Category: Beekeeping

Natural Beekeeping Alternatives – Top Bar Hives

Natural beekeeping is increasing becoming the buzz word for hobby beekeepers – and particularly for those thinking of starting beekeeping.

Of course, all backyard beekeeping is natural, in a way that commercial beekeeping is not. For commercial beekeepers pollination is often the biggest earner, so bees are transported thousands of miles to pollinate huge swathes of mono culture crops. This excessive transportation, the lack of biodiversity, and the associated heavy chemical use – little wonder that scientists are increasingly citing stress as a likely cause of Colony Collapse Disorder.

But some forms of hobby beekeeping are seen as more natural than others – particularly top bar hive beekeeping and it’s close cousin Warre hive beekeeping. Both of these are arguably less invasive than traditional beekeeping with Langstroth hives, and the bees allowed more freedom to act as they would in their natural environment.

Build Your Own Top Bar Hive

One of the real advantages of top bar hives is their simplicity. If you have even basic carpentry skills, building a top bar hive is really simple. You can get top bar hive plans from the Back Yard Hive shop for just $9.95 (and they also supply materials if you need them). If you are interested in building your own top bar hive, the video below should also help.

Buy a Top Bar Hive

Alternatively, if you do not have the time or inclination to build your own beehive, the Back Yard Hive also has hand crafted top bar hives for sale. This is definitely a more expensive option, but their hive does include a full length viewing window making it easy to inspect your bees without disrupting them, and it is beautifully made.

Whether you make your hive yourself or buy it ready made is really a personal choice. And of course so too is the choice between top bar, Warre or Langstroth – they all have their own merits.  The important thing is to pick one, and start beekeeping – you won’t regret it.

How To Build a Honey Extractor

In order to get honey out of your beehive you have to be able to take it out of the honey comb. If you are a top bar beekeeper, you do this by removing the whole comb and then straining the honey out. But if you use standard wired frames in a Langstroth type hive, then you will need to use a honey extractor to get the honey out.

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Beekeeping Video: Harvesting Honey

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Candle Making With Beeswax

The main product of your bees should be honey, but there are also other great ‘by products’. Probably the most important of these is beeswax.  This has many uses, including for cosmetics, furniture polish and soaps but also of course candle making. If you have bees and are wondering what to do with all your beeswax, then how about trying candle making at home yourself?

Most candles that you will buy are made of paraffin or petroleum based wax, but beeswax candles are much more natural. They give a light warm glow, have a lovely scent, and do not emit any toxic fumes. And, with your own wax from your beehive, they are of course much cheaper!

If you keep your bees in top bar hives, you will have much more wax than in Langstroth type hives, and the perfect way to make use of this is by making beeswax candles.

So, where do you start? There are 3 ways to go about candle making with beeswax.

1. Rolled candles.

Rolled beeswax candles

Rolled beeswax candles

This is the simplest way to make your candles, and is easy to do if you are taking your beeswax straight from the honeycomb.

You simply place a wick on the edge of the flat sheet of beeswax (extending the wick about 2 inches on either side of the sheet), fold the sheet approximately 1/8 of an inch over the wick, and then slowly roll up the beeswax sheet, keeping gentle pressure when rolling.

After you have rolled the entire sheet, press the edge down so it does not unravel. Remove the wick from one end, and that’s it – your first beeswax candle!

 

2. Molded candles

The second option is to make candles using a mold. The wax needs to be melted down first, so this is a great way to use the wax cappings left over from your honey harvest.

Use a double-boiler (or a pot inside a pot). Do NOT try to melt the wax in a single pot – it is highly flammable and will go on fire! Put the solid wax in the smaller pot, and place this in the bigger pot partly filled with water. Put this on the stove until the wax has melted. At this stage you can add any scented oils or dyes you require. Place a wick in the centre of the mold, and then pour in the melted wax. Be careful – melted wax is hot!

 

3. Dipped candles

Dipping is the third way to make beeswax candles. After melting the wax as above, dip the wick in it. The wick will then be coated with wax. Allow the wax to cool between dippings for about one minute, then dip it in the melted wax again for the second layering, and so on.

Keep doing this until the candle is the thickness you want. Then, once it is totally cooled, use a sharp knife to trim off any excess wax and make a straight edge for the bottom of your candle.

Candle making is a really enjoyable hobby, and a great way to use that surplus beeswax from your hives. Beeswax candles are very popular, so it can also be a great way to generate some extra cash from your hobby.

If you would like to learn more about making your own candles, click here now.

 

Colony Collapse Disorder And The Decline Of The Honey Bee – Should We Be Worried?

Bees are probably best known for producing honey, but their most important contribution to the world is really through their pollination services. Worker bees work endlessly to perform the activities to keep the hive going. At different stages of their life cycle, worker bees are ‘nurse bees’, caring for the larvae and tending the queen and then ‘foraging bees’ collecting nectar to make honey, and pollen to feed the brood.

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