7497 Grit Guide to Backyard Bees and Honey

6 Missed Opportunity or Enriching Experience

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Hank discovers a heart-shaped honeybee swarm as he motors along a hedgerow.

Homesteading With the Bees Our bloggers offer up their well-earned expertise on keeping backyard bees.

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10 Your Backyard Bees

Visitors to Grit’s online communities share their bee images.

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How to Attract Bees and Other Pollinators

The art of attracting pollinators boosts harvests and helps our food systems.

Getting to Know Your Bees

The sweet truth about the life and times of one of humankind’s most important social insects.

Build Your Own Beehive 26 Create your own bee condo and save money in the process.

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Reverend Langstroth’s Beehive

Nineteenth-century invention is still on the job.

Top-Bar Hives: Pros and Cons

Breaking down the top-bar design with an experienced apiarist.

Building a Top-Bar Hive

A different approach allows the beekeeper a simpler method of checking on his charges.

How to Install a Package of Bees

Your bees have arrived in the mail. … Now what?

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Top Tips for Happy Bees

Expert advice for novice urban beekeepers.

Wholesome as Honey

Famous as a sweet treat, this bee staple is packed with good nutrition and health.

15 Household Uses for Honey

Help your family thrive with honey; the all-natural nectar is a healing powerhouse.

How to Build a Honey Extractor

You can make an inexpensive honey extractor from simple materials available in your local hardware store. www.Grit.com

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Bee Byproducts

Honey is but one of the items created by ever-industrious honeybees.

DIY Beeswax Crafts for the Home

With the increased interest in beekeeping, the use of honey and beeswax has become an artisanal trend.

Cooking and Baking With Honey

These recipes offer every cook the chance to include this delicious bee byproduct for any meal and occasion.

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Beehive Baking

Put down the sugar bowl and switch to honey with these wholesome recipes.

A Bounty to Buzz About

The art of attracting nature’s pollinators to your garden.

Go Native With Wild Bees

The humble little orchard mason bee is the best-kept (pollinator) secret.

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Neighborly Beekeeping

One beekeeping homesteader’s advice for keeping bees – and keeping good relations with the neighbors – when other folks are in close proximity.

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An Unnatural Silence

The ever-evolving plight of the honeybee.

Find Your Favorite Honeybee

Grit’s guide to the top backyard producers and pollinators.

Name That Bee

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Test your bee knowledge with a simple photograph identification game.

95 Resources

Everything you need for a buzzing hive.

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Getting to Know Your

BEES

The sweet truth about the life and times of one of humankind’s most important social insects.

By SAMANTHA JOHNSON and DANIEL JOHNSON

T

he lure of honey seems to have always been a strong incentive to people of all backgrounds across many cultures. The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Chinese, Israelites, and Romans are all known to have tended bees in locations as diverse as Africa, Europe and Asia. The ancient Maya also kept a variety of stingless (albeit less prolific) bees in Central America.

But the bees we know and use today in North America are descendants of Western honeybees, which were developed in Europe and carried across the ocean by American colonists. Even prior to the 1700s, established beehives were already in place across New York, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.

One problem that beekeepers faced throughout all these times was that there wasn’t a good way of harvesting the honey. Harvesting could involve the destruction of all or part of the hive depending on the type of hive 16 GRIT’S GUIDE TO BACKYARD BEES AND HONEY

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used. Smoking the hives with sulfur was also sometimes used to kill the entire colony of bees, which would leave the physical hive intact but result in the destruction of all the bees.

All of this changed in the mid1800s, when L.L. Langstroth of Pennsylvania developed a new style of beehive, which is still in use today.

The Langstroth hive is special because it is made of individual components that can be easily taken apart and examined without upsetting the bees or destroying their work. The bees in this kind of hive build their combs and store their honey on a series of movable frames, which can be easily and nondestructively removed when it’s time to harvest honey. (For more on the Langstroth hive, turn to Page 30.)

Today, beekeeping means different things to different people. For some it’s a business (of both honey collection and professional crop pollination services), but for many others it’s a

Two honeybees work the honeycomb; at top right, one bee is completely inside a cell, while a fellow worker begins to enter another cell.

hobby that can give a lifetime of pleasure. Throughout this article we hope to share some knowledge that will help you achieve that pleasure.

Members of the hive

A beehive is made up of three distinct types of bees: 1. Workers 2. Drones 3. The Queen Let’s take a look at each type: Worker bees are female bees that typically do not lay eggs. They do, however, tend to the queen, tend to the nursery of young bees, build

comb, store food, and fly miles and miles and miles from flower to flower collecting pollen and nectar. Wow! When people talk about “busy bees” they surely must mean the workers.

Worker bees also have glands in their abdomen that produce wax, as well as glands in their heads that are capable of producing royal jelly, which is a nutrient-rich substance used to feed larvae (baby bees).

The queen is usually the only egglaying female in the hive. For this reason, the queen is given special treatment from the rest of the workers. She is fed, tended, and protected by the workers. In exchange for their care, the queen supplies the hive with the eggs needed to sustain a healthy, working colony.

The queen is the largest bee in the hive, with a slender, elegant body – considerably larger than that of a worker bee. There are only two times when there might be more than one egg-laying female. One is when the main queen is aging and the hive is considering producing a replacement (known as supersedure). The other

time is when the queen has died, and confused worker bees begin laying eggs. If you have laying worker bees (manifested by a sudden increase in the number of drones in the hive, or multiple eggs laid in one cell), then you have no queen and you’ll need to take action to replace her.

Before a queen can lay eggs, however, she must take to the skies and perform a mating flight with several drone bees, discussed next.

Drones are male bees. They have a different build than the workers, with a generally larger body and significantly larger eyes to aid in the location of a flying queen.

The drones fly with a new queen bee and mate with her, but do not contribute to the hive otherwise.

You won’t see drones out collecting pollen, since their legs have no pollen baskets, and you won’t see them defending the hive – drones don’t have a stinger! They cannot produce wax for building, either. Still, they are essential to the lives of bees, and a healthy colony in mid-summer might be home to 1,000 drones.

The honeybee’s life cycle

Let’s take a moment to familiarize ourselves with the honeybee life cycle.

It’s useful to you as the beekeeper to be able to locate, identify and understand the various stages of bees you’re looking at, because a healthy hive and a healthy queen will be producing strong brood (baby bees). Let’s take a look at this brood.

Eggs

All honeybees begin life as an egg laid by the queen in an empty hexagonal cell. On a busy summer day, a healthy queen might lay as many as 2,000 eggs!

Honeybee eggs are tiny, and not always easy to find. Some people recommend using black plastic hive frames because the small white eggs will stand out more easily against the black and make them more visible.

Larvae

Within a few days, the egg hatches (“dissolves” might be a better word for it) and out pops a small larva. The WWW.GRIT.COM

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Beehive E

By OSCAR H. WILL III

Nineteenth-century invention is still on the job.

very cloud has its silver lining.

The Rev. L.L. Langstroth’s silver lining was that he found bees and beekeeping to be an effective antidote to nearly debilitating clouds of malaise. As a meticulous student of the hive, the Philadelphia clergyman and private school principal discovered a way to use bee space to great advantage and designed what amounts to the modern beehive – the modular boxlike structures seen wher-

ever bees are raised throughout much of the world.

Bee space – defined as the space that is neither large enough or small enough to encourage bees to build comb or seal with propolis – was discovered by European apiarists prior to Langstroth’s putting it to work.

Langstroth discovered that he could use this approximately 3⁄8 of an inch to make working the hive and collecting honey a relatively simple proposition.

In the years leading to Langstroth’s discoveries, European bees had been typically sheltered in fairly elaborate bee houses, open-chamber boxes, crude dome-shaped skeps, or hollowed logs. With all of these structures, the comb was sealed to the hive with wax, and hive components were sealed to one another with propolis, making it difficult to work the hives and collect honey without disturbing the bees to the point that they would go on the

For more on the hives

designed

by the Rev. L.L. Langstroth, read his book, Langstroth’s Hive and the HoneyBee Bee. Turn to Page 96 for ordering information.

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Reverend Langstroth’s

attack. In the United States, the openchamber box hive had reached some level of popularity, but the beekeeping enterprise was depressed, in general.

In the mid-1800s, Langstroth discovered he could employ bee space to make it easy to remove his hives’ covers and to remove the hives’ combfilled frames with ease. Langstroth also discovered that it was possible to increase honey yields in healthy hives by stacking several boxes of frames atop one another, while restraining the queen in the lowest with a device called a “queen excluder” that allowed workers to pass, but not the queen.

Portability, removable frames and modular construction with available materials made Langstroth’s hives a big hit when he began selling them after patenting the design in 1852. His four-sided removable frames saved bees’ lives (they didn’t get riled when you took out the comb) and increased their honey production because it was possible to harvest the honey without destroying the comb – meaning the bees no longer had to expend energy and consume honey to create new wax.

Langstroth never profited from his patent, as it proved too difficult to defend, and its popularity led to many “tweaked” designs that were themselves patentable. Nonetheless, Langstroth is still referred to as the Father of American Beekeeping. His legacy is evident in orchards and backyards, on urban rooftops and flatbed semis moving from one pollinating job to another, and in the faces of beekeeping enthusiasts and bee club members around the world.

Well-tended Langstroth-style beehives await the beekeeper’s next visit.

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How to Install a

Package of Bees Your bees have arrived in the mail. … Now what?

A

few years ago, we added bees to our farm family at Chiot’s Run. We picked up 10,000 ladies from Dave, a local guy who sells them and certainly knows what he’s talking about.

On our way home, Mr. Chiot’s looked at me and said, “This has the makings of a horrible nightmare.

The story would go something like this: ‘I picked up my package of bees and all was going well. I heard something in the back of the car, and then a swarm of bees attacked my face. I ran off the road into a ditch. ...’”

We had a good laugh about that on our way home. It is such a common misconception that bees of any type are dangerous!

When we arrived home, we proceeded to follow Dave’s instructions for “the easy way to install a new package of bees.” It’s much different than the way the books tell you to do it. We decided Dave’s way sounded great, and since he’s a veteran beekeeper, we figured he knew what he was talking about.

Photo 1: First we pried the lid off the box of bees.

Article and photographs by SUSY MORRIS

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Photo 3: The box of bees was placed in an empty super on top of the bottom board of the hive (with the lid on the box of bees – it’s removed after we get the queen cage suspended above). This process takes the place of banging the box and dumping the bees into the hive; it seemed like a “nicer” option, both for us and the bees.

Photo 4: A piece of wood was taped over the hive opening to keep the bees inside until we moved them outside later in the day when it warmed up.

Photo 5: We proceeded to hang the queen cage in a super with frames (the part the bees build comb on) above the empty box that had the bee cage in it. We wired her cage in so that the bees could still reach her. She will be released into the hive in three days.

Photo 2: The can of sugar syrup and the queen cage (the queen comes in her own little cage inside the bigger cage of bees) were removed, then we replaced the small wooden lid to keep the bees inside until releasing them.

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Several hundred distinct honey types exist in the United States alone. Many are only available locally, while others are distributed on a regional or national scale. Here is a short list of honey types: • Alfalfa: light color with mild floral flavor • Clover: clear to amber with very mild flavor • Buckwheat: very dark and very flavorful • Tupelo: light greenish golden color with mild but famous flavor • Goldenrod: yellow with medium-strong flavor • Orange Blossom: light color with mild citrusflower flavor

A lot of bee spit

from it. Bees will even fan the open cells of evaporating nectar with their wings to speed up the evaporation process.

Once the honey is thick enough, the honeycomb cells are sealed off with wax – but before sealing, pollen and other bits and pieces may get into the honey. A pound of honey represents the lifetime work of more than 500 bees. A healthy beehive might consume from 100 to 200 pounds of honey in the course of a year, so it takes a lot of honey to make honey.

Bees make honey by working very hard to collect nectar from flowers and/ or other sweet plant secretions or from insect excretions (such as honeydew from aphids). This nectar, which is roughly 80 percent water, is collected into a special organ called the honey stomach and carried back to the hive. There, hive workers remove the nectar, mix it with their saliva, process it for a few minutes (the process is called chewing), and deposit it into honeycomb cells where water can evaporate

Busy bees close off each honey cell with beeswax.

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was produced. However, scientists have shown that honey does aid in the healing of certain kinds of wounds and does help keep things sterile.

Finally, in the realm of health, honey has been shown to have probiotic and prebiotic capabilities, both of which can help with digestion and the uptake of nutrients in the gut. The prebiotic activity in honey is likely related to the nondigestible long-chain sugars it contains – these compounds can help stimulate the growth of beneficial microbes (by suppressing the growth of nonbeneficial microbes) in the gut. The probiotic activity in honey stems from the actual feeding and otherwise nurturing of beneficial gut flora. The beneficials in turn help you digest and absorb nutrients.

Feeling under the weather? Try a cup of hot tea sweetened with honey.

Not for infants

Honey, like most raw natural products, is a potential source of Clostridium botulinum spores – this is the bacterium whose toxin causes the often lethal botulism. Botulism usually occurs upon ingesting food in which C. botulinum was allowed to grow in the absence of oxygen. In that anaerobic environment,

the bacterium produces the botulismcausing toxin, which is quite potent.

Although rare, it is also possible for the bacterial spores to germinate in the gut and for a significant C. botulinum population to develop in the lower intestine, which happens to be pretty anaerobic.

The likelihood of this happening is highest among individuals with severely disrupted or undeveloped gut microflora. Infants are among the highest risk groups because their intestinal tracts are just developing the proper balance of beneficial bacteria. When the balance is good, the C. botulinum spores don’t stand a chance. So, it is generally recommended not to serve raw honey to children before their first birthday.

More than empty calories

Honey is valued as a sweetener, but honey packs much more than a sweet punch. Scientific studies have demonstrated that honey has some level of antimicrobial activity, thanks to the presence of compounds such as flavonoids, and some raw honeys have been shown to reduce fat oxidation in meats and browning in some fruits. Some honeys also exhibit more general antioxidant capabilities and can neutralize a class of reactive compounds known to damage DNA and other cellular constituents.

Even more interesting is that the amount of antioxidant activity is related to the type of flowers used to make the honey and where that honey was grown. In one particular study, scientists found that buckwheat honey from an Illinois location had about 30 percent more antioxidant activity than buckwheat honey produced at other locations. Buckwheat honey had consistently high antioxidant activity compared with other lighter honeys such as clover.

Enjoy it

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Essentially some of the sugar comes out of the solution to form a solid, leaving a more dilute sugar solution behind.

Crystallization is more likely when water concentrations are low and when relatively large quantities of crystalseeding particles such as pollen are present. Crystallization isn’t a problem generally, but if the remaining solution becomes sufficiently dilute, some fermentation might take place. There’s generally no reason to avoid eating crystallized honey.

Honey has a number of other proven health benefits, and some that haven’t been scientifically proven but are imbedded in its lore and mythology. In the realm of the not scientifically proven, honey has been used in moisturizing creams and has been used to help heal wounds of many kinds. Raw honey seems to be more effective than pasteurized or otherwise processed honey for wound healing, and it is also prescribed for colds and to alleviate any number of gastrointestinal disorders. The golden amber elixir can also reduce blistering and scarring resulting from burns. And for allergy sufferers, some say that eating local honey can help get your system used to local allergens – such as pollen.

The truly scientific studies relating to health benefits of honey are relatively few and far between, but they do corroborate some of the cultural and anecdotal claims. Part of the difficulty with studying the effects of honey is that honey is not a static mixture containing a fixed number of components. It is instead a dynamic solution that also may contain numerous suspended particles depending on when and where it

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Honey Sources

Clovers of all kinds draw the honeybee, and the flowers’ nectar makes for delicious honey.

Honey is arguably a better dietary component than refined white sugar, but that’s not the real reason to enjoy it. Honey is a miracle of nature and biochemistry that celebrates the delicate interconnections among humans, insects and the environment. Whether you use it in a salve, feed it to your newborn pigs, or simply drizzle it on your cornbread, you will be unpacking a delightful dose of past summer sunshine and honeybee industriousness that is as remarkable as it is lovely. Enjoy!

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B

By LEEANN COLEMAN and JAYNE BARNES

eeswax is so elegant, so lovely and useful, that it’s hard to believe that it wasn’t invented for us to enjoy.

In fact, beeswax is a product of the industrious worker bees, who use it to build honeycombs. That hexagonal pattern is actually a nursery for the hive’s young and a pantry for the bees’ pollen and honey. Wax is their building block.

And we, too, can use it to build. Of all the waxes that you can use to craft, pure beeswax is the most prized, and for good reason. Beeswax is a miracle of a medium for crafters. It’s pliable when warm, and sturdy when cooled. The soft yellow color of the beeswax seems to glow from within. It immediately draws the eye. Even a small beeswax candle or ornament can become the focal point of a living room or bedroom.

In this article, you’ll find instructions on how to make your own beeswax masterpieces that will fill your home with beauty and light, and you’ll learn how to make beeswax-enriched body-care products that will keep your skin firm and glowing.

This article will give you endless reasons to spend a night in with your new décor, as well as endless gifts for friends and family to celebrate.

Beeswax lanterns

Usually we think of a burning beeswax candle as a fleeting delight, to be enjoyed and marveled at until it has burned down to a nub. But there are 62 GRIT’S GUIDE TO BACKYARD BEES AND HONEY

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ways to craft with beeswax so that you can enjoy its presence forever.

This lantern is a particularly pleasant craft because it can be appreciated over and over again. Of course, you won’t get the wonderful scent of beeswax when the lantern is lit ‒ but you will have a warm glow that will cast intricate shadows against the walls.

Decorate the lantern with fall leaves for the perfect focal piece at the Thanksgiving table. Or cover it in seasonal flowers as a moving tribute to the pollen from which the beeswax came.

1. Begin by filling a balloon with water – this will serve as a form for your lantern. The size of your balloon will determine the size of your lantern. To ensure your balloon has a nice round shape, you may wish to blow up the balloon before filling it with water, to stretch out the sides and encourage the balloon to fill evenly.

2. Melt your beeswax using a double boiler – a small saucepan containing the beeswax, sitting inside a larger pan of water. Melting beeswax over direct heat is very dangerous, as hot beeswax is flammable and can ignite. Use a thermometer to monitor the temperature of your wax. Stainless steel pans are recommended because copper, brass and iron can change the color of the wax, making it look dull.

3. When the wax has reached 150 to 160 degrees, you are ready to begin dipping. Slowly dip your balloon with a

FOTOLIA/TXAKEL

With the increased interest in beekeeping, the use of honey and beeswax has become an artisanal trend.

What you’ll need: • Balloon(s) • Water faucet • Double boiler designated for wax melting (preferably stainless steel) • 1 to 2 pounds beeswax, depending on the size of the lantern • Wax or candy thermometer • Optional: Pressed leaves, flowers, or tissue paper for decorating the side of the lantern • Aluminum foil • Flat pan

slow and steady hand, immersing it for just a second. Remove it from the wax and allow it to dry, about 20 seconds. To speed up the process, you can alternate dipping back and forth between a bowl of cold water and the hot beeswax.

4. Continue to dip the lantern in wax a total of approximately 15 to 20 times, until desired thickness is reached.

5. If you would like to add decorations, you can add pressed leaves, flowers, or tissue paper cut into shapes. Dip the decoration in the beeswax, then carefully secure the edges of your decoration onto the side of your lantern with your fingers. Quickly dip the entire lantern one more time to secure the decorations with a thin coat of beeswax.

6. When the wax has cooled, turn your lantern upside down over a sink and snip the top of the balloon to remove it.

Beeswax candles

If the idea of crafting with hot wax makes you anxious, here is a craft that will produce splendid candles while easing your mind. The beeswax does not need to be melted down. This is also a wonderful way to bring children into the world of honey crafting.

Sheets of beeswax were originally invented by beekeepers. These were, and still are, used to line the beehives. This wax liner gives the bees a firm foundation on which to build the honeycomb.

Thus, the beekeepers call beeswax sheets “brood foundation.” Beeswax candles can be made from foundation sheets.

Most wax sheets for rolled candles are formed in a honeycomb pattern. This type of sheet is embossed with a hexagonal indentation ‒ it looks like the wax from a honeycomb. The most common size is 8 inches by 163⁄4 inches, but you can cut the sheets to suit your specific purpose. The honeycomb-patterned sheets are rolled out under an embossing wheel.

You can purchase these in the natural beeswax colors (pale honey to dark brown), or in colors that have been dyed after the wax was bleached.

Another type of wax for making rolled candles is smooth and flat. This is useful when you don’t want a textured candle.

Hand cream

The elegant, gentle scent of the lavender flower will calm your nerves. Use this cream to hydrate your skin before bedtime to guarantee a restful sleep.

1. Combine the almond and coconut oils with the beeswax in the top of a double boiler. Heat just until wax melts.

2. Remove from heat. Stir frequently while cooling.

3. Add vitamin E oil and lavender essential oil. Stir until fully blended.

4. Spoon cream into a clean jar.

What you’ll need: • Beeswax foundation or candlerolling sheets • Cutting board • Ruler or measuring tape • Knife for cutting the beeswax sheets • 2/0 wicking (for candles 1 to 3 inches in diameter) • Hair dryer

The pure-white smooth sheets make an elegant-looking candle.

1. Lay the beeswax sheet on a cutting board and measure the halfway point on the long side (about 81⁄2 inches). Cut vertically to separate the wax sheet into two pieces.

2. Cut your length of 2/0 wick to 9 inches and lay it against the 8-inch side of your beeswax sheet.

3. Using your fingers, pinch the edges of the beeswax around the wick, just enough to hold it firm and give you a nice edge to begin rolling.

4. Using a hair dryer on low heat, carefully blow back and forth across the beeswax sheet, holding the hair dryer about 2 inches from the wax.

Depending on the strength of the hair dryer, this will take approximately 30 seconds to 1 minute. You want the wax to begin to glisten, but not melt.

5. When the wax sheet is warm, you will begin rolling the candle, pushing away from you and using your rolled wick as the center. Use light, even pressure to maintain a nice rolled edge, being careful not to press the wax too firmly, as it is warm.

6. When the candle is completely rolled, it will fit perfectly in a standardsized tapered candlestick. Roll the second candle sheet in the same way, and you have a lovely pair of rolled beeswax tapered candles.

COURTESY F+W MEDIA INC.

Crafts for the Home

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DIY BEESWAX

7. To finish the top and bottom of the lantern, turn your stovetop on low and heat a flat pan. Cover the pan with aluminum foil, and touch the bottom of your luminary to the pan, slowly making circles to melt the wax on the bottom until it rests flat. Repeat the process for the top of the lantern to give it a nice smooth finish around the rim.

8. Your lantern is now finished and can be enjoyed indefinitely. Place a tealight in the bottom of the lantern to watch it glow. If your lantern is smaller than 4 inches wide, you’ll want to use a battery-powered tealight so the heat of the burning tealight does not melt the sides of your lantern.

CAUTION: If your wax is too hot when you attempt to begin dipping, the balloon will pop and the wax will likely boil over the sides of the double boiler.

Here’s what you’ll need: • 1 cup sweet almond oil • 1⁄2 cup coconut oil • 2 ounces (weight) beeswax • Double boiler • 1⁄2 teaspoon vitamin E oil • 15 to 20 drops of lavender essential oil • Jar

Excerpted with permission from Honey Crafting: From Delicious Honey Butter to Healing Salves, Projects for Your Home Straight from the Hive, by Leeann Coleman and Jayne Barnes (F+W Media Inc., 2013).

To order Honey Crafting

by Leeann Coleman and Jayne Barnes, turn to Page 95.

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