed and the colony given combs to store its honey for the winter.
Almost all honey will granulate or turn to sugar. Such honey can be liquefied without materially affecting its quality by placing the container in water heated to about 150 °F (66 °C). Liquid and granulated honey is sometimes blended, homogenized, and held at a cool temperature, which speeds uniformly fine granulation. If properly processed, the granules will be extremely fine; the honey, which has a smooth, creamy appearance, is referred to as creamed honey.
Some honeys are sold by floral type; that is, they are given the name of the predominant flowers visited by the bees when they accumulated the honey. The beekeeper has no way to direct the bees to a particular source of food but through experience learns which plants are the major sources of honey. Different flowers produce different colours and flavours of honey. It may be heavy-bodied or thin-bodied, dark or light, mild-flavoured or strong-flavoured. Most honey has been blended by the beekeeper to a standard grade that can be supplied and marketed year after year.