Life is full of surprises just like what Forrest Gump always say "Life is like a box of chocolate you'll never know what you'll gonna get" and this colony of "Apis Cerana" a local honeybee surprise me today inside our well in our vacant lot, it was already an established colony of bees. Apis Cerana is smaller than the one I am keeping which is the "Apis Mellifera" or the European honeybee, Apis Cerana is the important pollinating agents for coconut palms. These are less aggressive than any wild bees and also less swarming behavior and can be easily used for beekeeping, so I decided to transfer them to a nucbox as we saw the colony, I smoke them gently with a smoker and put the box ready to catch them and as the hive fall into the box they became aggressive so I quickly put the top cover of the box and set it aside at the top of the well so they could enter at the entrance of the box I was sure that the queen was inside and when the queen was inside they could easily scent the pheromone of their queen I set it aside until 5pm and when most of the bees were in the box I already transfer the box to a new location where it would stay and will reorient themselves as they forage in the morning. I got stung 3 times but was still happy and excited as well to keep a local honeybee and I discovered new thing The sting of Apis Mellifera was much painful compare to the Apis Cerana. I haven't decided yet what type of box hive would I use for the Apis Cerana what I had in mind since Apis Cerana was smaller I'll make a box smaller than the box I'm using in keeping the Apis Mellifera, hope I could decide soon. I saw a documentary where a beekeeper said that bees choose their keeper and I guess with what happened today I'm starting to believe it.
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Bee bearding is a phenomenon wherein older bees cluster outside of the front hive during hot weather, when they do that it looks like the hive has a beard, it is usually mistaken by others as a sign of swarming but it has something to do with the ventilation of the hive when the weather was hot. This behavior coincides with the onset of the hot humid days and nights, the relative humidity is high in the Philippines, a high amount of moisture or vapor in the air makes hot temperatures feel hotter. Bearding begins when the summer temperatures reach 38°C (100°F) or more. Bearding has something to do with the temperature inside the hive, space available, and the population (crowding) of the hive. A hive with plenty of ventilation will probably have less bees gathering on the front of it. The average temperature in the beehive is between 32-35°C (90-95°F). Honeybees have the ability to regulate the temperature of their nest throughout the year.If it is cold, bees raise the temperature within the hive by huddling together to keep warm and vibrating their wing muscles to generate heat. If it is hot, they lower it by fanning their wings to circulate air through the hive. If it is really hot, they collect water for evaporation cooling.Droplets of water are placed inside the hive, then the bees stand in a line facing the hive entrance fanning their wings creating air currents that evaporate the water, thus cooling the hive. Whenever the bees does the fanning at the entrance, there are many inside the hive doing similar fanning to control the hive temperature. I am a woodworker as well as a beekeeper, as a woodworker we used a gadget to know and control the moisture of the wood, bees also control the moisture inside the hive an example of which was the honey, when the moisture of the honey was high it is still uncapped but when it reach the right moisture content the bees seal the honeycomb, sealed comb is a sign that the honey on a honeycomb is ready for harvest and won't easily ferment. Honey flow season is here and I'm getting ready for the honey bottles and containers and of course the label. So here's the design of the label of the honey bottle I'm planning to put in the bottle.
A honey bee box is made up of a hive stand, bottom board, hive bodies (brooder), honey supers, and a cover. The lower hive body is separated from the supers above by an excluder. Since I am still in the stage of building up, I still don't have honey supers as of now but I'm getting ready at it and I'm still on the lower hive, and I already bought a queen excluder in case I'm ready to have honey supers. In my own set-up of a bee hive box I bought a 3/4"TCK sheet and a 1/2"TCK sheet of plywoods to make 6 pcs of bee hive box which would contain the 9 pcs of frames, the paint I bought was enamel since bee hive box needed to be painted because it is placed outdoors. I already bought another sheet of a 3/4"TCK plywood for the honey supers and will process it soon, my set-up for the honey supers are the same size as the brood box. The standard style hive for 75% of the world's beekeepers was invented by Rev. Lorenzo Langstroth, he patented his design on 1860, He built a hive with frames that hung from the top ends of the hive, leaving a 3/8 inch space between all sides of the frames and the hive body. His clever design used the principle that bees usually do not build comb in 3/8 inch passageways. If the space is bigger than 3/8 of an inch, the bees will build comb. If it is less than 1/4 inch, they will attach propolis.Langstroth's frames were easily handled without breaking the comb. Today we refer to the 3/8 inch passageways as a "bee-space." This practical hive is the direct ancestor of the modern hive that is most popular today. In describing the benefits of his hive with movable frames, Langstroth wrote: "The chief peculiarity in my hive was the facility with which they could be removed without enraging the bees. I could dispense with natural swarming, and yet multiply colonies with greater rapidity and certainly than by the common methods feeble colonies could be strengthened, and those which had lost their queen furnished with the means of obtaining another.If I suspected that any thing was wrong with a hive, I could quickly ascertain its true condition, and apply the proper remedies." - L.L. Langstroth in Langstroth on the Honey-Bee, 1860. |
Dilan's Apiary
Address: Kagudoy Road, Basak, Lapu-Lapu City Archives
June 2022
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