Busy beekeepers

A few weeks ago we looked at beekeeping in ancient times and how a colony works and is governed. This week we are looking at modern beekeeping. There are 2 major reasons for keeping bees, one is for honey, the other is for pollination services.

Honey

Here on our farm we keep bees for the honey. Honey is one of those substances that really can't be imitated. The most common form of honey is clover honey which gives a mellow, sweet flavor. Floral honey consists of the bees feeding heavily from wildflowers. Our bees tend to feed heavily on our herb garden, which gives it a subtle herbal flavor. 

Our honey is sold by weight. A gallon of honey weighs about 11lbs.

With honeybees, honey is a product that the bees work for all season. In order to sustain a colony, a beekeeper shouldn't take any more honey than is necessary.  Otherwise, the hive will starve over the winter. With our nine hives, we are able to take off 35 to 40 gallons of honey each season (with no starvation losses). So even if growers can't harvest 100%, there's still plenty to sell.

This is our 3-frame honey extractor. Larger extractors can hold up to 16 frames, and are motorized

Extracting the honey is an age-old challenge. Before the framed hive the entire colony was destroyed. Nowadays, the framed hive allows beekeepers to take out specific frames, leaving the hive intact. Once the frames are taken out of the hive, the cells are normally capped with a way top. A hot knife is used to remove the cap, and then a specialized extractor is used to spin off the honey.

This is the interior of our extractor, the frames sit on the wire rack

Pollination services
Most beekeepers are not considered commercial until they manage about 300 hives. At that point, honey production is secondary. Having to extract 4 gallons of honey from each hive would yield about 1200 gallons (slightly more than 6.5 tons). When beekeepers reach the commercial scale, the main market is pollination services. Regional farmers will rent out 12 to 20 hives for the season to increase pollination. This practice was first implemented by the ancient Egyptians, which they found increased yields. The average price is $75 to $85 per hive (and it's recommended that one hive is used per acre).

Honeybees are responsible for more crops that you might realize. Hives are rented for watermelon, apples, pickling cucumbers, strawberries, pears, almost all tree nuts, and many more. According to the USDA, honeybees are responsible for nearly 1/3 of all the crops grown. Commercial beekeeping is valued at $15 to $20 Billion annually.  

Busy bees

What's in the box?

While it's not a typical crop, beekeeping is an extremely old form of agriculture. The honeybee was first cultivated in Egypt, and later in Rome and Greece. This ancient art and science included artificial hives (known as skeps), smokers, and even using them to boost vegetable yields. This was the major source of sweetener in the ancient world, along with dates. Honey was considered to be the superior sweetener, and was reserved to many of the wealthy.

Skeps were ancient baskets that were used for artificial hives, (believe it or not, that advanced basket-weaving class was essential back then). Unfortunately, in retrieving the honey, the skep would be destroyed, so that advanced basket weaving would be needed more than the final exam. Skeps could also be made out of mud or clay, (see that's your pottery class too). Smoking the hive was discovered to sedate the bees, making honey retrieval less treacherous.

In today's beekeeping, the hive has changed, but the concepts have stayed the same. Today's hives are in the form of boxes, which contain frames, which encourage uniform combing, which makes it possible to extract honey without destroying the hive. A complete anatomy of a modern beehive can be found here.

Above, the wooden frames can be seen resting inside the box hive structure.

The honeybee is a unique crop, not just because it's an insect crop, but the crop is self-managed. Honeybees are controlled by a queen bee. This queen is in charge of laying all the eggs, called brood. The queen emits an array of pheromones, which keeps the workers in check. The workers are all female, and live about 6 weeks, compared to the 2 year lifespan of the queen. This short lifespan of the workers is attributed to the exhaustive work of collecting nectar. Then there's the guys of the hive, the drones, who's sole purpose is to mate with the queen, not a bad life...until wintertime. In the winter, the drones are ousted, why feed the deadbeat boyfriend when you can make more next season?

While it may seem like a dangerous crop to manage, the hive really isn't as dangerous as you'd think. Between the smokers and the protective equipment, beekeeping is a fairly low-maintenance (and safe) crop to manage. For more information, there's a really good book available at Amazon or at your local library. In the coming weeks, look for an additional post looking at commercial beekeeping and honey extraction!