As a beekeeper you are going to intrude into the honeybee colony’s home. Some colonies will carry on with their daily work provided you are careful & gentle when exploring their home. Others will aggressively defend their territory. This means bees will try to sting you. Gently smoking the colony, before opening the hive, masks the alarm pheromone and encourages bees to feed ie. distracts them.

Since bee stings can sometimes cause an allergic reaction it’s wise to wear protective clothing when opening up a hive. Another reason for wearing protective clothing is that it can be a sticky process with honey, wax or, propolis getting on your clothes and or, hands. Propolis can cause a skin reaction

So what sort of protective clothing do you need to wear? Fortunately, there is now a wide choice of styles & colours for beekeepers who are also fashionistas!

Three items of protective clothing are recommended:

A Bee Suit

Bee Suits
All Shapes & Sizes

It’s best to have a full body, all-in-one bee suit which zips up the front. Best to try for fit before you buy, if possible. The traditional colours are either white or, khaki although many suppliers are now offering a wide range of pastel colours. Make sure the wrist & ankle cuffs are elasticated to deter bees from entering! Apart from fit, the most significant choice will be the type & fit of the veil which comes with the bee suit. It’s a personal choice but, my preference is for “hat” style veil (centre white bee suit) provided the hat fits properly! The type of hooped veil on the left can be rather floppy on the head.

Bee Suit Tops

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A quick inspection may not justify wrestling into your full length bee suit so, it can also be useful to have a bee suit top, like the ones in the picture left  ……. provided you also wear thick pants (e.g. jeans) and protect your ankles.

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One note of warning! After a while you are likely to become confident in manipulating a colony. A combination of confidence & needing to do a quick inspection often results in less care about personal security. ALWAYS check that your bee suit is fully zippered! Even if it’s only 1/2″ open, at some stage a bee will get inside your suit. The bee won’t like it & you won’t like the consequence

Gloves 

The type of gloves you decide to wear is primarily a function of how sensitive you are to stings. The hands are probably the most likely part of a beekeepers anatomy to receive stings. Don’t buy the leather type. You can’t regularly wash them. Some beekeepers wear surgical/latex disposable gloves or, even washing up gloves. One potential issue with using latex disposables or washing up gloves, is the need to seal the wrist area (you can use elastic bands). Some wear thick rubber gloves, which can be repeatedly washed (they will get sticky, waxed up & propolised). It depends on your sensitivity.

Boots

The ankles, like the hands, are a vulnerable part of the beekeepers anatomy. Most regular beekeepers wear wellington boots so that ankles are protected by tucking the elasticated ankle cuffs of the bee suit inside the wellington boots.

Beekeepers Toolbox

Every beekeeper needs a toolbox when carrying out a routine colony inspection. It’s frustrating to suddenly discover in a routine inspection that you have to close up the hive, trudge back to the house/shed to pick up a widget of some sort or, other & trudge back again. Your bees certainly won’t thank you for intruding twice in a short space of time.

So, what should beekeepers have in their toolbox? Perhaps it’s best to divide these into two categories: The “Must Have” & “Might Need”. The following assumes you will be wearing a bee suit with a veil. Your ankles are protected (best to wear wellies or, boots into which you can tuck pants or, bee suit and your suit is zipped (no gaps) & a veil.

Must Have:

Smoker

1. A Smoker: If up to 4 colonies, a smoker which is 7″ tall by 4″ in diameter is probably sufficient. For more colonies, a larger smoker is requires since it will need to generate smoke for a longer period. You will likely need a smoker upto  10″ tall by 4″ diameter, which holds more fuel. There’s nothing more frustrating than your smoker running out of fuel in the middle of an inspection.
2. Fuel & Matches/Lighter: There are many different sorts of fuel used by beekeepers. The main requirements are a cheap, easily accessible fuel which is easy to light & stays alight throughout all the inspections. It should produce a cool smoke, without sparks (you won’t want to cremate your bees!) and also the fuel should not produce lots of tarry residue (it’s a real pain to clean your smoker!). Rolled up corrugated cardboard (cut to fit the height of your smoker) is a popular choice, old hessian sacking, wood shavings (sawdust tends to “go out” due to compaction & lack of air. Some top this off with grass cuttings to cool the smoke. There are many others but be careful to select a fuel which isn’t treated with chemicals!
3. Hive Tool: Along with the smoker, this is the tool you must have to complete an inspection. There are 2 main types:

Standard Hive Tool

The Standard Hive Tool has a curved end to prize frames out of a super or, brood box. It also has a sharp end for scraping wax & propolis from frames & hive components. You can even cut out queen cells from a frame. The hole at the left of the tool facilitates hanging it up in your shed, on a screw or, nail.

Hive Tool “J” Type

The ‘J” Hive Tool also has a sharp end for scraping but, it has a “hook” for easing frames out of a brood box or, super.

Note that both tools are colour painted. At some point, you will drop your hive tool in your apiary & the colour just makes it easier to find in the grass!

The discretionary “other” items in your toolbox   may only be required once in a season but, it’s always helpful to have them at hand rather than a trek to your bee shed or, wherever else you keep the rest of your equipment. These include:

Queen Cage

A Queen Introduction Cage:

At some stage you will want to introduce a queen to a queenless colony or, replace a failing queen This requires a queen introduction cage, which is a mesh construction to allow workers to groom & feed the queen inside. The queen is either guided into the cage or, when you are more comfortable with handling queens, picked up and  inserted into the open end of the  cage. The open end is sealed over with a small piece of newspaper & the paper secured in place with an elastic band. The cage can then be inserted (paper end down) between two brood frames. If the cage is used for taking a queen from one apiary to another it’s safer to use a cork/wooden bung.

Queen Clip

Queen Clip

This is a spring loaded “jaws” device which, when the handles are squeezed together, the “jaws” open & you can either insert the queen or, encourage her to walk in. The spring loaded jaws are then slowly & gently released to close up the clip & trap the queen inside. Care needs to be taken not to trap or, squash the queen in the end of the jaws. The advantage of this device is that once the queen is secured, the clip can be put inside your bee suit pocket & you can safely carry out a desired re-arrangement of frames or, other manipulation without worrying about the survival of the queen (Remember the queen is the most valuable asset in the colony!)

Queen Marking Cage

Queen Marking Cage

At some stage you will try out marking a new queen. The queen marking cage is a vital accessory for all those of us who are not yet confident enough to pick up a queen by her wings & mark her. To use the queen marking cage all you need to do is find the queen on a frame. Lay the frame on its side & gently put the marking cage over the top of the queen. It’s best to minimise the number of other bees in the cage. Gently press the cage into the comb so that the queen is trapped by the wire strands within the circle. Now it’s relatively easy to gently dab the colour of the year on to the glossy circular area behind the queen’s eyes. Leave for a few seconds to allow the paint to dry. & then gently release her.

  Marking Paint (For Colour of the Year)

Set of Queen Bee Marking Pens

Hives are a convenient way of housing & managing a colony of bees as well as protecting them from the elements and some predators. This post is intended to assist new  or, aspiring beekeepers to understand the all the constituent parts of a hive and their function

Working from the top of the hive to the bottom you will normally find the following:-

On top of the hive is a Roof, which fits over the hive and down the sides for about 3 to 6 inches. The hive is covered in thin sheet aluminium or, other waterproof material. Deep roofs, which allow a feeder to be placed under the roof are the most useful vs cheaper shallow roofs. Inside the roof is a rail around the inside to give a small air space. Between this rail and the inside top of the roof are ventilation holes with gauze placed over the holes to allow humid air out and stop insects getting in.

The Crown Board  is a flat board with a hole in the top and used primarily as a cover on top of the brood and super boxes. The boards are also used to separate different parts of the hive, perhaps with a bee escape fitted into the hole or as a support for a feeder which, if placed over the hole, allows access to the feed but, prevents the bees from getting above the feeder.

Supers are more shallow than the brood box thereby providing a reasonably sized box to lift when full of honey (they are still heavy!). Some beekeepers use brood boxes as supers, allowing only one size of frame to be used throughout. This gives a very heavy load when full of honey and can weigh as much as sixty pounds (30 Kilos) and is not to be recommended for beekeepers with bad backs or, a distance to walk over rough ground. Depending on the hive type there are typically 10 or, more super frames in each super.

On top of the brood box can be placed a Queen Excluder, which is a flat perforated sheet or metal grill through which the worker bees can pass.

The restricted apertures in the queen excluder prevent the (larger) queen from moving up to the Super where the surplus honey is stored. In this way the bees are forced to contain their brood in the Brood Box. Some beekeepers believe that Queen Excluders are disliked by bees making them reluctant to move up into the super in early spring. If the bees are restricted they may stop the queen laying and reduce the number of bees. This is disadvantageous to your honey crop since, the art of beekeeping is to maximize the honey crop while preventing swarming…..provided there is adequate room for the colony. The more flying bees, the more nectar is gathered  & honey produced. Consequently, the size of the brood chamber is an important variable when choosing your type of hive or, brood box configuration

Next comes the Brood Box which usually contains the same number of frames (though the frames are larger in area) as the super. The brood box is placed on the Hive Floor and is the area in which the queen resides, lays her eggs and the brood is raised. The volume of the brood box depends on the hive type and the number/size of frames it is designed to hold.

The Entrance can be reduced by fitting an Entrance Block, which is a strip of wood that fits into the entrance. It has a small cut-out for the bees to enter and exit but gives a small “doorway” which the bees can more easily guard to reduce the risk of wasps or, bees from another colony entering and robbing the hive.

Mesh Varroa Floor

The Floor is a flat board with raised edges on three sides, the remaining open end serving as the entrance. Increasingly, wooden floors are being replaced with Mesh Varroa Floors to facilitate monitoring of  the varroa mite population in the hive. This also facilitates removal of a portion of the mite population as they drop through the mesh floor.

Important: There should always be enough space for bees to “walk” between each hive component. Consequently, it is essential to be consistent when buying hive components & assembling them into a hive that, the bee space for all equipment is consistently either, Bottom or, Top bee space! If you mix the two there will be no bee space between some components, causing a restriction in the free movement of bees & also inevitable squashing of bees when you re-assemble equipment after inspecting a colony.

Since the discovery of the “Bee Space” and the introduction of removable frames there have probably been as many ideas of what is the perfect design as there have been beekeepers. This can be a nightmare for new beekeepers buying their first hive.

The National Hive is the most popular hive in the UK and because of this it makes life easier for beekeepers to buy colonies on frames or buy or exchange equipment with other beekeepers. The frames have long lugs and overhang the inner walls of the hive hence, the internal rebates front and back. This rebate serves as a handgrip when lifting the brood or supers. Some think the brood box is too small for modern prolific bees and add a super to the brood box to increase the space for the queen. This is referred to as “a brood and a half”.  Nice in theory but, a nuisance when you have to find the queen across twice the usual number of frames. Others, overcome this issue by adding a conversion box  on top of the National Brood box so, that larger, National brood frames (14″ x 12″) can be used. Having flat sides it is easy to strap the National hive up when relocating your hive (to another site or, for “migratory beekeeping” – moving the bees from one nectar source to another). National supers are the smallest of all hives and so the weight of an individual, full super is the lightest of all hives.

The WBC hive is named after its designer William Broughton Carr. It’s a “double walled” hive with the outer part made of pyramid sections or “lifts“, which protect separate boxes inside containing the frames. These are the classic hives of the past that you see on paintings and cards. In theory, it is an excellent hive, cool in summer and warm in winter, due to its double insulation and ideal for bees. There is a standard for these hives but, if you are buying second hand make sure that they are the same size!… as they can vary. The WBC hive takes National frames.The main problems with WBC hives is that they are complicated in construction, require more labour to access all parts of the hive & can be difficult to move to another site (it’s difficult to securely strap the hive due to it’s two part construction). If you only ever anticipate keeping one or, two hives it may be an option particularly if you value form over function.

The Langstroth hive is also named after its designer – Rev L. L. Langstroth – and is the most popular hive in the world – but not in the UK. The UK, European and American Langstroths differ in size. The German frames are not much bigger than a UK National and the American Super frames are slightly deeper than the UK equivalent. In addition you can find a Jumbo Langstroth which has a deeper brood frame. That said it is a simple hive in construction and easy to maintain.

 The Commercial hive, as its name implies, is favoured by commercial beekeepers having brood foundation measuring 16″ x 10″. Its size is such that it can be operated with standard National supers. This gives the best of both worlds in that you get a large brood area and light supers. Similar in appearance to the Langstroth it is also a single wall hive and is easy to work and maintain.

The Smith hive is of Scottish origin and still popular there, being suited to colder weather and easily moved to the heather. A single walled hive similar to the Langstroth but smaller.
The Modified Dadant is the largest hive in this article. This hive is similar to the Langstroth but with deeper frames and slightly wider spacing. Favoured by many commercial beekeepers it can be very heavy to lift and not recommended for anyone with a bad back!

Detailed data on most hive types is listed in the table below. Note in particular, the differing sizes of the brood chamber (measured by the max number of cells available to the colony) in the brood box: