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Bee Hive Introduction

What is a hive?

Nucleus Colony or "Nuc"

Nucleus Colony or "Nuc"

A hive is a structure in which a bee colony lives.  Managed bee colonies are housed in hive boxes that can be stacked to provide additional space for the colony and its honey as it expands.  The boxes are constructed using uniform dimensions so frames can be interchanged between boxes and hives as necessary.  


The photo above depicts two production colonies (left and right), two nucleus colonies (narrow white boxes) and an occupied swarm trap from which the frames are about to be moved into a hive box in our apiary (center).

Nucleus Colony or "Nuc"

Nucleus Colony or "Nuc"

Nucleus Colony or "Nuc"

A nucleus colony or "nuc" is a small colony of bees (typically 5-10 frames of worker bees and a queen), which is a resource hive in the apiary.  The smaller hive box makes it easier for the smaller bee population to control temperature and humidity within the hive and manage pests.


Nucs have many uses, including queen raising and breeding, production of additional brood to bolster weaker hives, management of swarming by splitting strong production hives, and overwintering new colonies for replacement/expansion in the spring. 

Production Colony

Nucleus Colony or "Nuc"

Production Colony

Our honey production colonies are housed in 10-frame boxes.   A typical production colony consists of two 10-frame deep boxes (yellow boxes in image above).  Bees use the deep boxes for pollen storage and raising of brood.  


During the spring and summer nectar flow, shallower boxes called "honey supers" are stacked above the brood boxes (white box in image above).  Bees store nectar in the supers and convert or cure the nectar into honey.  Supers are removed to harvest honey, then the bees store honey in the brood boxes as their winter food supply.

Frames and Comb

Nectar, Honey, Pollen and Brood

Production Colony

Managed bee colonies are raised using removable frames.  The frames are typically made of wood or plastic on or within which bees make or "draw out" wax comb.  The cells of the comb are used for raising new bees or brood and for the storage of pollen, nectar and honey. 


Bees will fill nearly all open space with wax comb or will seal or glue together smaller spaces with propolis, a  resinous material bees produce by mixing wax, saliva and sap collected from evergreens.  To facilitate inspection and management of hives and minimize damage to the comb, all bee hive components are designed using a concept known as "bee space".  Bees prefer to leave approximately 9 mm (3/8") space between surfaces to allow free passage throughout the hive.  Smaller gaps limit bees' use of that area and lead to propolizing, while larger gaps are filled with "burr" or "brace" comb.  Thus, all hive components (boxes, lids, frames, etc.) are designed to maintain bee space between them so they can be removed and inspected.  

Bees

Nectar, Honey, Pollen and Brood

Nectar, Honey, Pollen and Brood

The population of a bee colony consists of a single queen, female worker bees, and, during the spring and summer, male drones.  At its peak in the summer, a 10-frame hive may contain 50,000 or more bees, most of which are workers.


The queen generally only leaves the hive once--to be bred shortly after she emerges as an adult bee.  She then resides in the hive, where she can lay 1,500+ eggs/day during the spring and summer.  


Worker bees perform all other daily functions in the hive.  They produce wax and propolis, build comb, feed eggs and larvae, feed and attend to the queen, clean cells for reuse, remove debris and dead bees from the hive.  Workers are also the pollination "workforce" as they forage for pollen and nectar.  


Drones are produced in the spring and summer to breed virgin queens.  Worker bees exclude drones from the hive in the fall to reduce the colony population to be sustained through the winter.

Nectar, Honey, Pollen and Brood

Nectar, Honey, Pollen and Brood

Nectar, Honey, Pollen and Brood

Bees collect nectar and store it in cells in the "honeycomb".  Bees cure nectar by evaporating excess moisture.  When nectar has cured into honey, bees protect it by capping it with wax (top of image above).


Pollen is an important source of protein and is also collected by worker bees.  Bees store pollen in the comb near areas used for brood (orange and yellow cells in the center of image above). 


A bee's life cycle consists of four stages of development: egg, larva, pupa, and adult.  Worker bees develop from an egg to an adult in 21 days.  The queen lays a single egg in each cell of the comb.  Fertilized eggs develop into worker bees; unfertilized eggs develop as drones.  Eggs and larvae are fed by the workers in uncapped cells.  Once the cells are capped, the larvae transforms into a pupae and then into a adult bee.  Capped worker brood and uncapped larvae are visible in the bottom center of the image above.    

Explore the hives through the seasons

Inspecting honey bee hives in Easton, Maryland bee yard

January

Brief Flights and A Little Pollen

Brief Flights and A Little Pollen

Brief Flights and A Little Pollen

Bees finding some pollen on a 55-degree afternoon in January.

During the winter, bees thermoregulate by clustering together tightly.   Notwithstanding outside temperatures, the core of the cluster is maintained at 80+ degrees.  When temperatures rise above 50-degrees, bees will break from the cluster and make cleansing flights.  These industrious bees found yellow and red pollen somewhere, perhaps witch hazel, on January 6th. 


Winter Cluster Information

https://www.beepods.com/honey-bees-survive-winter-regulating-temperature-cluster/

Equipment Prep

Brief Flights and A Little Pollen

Brief Flights and A Little Pollen

Building 5-frame nuc boxes

Cold, January afternoons are a great time to spend in the shop building new boxes and hardware.  We're assembling and painting new brood and nuc boxes, feeders and honey supers to expand our bee yards 

February

Bee Activity on Warm Days

Hive Houskeeping and Clensing Flights

Hive Houskeeping and Clensing Flights

Hives in early spring in Easton, Talbot County, Maryland

The hives have little activity with temperatures below the 50s, but the bees break their cluster and get active during warm afternoons in early February.  

Hive Houskeeping and Clensing Flights

Hive Houskeeping and Clensing Flights

Hive Houskeeping and Clensing Flights

Hive cleanout on warm day.

 When temperatures creep in to the 50s and 60s, bees remove dead bees from the hives and take short cleansing flights to expel waste, which they don't do in the hive. 

Pollen Patties

Supplemental Sugar

Supplemental Sugar

Honey bees eating pollen patty in late winter.

Some hives may receive patties containing protein and carbohydrates to stimulate brood rearing a little earlier than they would otherwise kick into gear to (hopefully) permit early spring splits. 

Supplemental Sugar

Supplemental Sugar

Supplemental Sugar

"Mountain cap" supplemental sugar feed for weaker hive.

This hive swarmed or absconded from a colony in downtown Easton in late September.  Despite feeding with 2:1 syrup in October, it did not store a lot for the winter.   Dry sugar and a portion of a pollen patty were added to sustain it until the spring flow. 

March

Red Maples Flower

Hives Are Collecting Pollen and Raising Brood

Hives Are Collecting Pollen and Raising Brood

Red maple bloom in Talbot County, Maryland

Red maples begin flowering providing important early nectar and pollen to support hive expansion. 

Hives Are Collecting Pollen and Raising Brood

Hives Are Collecting Pollen and Raising Brood

Hives Are Collecting Pollen and Raising Brood

Capped brood and "bee bread" - stored pollen, which provides protein for young bees.

On warm afternoon, the bees are increasingly active collecting pollen (protein).  The area of brood expands and hives begin to rapidly expand in population. 

New comb, brood increasing

Painting, painting, painting...

Painting, painting, painting...

Comb drawn on insulating cover since December.

Fresh pollen and nectar kick-start brood rearing, including drone brood in comb drawn within the small void caused by the winter feeding shim.  

Painting, painting, painting...

Painting, painting, painting...

Painting, painting, painting...

Painting nuc boxes.

It seems like we're always assembling and painting a lot of new woodenware.  It's a welcome change to be able to paint outside in the sun!

April

Lots of Blooms

New Nucs and Hives From Splits

Hive Populations Expand

Honey bee on redbud flowers

A plethora of native and planted floral sources support the growing hives in April, including dandelion, Redbud, pears, apples and crabapples, ornamental cherry, and others.  

Hive Populations Expand

New Nucs and Hives From Splits

Hive Populations Expand

Queen bee on solid pattern of capped brood.

Queens kick egg laying into high gear.  Hives have frames full of brood like this.  9 days after an egg is laid, the cell is "capped" to protect the developing bee.  Worker bees emerge 11-12 days later.   Can you find the queen?

New Nucs and Hives From Splits

New Nucs and Hives From Splits

New Nucs and Hives From Splits

5-frame nucleus hives in Easton, Maryland

Robust, over-wintered hives are "split" to build up more hives and to reduce the potential for swarming by our honey producers.  Nucleus hives made in the fall are either split or moved into 10-frame production hive boxes.

Hive Inspections

Hive Inspections

New Nucs and Hives From Splits

Frame of mostly capped brood, with capped honey in upper corners and undrawn foundation at bottom

Warmer daytime temperatures permit hive inspections to confirm the productivity of the queen.  As the month progresses, hives are checked on a regular basis for queen cells to manage/prevent swarms.  

Swarm Collection

Hive Inspections

Swarm Collection

Honey bee swarm in peach tree, collected in Cambridge, Dorchester County, Maryland

Beekeeping activity begins in earnest.  Spring weather and nectar flow triggers swarming of growing hives.  Swarm calls generally begin in mid-April.  If you find a swarm, we would be happy to relocate it to a new hive.

Need Help with a Swarm?

Swarm Traps

Hive Inspections

Swarm Collection

Swam trap on the Tred Avon River, near Oxford, Maryland

We deploy swarm traps in Wye Mills, St. Michaels, Easton, Oxford, Trappe, Cambridge and Denton.  Hopeful of adding new local, feral honeybee genetics to our apiaries.

May

Queen Replacement - Egg Laying

Queen Replacement - Egg Laying

Queen Replacement - Egg Laying

One-day old honey bee eggs.

Hives are split and less productive queens are replaced using the "On-The-Spot" or OTS method of queen rearing developer by Mel Disselkoen.  This involves removal of older queens to a nuc box, notching or compressing the bottoms of cells just after eggs hatch, and management of resulting queen cells. 

Queen Castles

Queen Replacement - Egg Laying

Queen Replacement - Egg Laying

Queen castle entrance

Queen cells capped in a full hive are moved to a queen castle, which is a deep hive box divided into compartments with separate entrances.  Each compartment requires only 2-3 frames and provides an efficient space for new queens to emerge, mate and begin laying.  

Transfer to Nuc Hive Boxes

Queen Replacement - Egg Laying

New Queens Are Bred and Laying

5-frame nucleus hive in Oxford, Maryland

After the new queen is laying, the 2 frames in a compartment of the queen castle are moved to a 5-frame nuc box to provide room for additional brood and pollen and nectar storage. 

New Queens Are Bred and Laying

New Queens Are Bred and Laying

New Queens Are Bred and Laying

Queen on solid pattern of capped honey bee brood.

Queens lay 1,000+ eggs daily, each of which will be a new bee in 3 weeks. Nucs started in April outgrow their 5-frame boxes and are moved up to 10-frame boxes. 

Heavy Nectar Flows

New Queens Are Bred and Laying

Pollen and Nectar Collection

Tulip poplar flower.

Black locust and tulip poplar, two of the principal nectar sources in our area, bloom in May, along with blackberry, black cherry, autumn olive, and lilacs.

Pollen and Nectar Collection

New Queens Are Bred and Laying

Pollen and Nectar Collection

Honey bee with pollen.

The very busy bees are returning to the hives with pollen and nectar dawn to dusk. 

June & July

Clover and Wildflower Foraging

Clover and Wildflower Foraging

Clover and Wildflower Foraging

Honey bee on white clover

Most tree blooms wind down before the heat of summer, and bee foraging shifts to clover, wildflowers, and landscape beds.   Hives are expanded through addition of "honey supers"--shallow boxes placed above the deep brood boxes for honey storage and collection.  

Nectar Storage

Clover and Wildflower Foraging

Clover and Wildflower Foraging

Uncapped Maryland honey

 Nectar is stored in the cells of the wax comb ("honeycomb") and cured through evaporation.  Sucrose (sugar) concentrations in nectar vary by species  from 10-40%, with water comprising the bulk of the remainder.  The sucrose is converted to fructose and glucose as the bees move nectar from flowers to the hives.  Honey is about 75% sugars (about 50/50 glucose and fructose).  The remaining  20-25% is principally water (16-18%) and traces of protein, fat and fiber

Hive Thermoregulation

Clover and Wildflower Foraging

Honey Frames Are Capped

Honey bees working a frame of uncapped Maryland honey

Bees manage the temperature and humidity levels inside the hive by returning with water for evaporative cooling and by fanning their wings to move air and heat through the hive.  Evaporation is essential to dry and thicken nectar into cured honey. 

Honey Frames Are Capped

Honey Frames Are Capped

Honey Frames Are Capped

Medium super frame of capped honey.

When nectar is dried or cured to 16-18% moisture, it is honey.  The bees cap the honey with new, white wax to prevent it from absorbing moisture.  We add more supers to give the bees space to store as much honey as they can produce.

Bearding

Honey Frames Are Capped

Smoker Use

Honeybee hive "bearding" in the heat of summer.

On hot days in the summer, the bees "beard" in the afternoons and evenings.  With hive populations at a peak, some bees gather outside the hive to maintain an appropriate broodnest temperature inside the hive.

Smoker Use

Honey Frames Are Capped

Smoker Use

Smoker used to calm honey bees for hive inspection

During the nectar flow, hives are typically gentle, but they become more defensive as the nectar flows wane.  During the summer "dearth" (absence of nectar), hives are much less receptive to inspections and manipulations.   A light puff of smoke generally calms the hive quickly. 

August - Harvest

Honey Super Removal

Honey Super Removal

Honey Super Removal

Capped honey super

When all frames in the honey supers are capped, the supers are removed from the hives for extraction of the honey.   Bees are removed from the supers using one-way "bee escape" boards and a battery-powered blower.  They return to the hive and continue storing any available nectar through fall for the hive to consume during the winter. 

Uncapping

Honey Super Removal

Honey Super Removal

Comb honey in the frame.

After bees evaporate the moisture content down to 16-18%, they cap the cured honey with wax to prevent it from absorbing moisture from the air (humidity).   The white wax cappings are shaved off using a knife to open the honey comb for extraction. 

Spinning to Extract

Spinning to Extract

Spinning to Extract

Extractor spinning uncapped frames of honey.

After the wax capping is removed, the frames are placed in a extractor, which spins the frames and extracts the honey through centrifugal force.  The  empty frames and comb are put back into the honey supers, and, depending on the stage of the nectar flow, either placed back on the hives for the bees to refill or stored for use during the next spring/spring.  All fall nectar flow honey (goldenrod, aster, etc.) is left for the bees to consume through the winter.   

Filtering Honey

Spinning to Extract

Spinning to Extract

Honey streaming from extractor

As honey flows out of the extractor, it is gently filtered through a wire mesh sieve to remove large wax capping crumbs, propolis and pollen particles.  Our honey is sold raw (with small flecks of bee pollen and propolis).  Most supermarket honey is pasteurized (heated then cooled rapidly) and filtered under pressure.  This makes the honey more clear and delays crystallization, but also removes pollen and destroys heat sensitive enzymes.   

September & October

Feeding Light Hives

Combining Weaker Hives

Combining Weaker Hives

Fall feeding of bee hives in Trappe, Maryland

New hives made by splitting larger hives in the summer consumed lots of nectar to generate wax to produce new comb and may have less honey stored for winter.  They are supplemented through feeding of heavy sugar syrup (2:1 sugar/water mix), which the bees move into comb, dry down, and cap with wax like honey.  

Combining Weaker Hives

Combining Weaker Hives

Combining Weaker Hives

Queen on comb in hive in Oxford, Maryland

In addition to confirming their "winter stores", we review hives for strength and consolidate weaker hives by removing one queen.  A common beekeeping mantra is "take your losses in the fall".  This recommends combining weak hives, which both may be less likely to survive the winter, into a single, larger hive to increase its chances of survival to spring.

November

Ventilation & Insulation

Additional Mite Treatment

Ventilation & Insulation

Shim and insulation on hive.

Hives get a 1-1/2" shim to provide provide an upper entrance for ventilation to carry humid air out of the hive.   Foam insulation is placed under the outer cover to reduce potential for condensation, which could drip onto and chill the clustered bees.

Mouse Guards

Additional Mite Treatment

Ventilation & Insulation

Mouse guard and entrance reducer

Mice like the protected, dry and slightly warmer environment of bee hives as much as they enjoy houses and garages.   Hive entrances are reduced to <1" and screened to exclude mice. 

Additional Mite Treatment

Additional Mite Treatment

Additional Mite Treatment

Varroa destructor mite on a worker bee

After the honey supers are harvested, the hives are treated to control Varroa mites, an external parasite that feeds on honey bees. Mites spend most of their lives inside capped cells with developing bees, so hives are treated again in late November or early December when hives have the least amount of brood.

December

Bee hives in snow--winter on the Eastern Shore

Bee Clusters

Bees consume honey and cluster together to generate and conserve heat.  As daylight slowly increases after the winter solstice, a new bee year begins. 

12 oz. hexagonal jar of Eastern Shore wildflower honey and honey dipper

Enjoying the Fruit of Their Labor

Honey on warm cornbread or buttermilk biscuits.  Hot tea sweetened with honey. Honey glazed salmon.  Honey-bourbon toddy and a warm fire....


You won't return to mass produced, filtered, pasteurized honey after trying the raw and unprocessed, local treat our busy bees produced this year.  As a small, family operation, we will sell out before harvesting next summer's honey.

Try some today. 

Thanks for Exploring the Year With our hardworking bees!

Treat yourself - Buy Honey Now

Proud to Support OR BEE AFFILIATED WITH

Bee Informed Partnership-national research collaboration focused on understanding honey bee decline
Maryland Farm Bureau
Maryland State Beekeepers Association
Maryland's Best Agriculture
Talbot County Chamber of Commerce

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