Minimum Beekeeper Instruments

Costume beekeeper: formed by a screen mask, boots, thick pants, heavy coat and gloves.

- Chisels beekeeper: a tool to take off the boxes (stuck together with propolis) and the frames of the hive.

- Smoker: bellows beekeeping places where straw or wood shavings, and illuminates to release smoke and "calm" the bees.

- Hoe: is a common tool for most agricultural activities, used in beekeeping to keep the area clean apiary always high bushes.

Locate one or more suppliers of beekeeping equipment near your area. Check the options of gloves, boots, costumes, masks beekeeping, fumigators and other utensils.

The hive

The hive is home to the bees, where they are collected at night. At dawn, the first sign of light, the older worker bees are drawn out, seek the light, and begin collecting nectar, pollen and resins. Other younger bees remain inside the hive all day in the dark, avoid light and do house work, cleaning, feeding calves, feeding the queen, wax production and comb building.

The routine of bees is rigid, and the work is specialized. An intermediate stage between young bees (inside) and older (external service), there are bees that are "at the door" of the hive, are the sentinels. They still do not have great flying ability, however are already attracted by light and even guard the entrance. sentinels bees keep out bees from other hives, and pests such as moths or ants. Interestingly sentries can let in bees from a nearby hive if they are loaded with food.

A natural hive a swarm in the woods is installed on top of trees, inside hollow logs, under rocks, or other natural shelter. In urban centers is common bees installing beehives on the roofs of houses out, what can bring disorders. (These cases is called a beekeeper to remove the swarm)

Apiary a rational standard boxes that facilitate the transport and removal of the honeycombs are used. There are several patterns (or shapes) of rational boxes, the most popular in Brazil, USA and Spain is the standard Langstroth. In Portugal it is used the Lusitania, and also more in Alentejo Langstroth hive.

A standard honeycomb is formed by a bottom, a box, ten frames and the lid. On the front is Alvado, which is the gateway formed by a small small terrace where bees aterrisam to arrive.


Locate a beekeeper, be polite and stay friends with him (not difficult, the apicultors are very fraternal and like to encourage the "bee cause"). Buy any product thereof, eg honey, or some utensil.

  The queen bee, drones and workers

The queen bee is the vital center of a swarm. Everything revolves around it, needs to be fed by other bees, and eats only royal jelly. -The royal jelly is a food produced by young bees through glands that secrete this food. There is no difference between the larvae of worker bee larvae and queen, what happens is that the larva in a cocoon of working is working, small eats only royal jelly for the first three days, the third day of life, yet larva, she receive pollen, then becomes working. The queen bee eats royal jelly-a lifetime. As a result, the worker bees only live 30 to 40 days, enquando Queen reaches 3 to 5 years, moreover develop the ability to breed, and has triple the size. This is the power of the royal jelly. An exciting food for humans, the product more expensive bees and can only be a very small amount consumed by people: the equivalent portion of kidney bean half a day.

When a queen bee lays ages and fewer eggs, the workers begin to build realeiras, which are great for the queens grow cocoons inside. When a new queen is born she realeiras destroys the other, and if the queen bee-old is still in the hive she will be killed by the new. Usually the queen-old avoids confrontation and flees, taking with it half the swarm. These are the fleeting and aimless swarms sometimes found in nature, clouds of bees looking for a new home.

The productivity of a new queen is much higher, so the professional exchange the queen every year or every two years.

The drone is a male bee. He belongs to no hive can enter and exit any, do not bring food, have no stinger (not defending the hive), only even fruitful queen, has a quiet life, and dies to fertilize.

The workers are female, and has many tasks well distributed throughout life. When they are new have the ability to produce royal jelly for secretion to feed chicks and the queen. Then stop secreting jelly and secrete beeswax, whereupon they are builders of honeycombs. An intermediate stage are sentinels and are in the middle ground between a dark and light environment, with few flights near the hives. Then become the foragers calls, live to carry nectar, resin and pollen to the hive. The foraging bees are the most numerous and also the most defensive, taking care of the defense of the hive. A worker bee lives only 30-40 days, then a cluster are always neascer and dying bees, an intense turnover.

A swarm revolves becomes queen, but it is an authentic dictatorship of the majority. If a hive suffer any serious sudden assault, for example, the beekeeper hive drops on the floor, or a heavy tree branch fell on the hive, and the bees very annoying, they can kill the queen, as if she were responsible maximum for all that is happening in the community.

Locate one queen bee in a hive. Can be difficult, not to be confused with the drone, which is also a big bee, the drone is only fat, while the queen is slender and long. If not found, it's not worth rolling the whole swarm to find her, might even hurt her unintentionally see if sees the young larvae of three days, this indicates the presence of productive queen. The young larvae are very small white spots at the back of aovéolos (measures one or two millimeters, and micro-hairs appear).


Where to get bees

The best way to get the beginner is to buy bees swarms. Can also be captured in the wild, but the catch is already more advanced and very practical topic, not covered by this discipline.

Buy swarms of a beekeeper confidence. A good cluster should come at least 5 full frames of bees and the queen with the combs should have food and new offspring (which indicates a production fertile queen). Often the vendor to deliver a hive with 5 frames of bees and only five frames with wax. A swarm with 10 full frames of bees is a very good swarm, and usually more expensive.


  The apiary

A good number to start an apiary are three swarms, so the beekeeper can perceive varições behavior between them, and if you happen to lose a swarm in some incident, or handling poorly done, yet there will remain two ...

Avoid mounting soon a large apiary, beekeeping because learning takes time, and it will be a waste of money. But if the new beekeeper has an experienced beekeeper friend who gives frequent help then you can already start with some scale.

In an area of ​​good bee pasture an apiary can have a maximum of 30 hives. More than that the bees will saturate the area, and there is little food in the bee pasture. Having little food swarms will languish, weak will and may be attacked by ants.

Important: You better 5 strong swarms than 30 weak swarms. The production of a weak swarm is zero, and certainly is at risk of extinction.

The beekeeper if you want, you can put 30 more swarms in another area, preferably at a distance of approximately 1500 meters. The distances between apiaries vary greatly according to the terrain. But if we are already talking about several apiaries, the course ceases to be introductory.

The number of hives in the apiary varies according to the quality of bee pasture. If an area has 50% forest and 50% of urbanization, so can only behave like 15 hives. If the bee pasture is too weak, or scarce, then a 7 swarms will be the maximum, however can be very productive.

Important: Do not install apiary near other people's homes, to avoid incidents with neighbors. Near house of beekeeper no big deal, after all the bees are his. During the review of hives swarms become agitated and can attack people around. An apiary should be installed at least 100 feet from a house. This distance may vary according to terrain conditions, if any vegetation that separates the house from the apiary, so you can get this far, but if there is an open field, and the home is in line of sight of the apiary, then the distance must be increased. If there are many houses around, an alternative is to make revisions at night with a flashlight, the bees do not fly in the dark, and will stay near the hive.


A review of a hive

In this lesson ideally be accompanied by an experienced beekeeper, but come on. Good luck, be a good adrenaline. You should be with full protective clothing: boots, long gloves, two pairs of pants (one over another), a thick jacket light color (bees hate dark colors if your pants are black, they will attack your pants, if glove is black, will attack the glove). A professional costume is all white, until the boot is white. Some beekeepers tame bees deal with no protection, but are running serious risks, is not a correct procedure.

Before opening a beehive use the fumigator and spread a little smoke . A little. The smoke has the effect of calming the bees. When you open the lid of a hive make slow and gentle movements, not to crush bees. (a crushed bee releases a pheromone attack which annoys and attracts other bees). With his chisel slowly lift a frame of comb: it will be pasted with propolis, so will have to do some strength and precise movement with the chisel, with no way to break the frame. Check all the frames of the hive.