Common beekeeping questions

When do bees produce honey?

When do I harvest honey?

How many times do I harvest honey in a year?

All the above questions are commonly asked by people who want to join beekeeping after getting excited by the trainings or news they get from beekeepers.

Well from my point of understanding, all the questions mean one thing or I summarise them into one statement and this is: A beekeeping calendar.

With the beekeeping calendar, the following are considered:-

1.      Climate

2.      Colony population and strength

3.      Floral blossoms

Climate the general weather conditions usually found in a particular place ie dry or wet [rainy season or drought]. Therefore during the wet weather, there is rainfall which brings water to provide nourishment to plants which grow and produce flowers. And during the dry weather condition, all the plants are affected and usually there is no growth and no flowers but not to all plants though.

So this element is very important to consider when you are keeping bees.

Colony population is the total number of bees available in a single hive. Usually a strong bee hive should contain roughly 50,000 bees and on average depending on the size of the beehive since a bigger hive contains more bees and a small hive contains less bees.

Therefore the more bees available in a beehive ensure a big accomplishment of activities in the hive which include collecting nectar to produce honey.

So during the nectar flow, more bees will store more honey and lesser bees will store less honey and the less honey will almost be for the new born babies leaving the beekeeper with nothing to harvest! But a strong and big colony will collect a lot of nectar and store a lot of honey enough for the babies that will hatch and surplus for the beekeeper to harvest.

The last thing to note here is the condition of the hive. Bees with a lot of troubles from pests, leaking hive and diseases could not perform to your expectations!

Blossom. When a tree or plant blossoms, it produces flowers before producing fruits which can be eaten by man and this is what bees need to collect nectar which they store to produce honey. Therefore bees collect nectar from flowers; “where there are no flowers, there is no nectar and no honey in the end”. During the flowering stage, bees visit the flowers everyday to collect nectar to store in the comb cells which turns into honey after a series of processes. Normally honey is available towards the end of flowering or two weeks after flowering season (well capped honey).

Want honey? Wait for flowers to provide nectar for your bees to process honey for you.

 

Calendar

Since we have seen the elements to bring together to understand a bee-keeping calendar, now let us make one.

A calendar is made up of 12months.

 

Month

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

June

July

Aug

Sept

Oct

Nov

Dec

Climate

dry

dry

dry/wet

wet

wet

wet

dry

Dry/wet

wet

wet

wet

Dry

Blossom

No/yes

no

no

yes

yes

No/yes

no

no

no

yes

yes

no

Activity

Food/ nectar

food

Build -up

Build-up

Collect nectar

food

food

Build-up

Build-up

Collect nectar

food

food

Honey

no

Yes/no

No/yes

no

no

yes

yes

No/yes

no

Yes/no

yes

no

Key:

A. Climate

Dry – no rainfall at all

Wet – there is rain

No/yes – Rainfall starts

B. Blossom [flowers which provide nectar and pollen to bees]

Yes - means the flowers are available

No - means there are no flowers

Yes/no - means there could be some flowers or not depending on the climate and availability of some plants like coffee, mangoes which flower during the dry seasons.

C. Activity [the bees are involved in]

1. Food – bees collect food from fields for themselves. They don’t store it since it is not enough and remember there are few or no flowers.

2. Collecting nectar

During this period, bees are collecting a lot of nectar to store and produce honey. And this is due to a lot of blossom in the fields and nourished plants by rainfall. Usually when there is enough nectar for bees to collect, the queens also lay a lot of eggs to produce more bees which sometimes leads to “swarming” when the population becomes too big to fit in the existing nest.

3. Build – up. During this period, the queen lays a lot of eggs to rear new bees to replace the lost number during the long dry period and also to produce more workforces.

D. Honey

No – No honey

Yes – There is honey

Yes/no – could be some honey depending on the blossom and climate ie coffee flowers could be available to provide some nectar.

Summary

Bees do their activities depending on the weather condition. When there is no enough nectar in the fields (dry period) the queen stop laying eggs to produce new bees. So when rain start, after a couple of weeks; plants are nourished, crops are grown and eventually they start to blossom and the bees will begin visiting the flowers to collect pollen and nectar. At this stage, the queen will start to lay eggs to produce more bees to restore the declined population and workforce and this phase is normally called the build-up phase.

Hey!! Know we are honey thieves because the bees store honey as their food to eat during drought and feed their new born babies. So keep inspecting your bees to see when they have honey and if you find enough for the bees and you then you walk with it.

Toni's visit

Profitable honey beekeeping-

WBA was delighted to receive Toni Downs in August 2015, when same came with donations from friends and beekeepers who wished to promote our beekeeping practice. We take this opportunity to thank once again everyone who participated in the fundraising campaign which gave us equipments like smokers, veils, candle molds, books, video CDs and many others items.
Toni came to our association at a time when we really needed help in equipment and practical skills and knowledge as well as motivation.
Toni is a beekeeper in the Caribbean and she gave us a lot of advise, guidance and solutions to some of our challenges. She also helped us on value addition to avoid vendors from buying our honey at a cheap price. She gave us ideas on how to identify markets for our products so we can keep more profit.
Toni opened our hives and experienced the behaviors of our bees, and she experienced how we keep bees in various types of beehives like log hives, Kenyan top bar hives and frame hives.
She visited different apiaries from various communities in various floral environments. Toni identified some challenges which we didn’t realize directly such as limited nectar sources and some flowering plants in our community produce less nectar and some produce more pollen.

We visited Mr. Ochuli who last year planted 2 acres of sesame (simsim) with a target of providing adequate nectar to his bees but to his surprise, his hives became more strong with bees and produced many swarms where he ended up with 15 hives in his apiary getting colonized. Therefore sesame helped to provide pollen to bees rather than nectar as was expected.  We discussed this and Toni suggested  Mr. Ochuli to plant simsim as an early crop for pollen and bee growth and then sunflower to follow so that there will be lots of bees from the simsim to collect the nectar and make honey from the sunflower crop.

Toni found the following:
• Members sell honey in combs to vendors at $1.1 per kilogram
• Honey production went down since flowers are limited due to deforestation (charcoal burning)
• Poor marketing skills for our products
• People cut down trees for burning charcoal as their source of income (economic activity)
• Log hives are more productive than moveable comb hives (top bars and frame hives).
• Members don’t process their honey
• Bees are not occupying new hives (swarms) as in prior years.
She restored hope in members who were losing hope in beekeeping! Along with Madame Nora, she demonstrated with members how to make products from beeswax and honey such as soap, lotion and candles. Members also learned how to dip wicks into hot wax to make candles. This excited many people, especially men, who realized that they can easily make candles for use in their houses when they run out of kerosene at late hours and can’t go to stores for more.
Well, she found African bees are not killer bees like most statements say and most beekeepers from WBA work bees during time with ease.

More news about her visit to WBA and Uganda will be available from her soon please keep checking the site.

For now we are communicating with Toni to come up with a simple piece of equipment that we can build and use it to squeeze honey out of our combs while maintaining hygiene as a group/club.
This would help us get a better price and allow us to skip vendors who use excuses such as; honey was poorly processed to persuade beekeepers into selling honey to them at a very cheap price.
See some of the activities in photos below (more photos are available in our facebook group: blessed honeybeekeepers Uganda

Toni transfering bees from a damaged hive into a new hive while unprotected children watching

Toni showing a comb built on a bar

Norah and Toni during the candle making class

Members dipping wicks into hot wax to make candles

Candles

In soap making class: Norah and Toni

Pouring the solution into molds (soap making)

Pouring the lotion into cans during the lotion making class

Some members posses for a photo after recieving smokers and jackets

Toni and other members inspecting a bee hive

What are Stingless bees?

This block of soil has stingless bees inside.
It was dug from a termite hive

Stingless bees which belong to Meliponula Ferruginea are small insects which are brown in color. They commonly live in termite hills which have termites (for safety).

When they enter the termite hill, they usually nest in the brooding area of the termites and they keep expanding their nest upto a size of a rugby ball and I will call this a nest pot (since it resembles a pot shape).  The nest is usually located 1 to 1.5metres deep (also depends on the size of the termite hill).

When the nest grows big (colony size), usually the bees go deeper and begin a new nest where a princess (new queen) move and start laying eggs to start complete colony. Commonly, we find 2 colonies connected to the mother colony (first colony).

Showing the entrances for the separate hives 

we found in the termite hill. 

Can you see the two standing pipes like straws

All the three colonies use only one entrance (main entrance). We found more than one independent colonies in one termite hill with separate entrances and the nests never connect (And they are the very one I am writing the post on and all the photos used here).

Characteristics of the bees

These bees are stingless; they don’t sting. They are shy. 

They rarely abscond.

Organisation of the hive

Showing a honey pot

They build soft resin/gum (cerumen) pots where they store honey and pollen. The size of one pot is like a peanut/ groundnut. The brood combs are like normal bee combs though they are smaller in size. They are located in the centre of the nest and they are covered in honey and pollen pots. Brood combs are horizontally aligned and they are attached by thin resin/gum (pillars) to each other.

Pots for honey, pollen are also attached to each other by thin gum.

Showing inside the nest;
honey and pollen pots on outside,
brood are circular and
the queen cells are in the centre. 

The brood combs are cylindrical in shape and provide a big space in the centre where queen eggs are laid and raised. Also the centre acts as the main highway or passage to connect to various sections in the nest (including the tertiary nests).

Note: Stingless bees build nest according to colony size. Therefore they keep expanding until it reaches a maximum width and length of a rugby ball.

The honey has a higher moisture content (thin) compared to normal honey from apis melifera.

A Queen on a brood comb

The queen has a light brownish stomach and she can’t fly. The bees don’t gather around her like normal bees do. And since these bees are shy, they don’t eat their honey while you are working them even when it spills. They don’t fly away even when the nest is torn into pieces; they just crawl around. I have this photo where the chickens were eat them as they where crawling on the ground!

Above all, stingless bees are very easy to domestic compared to apis melifera because, they don’t easily abscond, they require small boxes and they don’t sting (safe for the community).

But they are low honey producers! The wax is brown in color and soft and somehow sticky.

More photos are available on request or in our facebook group (blessed honeybee centre Uganda)

Meliponula Ferruginea

Stingless Bees

Stingless bees can be found in most tropical or subtropical regions of the world, such as

Australia, Africa, Southeast Asia , and tropical America.

The type we are talking about here is called Meliponula Ferruginea.

Digging stingless bees from the termite hill. 

Here in Uganda, stingless bees especially the type which I am currently domesticating is not found in most parts of the country, actually it is not present in Nakasongola but very popular in Mukono!

On 03rd October 2015, I posted about our experience with stingless bees where I shortly wrote about them. They are about 8mm or more in body length.

Stingless bees are facing challenges

This block of soil has stingless bees inside.
It was dug from a termite hive

Stingless bees are likely to meet their extinct in the next 5 decades because their nests are destroyed so much because every time the honey hunters find them.

They dig apart the termite hill and usually the termites abscond from the hill or die and the bees die too. Here are photos during our transfer of stingless bees into a hive.

These chickens are eating the bees crawling on the ground

We transferred two hives yet we found three hives in one termite hill. The last hive was destroyed by the team which I worked with to eat honey. All bees that were crawling around helplessly were eaten by a hen and a cock (see in the photo). The nest was destroyed. This has been the practice until I chose to domestic them. My hive design has both a brood and honey chamber.

Sam and Isaac installing the hive up in he branches of a tree

Many community members especially farmers are poisoning termite hills which render them poisonous to bees too; poison kills bees and bees cannot nest in poisoned hills.

Urbanization is also a big challenge to bees where nectar sources and nests are cleared.

We are now looking forward at sensitizing the communities about the importance of bees in our crop production which include pollination and honey production.

I am happy to tell you that the bees got used with ease and they are happy to live in my boxes. They made repairs to damages caused on their pots and brood during transfer.

I will get back after my first harvest and the hives have become strong and productive.

The nest is broken into small pieces to access honey.
Some honey pots are put in the bowl while the brood is left on the ground (close to the bowl)

Honey Hunter's bird

Honey Hunter's Bird

Honey hunting is a history in Wampiti and neighboring communities. But before it became a history, honey hunting was practiced in March massively by a group of youth and adults.

Honey hunting was carried out as a side activity by wild animal hunters or by honey lovers who would go into the jungle specifically looking for wild bees.

Of course honey hunting stopped because there limited forests left and many people keep bees today.

A match box was something shouldn't be left behind and an axe, a hoe and a panga (Machete).

A match box for starting fire

Axe/ machete for clearing and cutting the tree down and open the hive

Hoe for digging the termite hill in case bees are found in the termite hill.

Surprise! Just after 10 minutes of walking in the jungle, there appears a bird (Nyamalyayi is the name in the local language).

This bird is wonderful, it comes and sit on a branch of a tree close to the honey hunters and it starts whistling to honey hunters. Immediately when the honey hunters hear the bird, they also (usually one) start whistling back while the bird flies from one tree to the next tree in a distance of about 50-100metres. The honey hunters will keep following until the bird lands on a branch of a tree where bees are or on a termite hill where bees are.

Thank you, thank you says the honey hunters and then they begin to make fire near the tree and there after they begin cutting to fall it down. When it falls down, now the warriors (guys who don't fear bees) come and start opening/ cutting the hive area to open it and access the combs. The rest are adding green leaves to fire to make it produce a lot of smoke.

The most dangerous act was; if they couldn't find honey, they would put pieces of firewood into the nest and set it on fire. And the whole hive and branch burn into ashes.

The honey hunting would sometimes go up to midnight especially when there is moon light at night. But the bird never work at night. During the night hours, the honey hunters would go to hives which one found or knows about. During honey hunting seasons, a lot of swarms would be seen hunging on branches of trees.

Myth.

The birds which helped honey hunters are believed to be a honey/ brood eating bird. Therefore since they couldn't break open the hives, they instead help honey hunters to locate the bees with high hopes that when the honey hunters open the hive, they will keep some honey for them.

But it was believed that when you don't leave anything (honey or brood) for the bird, next time the bird would direct you to snake. Therefore if they are careful, the snake might bite them.

From my experience, sometimes the bird would be precise and sometimes we couldn't see the bees!

Well these birds are becoming less and less in Nakasongola and I wish you would come and enjoy the honey hunting experience with help of the birds. Please come before the birds are extinct.

See you there.

Keep buzzing the bees.

Stingless Bees

Beekeepers, we have an active type of bees which pollinate flowers, collect nectar and produce honey like apis mellifera do.

Body Size and Nest

The entrance (look in the centre of this photo)

A normal size of apis melipona is just 1/4 of a normal apis mellifera.
Blackish in color with small white strips.

They live in termite hills or mounds and use only one opening for entry and exit. The entrance can take them more  than 1.5 metres deep to reach the first hive. Usually they build up to 3 nests in one termite hill with only one entrance. The entrance connects to the first hive and then they build another small pipe like passage which connects to the second hive and the third.

Digging a termite hill (with termites present)

Do they sting? 
The bees are stingless bees shy and get scared very fast.

Honey and pollen pots

Experience
when we opened the nest for stingless bees, we saw the following:
1. Honey in brownish pots. The size of one pot is equivalent to 4 cells of honey combs.

2. Pollen in brownish pots too. The size of one cell is equivalent to 4 cells of honey combs. The pots are made from soft propolis substance.

Brood combs

3. Brood chamber has comb cells which are small but packed like normal comb cells.

4. Found the helpless queen which couldn't fly at all since it had a big belly.

Queen (with a Gold stomach)

Inside Hive
The brood is in the centre of the nest surrounded by honey and pollen pots. The color of brood combs is different from the honey and pollen pots. (see the last photo at the bottom of this post)

Honey taste
We tasted the honey and it almost had the same properties of apis melifera honey.

Way forward
We are going to keep them since they are also getting less and less because to access their honey people must destroy the nests first! And pesticide is also killing them. Finding poison free termite hills is also a challenge since of the termite hills are poisoned to kill the termites.

Inside the nest

Honey

Honey scent in an apiary

I smell Honey!

Just imagine while moving around your apiary and smell honey fumes!

One time I was invited to inspect beehives in a private farm located in Mukono District with over 30 beehives. 

The owner of the farm told me that he has high hopes for harvesting a lot of honey from his bee hives because he smells honey whenever goes close to the bee yard.

Imagine honey was smelling so much that I also smelt it several metres away before reaching the entrance of the apiary.

I was amazed by the words from the farm owner though In the back of my mind i know that when bees are fanning to regulation the hive temperature (and moisture content) there are high hopes of uncapped honey scent to escape.

Also it is possible for uncapped honey to smell than capped honey.

Therefore the implication of the smell is; there is presence of uncapped honey or nectar than honey ready for harvesting.

Finally I opened the first hive and there was only two Combs with uncapped honey. The second hive also had honey on the brood combs and one bar with uncapped honey.

We went to the third and the four until the 30th hive and to surprise you, we never came back with a single comb of honey.

I never told him in the beginning that his bees just have uncapped honey and since they are many in one place, the honey scent becomes strong in the area.

When we got back to his office, I explained to him why he smelt honey in his apiary.

Honey hunters have a myth like when there is honey in the hive, you smell it, well they are right because they find there honey though not ripe honey (capped honey).

Enjoy a spoon of honey everyday.