Beekeeping class for beginners, part 3, taught by Grant Gillard of Jackson, Missouri at the Cape Girardeau Career and Technology Center

1. First Year Expectations
Grant F.C. Gillard Jackson, MO
gillard5@charter.net

2. Reminders
• Purpose of class was to present enough
information to help you make a reasonable
decision.
• Certainly no obligation to get into beekeeping.
• There’s a million things that cannot be taught.
• Best teachers are the bees, “OTJ” training.
• If it is your desire, I’ll gladly help. If needed,
I’m available.

3. Challenging Times
• Bees are dying
• Beekeepers are dying, if not quitting
• The odds are stacked against them and us
• Difficult time to get started
– Loss of habitat, monoculture
– GMO crops, pesticides
– CCD Colony Collapse Disorder

4. How do I start raising bees?
• There are a thousand ways to keep honey
bees…
…and most of them work.
• Every experienced beekeeper has an opinion…
…but not all of them are correct.

5. First Year Dilemmas
• “How often do I inspect my hives?”
• “I can’t find my queen! What does she
look like?”
• If you have eggs, pearly white larvae,
capped pupae…you have a queen. You
don’t have to find her every time you open
the hive.
• “My hives are aggressive and sting me!”

6. Alternative hive designs
• Top Bar Hive

7. Challenges to My Beekeeping
• Time and Energy, only 24 hours in a day
• Unpredictable, full-time job
• Myself! Especially when my old friend,
“Procrastination,” comes to visit
• Weather, storms that close windows of
opportunity
• Keeping colonies healthy and productive
with minimal, natural, non-chemical ideals
• Reducing winter losses (fall management)

8. Keeping Bees – Getting Started
• Location of apiary
• Education and Information Gathering
• Acquiring Equipment
• Finding Bees
• Harvesting and Extracting

9. 1. Location
• Sheltered from wind
• Full sun, or morning sun
• Access by vehicle or wheel barrow
• Plant diversity within 2 miles
• Neighbors and livestock
• City ordinances

10. Hivestands
• Pallets
• Concrete blocks, bricks
• Landscaping timbers
• Something to get the hives up off the
ground

15. 2. Education
• Take a class
• Read the supply catalogs
• Find a local association
– First Presbyterian Church 4th Tuesday
– 7:00 pm Park in back, use the hdcp ramp
• Find a mentor or partner or buddy
• Read, read, read (You Tube videos)
• Get bees…learn by the seat of your pants

16. Bee classes
• Three Rivers Bee Association
• http://threeriversbeekeepers.com/
• Eastern Missouri Beekeepers Association
• http://www.easternmobeekeepers.com/

17. 3. Acquiring Equipment
• Buy new – stay similar, i.e. 8 or 10 frame
• Buy used (ever wonder why those bees
died?) – mixed sizes, homemade orphans
• Make your own (when you have more time
than money) – keep it simple
– Buy lumber (poor quality)
– Salvage and pirate dumpsters, pallets
– Can be very relaxing and therapeutic
– Stick with Langstroth conventions
– Buy new and use as a pattern

18. Easiest Way
• Isabees in St. Louis www.isabees.com
• The Bee Barn in Paducah
www.beebarnshop.com
• Go visit and ask them what they
recommend, opportunity to ask questions
• You can see and feel, hands-on
• Order a “beginner’s kit” from any supplier
(but maybe get some unnecessary things)

19. Equipment: Thinking Ahead
• “Will I make honey my first year?”
• “Do I need an extractor (honey spinner) for
my first year?”
• Do I need a special place, dedicated room
to extract my honey?
• Do I need a queen excluder?
• What if I find out I’m allergic to bee stings?

21. Equipment Issues
• What if I decide not to continue?
• What’s the resale value? (25%? 50%?)
• Who wants to buy my homemade stuff?
• Who will buy my orphaned, odd-size stuff?
• How much can I expect to get back?

22. 4. Where will I acquire my bees?
• Packages
• Nucs (Nucleus, mini-colony)
• Swarms (including traps and phone calls)
• Purchasing whole, existing hives
• Taking feral colonies out walls and trees
• Different sources will raise different
expectations, yield different results.

23. A. Packages
• Easiest to start, easy to acquire
• 1 Queen, a bunch of loose bees, unrelated
• Place caged queen in your hive
• Shake bees around her, close up and feed
• It takes the queen one week to be
released and start laying eggs.
• It takes three weeks for those eggs to
hatch and emerge as adults.
• It takes a package four weeks to start
building up. Older bees start dying.

27. Feeding ?
• I suggest seven weeks of 1:1 syrup and a
pollen patty, Honey-B-Healthy
• Why seven weeks?
Four weeks until first generation hatches
Three weeks as house/nurse bees until they
become foragers
• I highly recommend wax foundation
• Donate brood frames frames from existing
colonies = very, very helpful!

28. B. Nucleus Colonies
• Basically a mini-version of the hive
• Beekeeper makes nucs after buying a
mail-order queen, then splits their hive
• Laying queen, already accepted
• 4 or 5 frames of bees and “brood”
• Ready for expansion into the big hive
• You have a four week jump on packages
because you have brood in all stages.

31. Feeding (?)
• At least two weeks with 1:1 syrup and
pollen patty, Honey-B-Healthy suggested.
• If you have other colonies, pulling one or
two frames of brood from them to add to
this nuc will greatly enhance it’s growth.
• Nuc producers tend to put older “junk”
frames into nucs, frames with dark, black
wax. Plan on replacing these.

32. C. Swarms
• Typically feral colonies living in the wild
• Send out swarms in late spring and early
summer to repopulate the local area.
• Will be an old queen and half of the
original hive (old hive raises new queen)
• Easy to settle into a bee hive, very
motivated to draw out comb and get
going
• Will eventually supersede that old queen

37. Swarms
• Cheap! Free! And unpredictable!
• Can’t be scheduled, may not show up
• Can’t always be retrieved (40 feet in the
air)
• Will sit still for 20 minutes up to 2 days.
• When called, you really need to go NOW
• Best to retrieve them at dusk
• Great public service – get on “swarm list”

38. D. Buying Existing Hives
• Often neglected, but not always
• History can be fuzzy, why are you selling?
• REALLY HEAVY
• Have to be moved with bees in them
• Best to move after dark, entrances
screened, bees agitated, and hot
• Better yet, split into nucs, requeen and
lighten the weight.

39. E. Bee Removals

42. Minimum First Year
• Top
• Inner Cover
• Medium Super** maybe make some honey
• Brood Box – frames with wax foundation
• Brood Box
• Bottom (I prefer screen bottom boards)
• Hive Stand

43. Getting bees established
• Once established, bees know how to take
care of themselves.
• Start bees in one box, intersperse comb
• 70% rule = when 7 of the 10 frames are
drawn out with comb, add a second box.
• When 7 of those 10 are drawn out, add a
third box. Bring bottom box to the top.
• Objective: build colony to be strong
enough to survive the coming winter

44. What to expect your first year
• Spring – build up of brood, add boxes pro re nata
• Summer – bees store nectar, make honey,
maybe some surplus honey, maybe not
• Late Summer – start treating for mites, etc.
• Fall – insure adequate stored honey or feed
sugar syrup, queen slows down, consolidation
• Winter – worry needlessly because it’s so cold
and you think your bees won’t make it.
• Spring – suppress mild shock as bees start
flying. Cycle starts over with build up of brood.
• Now you’re faced with second-year issues

45. Some bees die
“If you’re raising live stock
you have to get used
to dead stock.”

46. Record Keeping
• Keep a journal (on-line programs)
– www.hivetracks.com
• More like a personal blog (publish it on the Internet if you
wish!)
• Details are a huge help if you ask someone a question
• Write things down in a notebook
• Date
• What I saw and observed
• What I did, action
• What I need to do next time, what equipment needed
• Take pictures

47. Every Beekeeper is Different
Every Hive is Different
Every Year is Different
• Shoot first, then call whatever you hit the target.
“I meant for that to happen.”
• Nothing important merely happens. Plan,
anticipate, expect success, keep learning!
• There is no “try,” only do.
• Everyone starts out with a “first year.”
• Many people start over in their second year, or
third year, or fourth year…

49. Questions?