BEEKEEPING | HONEY

Beekeeping is a big challenge with their beehives getting colonised by natural swarms. Raising queens is an alternative method of getting colonies. A queen bee determines the productivity of your beehives. If you have a strong colony then your honey harvest will be good. We need to pay attention to whats going on in our beehives for a successful project. The beekeeper will find the swarm cells located along the bottom of frames in a Langstroth hive. The portion of the colony that leaves the hive will contain the queen and about half of the workers from the original colony. Experienced beekeepers often remove clusters simply by brushing or shaking the bees gently into a cardboard box and carrying them away. Ideally the box should have an entrance that enables the flying bees to join the already-captured group. At this time you will want to provide additional room , as required, to make sure the colony does not get congested. You can do this by adding new frames (or bars in a top bar) to enlarge the brood chamber and provide more storage space for the growing colony. In a Langstroth hive, you can add an extra box to create more space. You may also want to increase ventilation by opening your screened bottom board (just a bit, if night time temperatures remain cool) or pushing up the inner cover slightly. Relieving the feeling of congestion by creating more space and improving ventilation will go a long way towards preventing the colony from swarming. Bee Hive 5000ksh Bee Suit 4500ksh Pure honey 1000ksh per Kg