Products Of The Bee Hive

First Lessons in Beekeepingby Keith Delaplane

Chapter 6PPT by Tim & Jane Donohoe,

LA Master Beekeeper Advisory Group Members

POLLINATION OF AGRICULTURAL

CROPS BYHONEY BEES

 

Honey bees pollinate a vast number of farm crops including fruits, vegetables, nuts, and grasses such as: alfalfa, apple, almond, artichoke, asparagus, blackberry, blueberry, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cacao, cantaloupe, carrot, cashew, cauliflower, celery, cherry, citrus, cranberry, dill, eggplant, fennel, garlic, kale, kola nut, look, lychee, macadamia, mango, mustard, nutmeg, onion, passion fruit, peach,

pear, plum, pumpkin, raspberry, sapote, squash, sunflower, tangerine, tea, watermelon

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As they gather pollen and nectar for their survival, bees pollinate a vast number of plants including fruits, vegetables, legumes, grasses, and nuts that require insect pollination for successful crop yield and quality and to produce an abundance of food that is nutritious and safe.

Known and valued since ancient times for the production of honey and beeswax, we now realize that honey bees also play a vital role in the survival of man as pollinators of a vast arrayof agricultural crops.

The most easily manipulated pollinating insect for the largest variety of agricultural crops which man has been able to control is the honey bee. No other insect pollinator compares to the honey bee when it comes to placing large numbers of pollinators on a specific crop at a specific time, and demand for the rental of beehives has grown steadily.

  “It’s estimated that there are about 2.4 million colonies in the U.S. today, two-thirds of which travel the country each year pollinating crops and producing honey and beeswax. More than one million colonies are used each year in California just to pollinate the state’s almond crop! The $14.6 billion contribution made by managed honey bees comes in the form of increased yields and superior quality crops for growers and American consumers — a healthy beekeeping industry is invaluable to a healthy U.S. agricultural economy.” American Beekeeping Federation http://www.abfnet.org

WHAT’S HAPPENINGIN THE HIVE

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POLLEN

During foraging trips, bees gather pollen and nectar from plants for the production of their own food. Beekeepers collect and sell pollen for health uses. The collection of pollen requires a pollen trap installed at the hive entrance and pollen accumulation during an intense pollen season.

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Pollen contains the primary source of protein that is an essential part of the diet of brood bees and adult bees. Honey bees are equipped with special pollen baskets in which they pack and carry pollen gathered from the stamens of flowers back to the hive. In the hive, the pollen is mixed with nectar and bee saliva containing enzymes, fungi, and bacterial organisms forming small hard granules called bee bread or ambrosia, which arestored in honeycomb cells.

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HONEY

Bees store honey for their own nutritional needs and store it for use in the winter; it is their source of energy and heat. Bees make honey by collecting nectar from flowers and combining that nectar with an enzyme that converts the sucrose in the nectar to glucose and fructose. This process gives honey its unique properties. Honey varies in flavor, color, and crystallization characteristics according to the plant from which nectar is gathered.

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At each flower visit, a bee sucks up a tiny amount of nectar and adds it to her honey sac. A bee’s body contains a honey stomach, which is separate and apart from her digestive stomach and intestines, where a special enzyme is added to the stomach’s contents changing the nectar into the simple sugar found in honey.

Honeybees live only about 6 weeks in summer. They literally work themselves to death, wearing out their wings.

These enzymes begin working on the nectar as soon as the foraging bee takes it into her honey sac. One average worker bee will make 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey in her entire lifetime. A foraging bee makes from 100 to 1500

flower visits to fill her stomach with 70 milligrams of nectar, 85% of her body weight.

When foraging bees bring nectar into the hive, it contains about 80% water. Upon returning to to hive, she transfers the nectar to a house bee and takes off for another load. The house bee, in turn, takes the nectar into her body, adding more enzymes and continuing the curing process. She and other house bees deposit the honey into empty honeycomb cells for evaporation. The house bees must then reduce the moisture content to approximately 18% to make the honey into a moreconcentrated product.

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The warmth of the hive, which is always about 95° F, along with the action of worker bees fanning the uncapped cells evaporates water from the honey until the resulting liquid is approximately 18% water, the consistency we are accustomed to in honey. Bees will not cap honey until it reaches the proper amount of moisture. At that point, the bees put a fresh, white beeswax cap on the cell, which keeps the honey pure and prevents spoilage until the cap is removed.

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The Romans used to pay their taxes with honey.  

BEESWAX

Bees also manufacture wax from sugars and carbohydrates found in honey. Bees use wax to construct honeycomb, which is where the brood is raised and honey is stored. Bees eat their own honey to get the energy to make wax, consuming six to eight pounds of honey to make one pound of wax.

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Flakes of wax are secreted from glands on the underside of the abdomen of nurse bees. When the wax comes out of the nurse bees’ glands, it is clear. The bees transfer the flakes from their hind legs to their front legs and then into their mouths. They chew the wax flakes, which softens them and makes them malleable enough to form honeycomb. The new beeswax is snowy white.

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ROYAL JELLY

Royal jelly, the hugely potent food that is fed to all bees for the first three days and then to the queen eggs for their entire gestation, is secreted from the hypopharyngeal glands in the heads of young worker bees and is fed to all young larvae; but, the queen larvae are fed about 20% more than worker larvae. The worker bees continue to feed the queen royal jelly throughout her adult life.

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PROPOLIS

Propolis, or bee glue, is gathered from tree buds or pitch from coniferous trees and is used for plugging holes, fastening frames, reinforcing comb, narrowing entrances, or sealing over dead intruders, such as mice, which cannot be carried from the hive. While propolizing the hive indeed helps protect it from the elements, the most important contribution of propolis is its amazing ability to inhibit fungal and bacterial growth. It is the resinous “glue” that keeps the inside of the hive safe from disease.

The honeybee hive is one of the most sterile and cleanest environments to be found in nature.

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HONEY SUPERS

A honey super is simply a hive body box filled with frames used for the production of honey rather than as a brood chamber. Supers serve as food chambers for the bees. After making sure the bees have a sufficient quantity of honey to make it through the winter, surplus honey is harvested by the beekeeper.

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The use of supers also makes it possible to separate various flavors and colors of honey in areas where they can be obtained. Honey is marketed as extracted honey, comb honey, creamed honey (finely crystallized), and chunk or cut comb honey. Apiaries must be properly equipped with the necessities for whichever end products the beekeeper wishes to harvest. Production of comb honey requires much closer attention to detail and more frequent manipulation of bees than the production of extracted honey.

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PROCESSING HONEY

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HONEY MOISTUREA chief concern with producing honey is avoiding

fermentation, which is caused when honey is harvested before it is “ripe”. Honey is “ripe” when the bees have done the job of removing enough moisture from the nectar to prevent yeast growth and spoilage. Unripe honey has poor flavor and ferments quickly. Ripened honey has had its moisture reduced to 18.6 percent or lower, thus making the sugars more concentrated.

Honey was found in the tombs of Egyptian Pharaohs - and was still edible!!

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Cappings on the comb indicate that the bees have done their work and the honey in the cell is “ripe”. If some cells remain uncapped, a quick test for ripeness is to remove a frame from the super, hold it by the end bars and near the top of the frame, and try to vigorously shake the uncapped honey out of the comb. If no drops of honey fall from the frame, it is ripe.

An inexpensive pocket refractometer can also help you measure the water content in honey and aim for the 18.6% level or lower that is suggested.

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HARVESTING HONEY

First, the beekeeper needs to remove the honey-filled supers from the hive. When filled with honey, the approximate weight of a shallow super is 35 pounds, a medium super is 50-60 pounds, and a deep super is up to 85-90 pounds. In addition to the weight of supers, this can be a tricky process because the bees, understandably, become agitated when part of their home is dismantled.

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Full honey supers must be emptied of bees before they are removed from a hive and brought indoors for processing. Once cleared of bees, the honey supers must be covered quickly with top and bottom lids or placed into a covered container to prevent robber bees from entering the supers.

In small apiaries, bees can be removed by shaking them from individual combs. Frames are lifted one at a time and held at both ends of the top bar between the fingers and the base of the thumb. They are then shaken with quick up and downward motions. Any remaining bees are brushed off with a bee brush.

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Other methods of removing bees include using a bee escape or a bee blower. A bee escape is a funnel-like device inserted between the honey supers and the brood chamber wherein bees pass through the escape and into the brood chamber and are unable to return to the supers. If all goes well, the honey supers are usually cleared of bees by the following morning. A bee blower is a machine made with a leaf blower that has screen covering the inlet and is used to create a blast of air that will dislodge the bees from the frames. A large volume of air moving at high speed is required to quickly clear a super of bees.

Chemical bee repellents on fume boards drive bees out of supers within a few minutes on warm, sunny days if the ambient temperature is above 70°F. Fume boards offer a practical and efficient honey harvesting approach, and several fume boards running at the same time can keep one person fully occupied.

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Sunlight warms the repellent, and the evaporating fumes drive bees downward as they retreat out of the honey supers. Care should be taken not to drip repellants onto frames to prevent honey from becoming contaminated. In this manner, you can proceed downward, harvesting one super at a time.

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A fume board is lined with absorbent material and is the same size as an inner cover. They are sprayed with commercially available repellants and placed over the honey supers.

POST-HARVEST DEHYDRATION

Remove the honey supers from the hive immediately after bees are removed from them. If honey is left unattended in the hive, it may take up moisture and lower the quality of the honey. Once the supers have been removed, they are taken to the “honey house” where they will be extracted. The honey house can be a garage, a kitchen, or a dedicated building, anywhere that can be closed off to the bees who will be eager to take the honey back to their hives.

If honey is not extracted right away, special care must be taken to store it in a clean environment that is free of pests and where bees cannot enter. Keeping the humidity in the storage space low is also advisable to maintain the quality of the honey.

Beekeepers can remedy borderline moisture levels in honey supers by dehydrating them in a honey house before extracting the honey.

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To remove excess moisture, stack honey supers in a criss-cross fashion so that the ends of each super are exposed. Running a heater, fan, and a dehumidifier in the room for several days where harvested supers are thus arranged can help reduce the water content of the honey later extracted. Check the honey with a refractometer until the 18.6 percent or lower moisture level is achieved. 

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EXTRACTING HONEYBefore extracting the liquid honey from the comb,

the beekeeper must remove the wax cappings covering the cells using tools such as a bevel-edged knife, a heated knife, or a capping fork or scrapper that simply scratches the surface of the capped honey. The frame of honey is then set on a bar above an uncapping tub. A nail point that sticks up from the bar helps hold the frame in place.

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A common honey harvesting tool is a heated uncapping knife. Where the knife doesn’t reach or open, a scrapper can be used.

A square or rectangular galvanized or plastic tub with a one-inch drain hole cut in one end and fitted with a honey gate serves as a receptacle to hold and strain the wet cappings. The uncapping tub is fitted with a mesh grate which permits honey to drop through onto the floor of the tub. Using the uncapping knife with a gentle, sawing motion and cutting from top to bottom, the cappings are sliced off each side of the frame. Any remaining uncut cappings are opened with a capping fork or scrapper. The cappings are then set aside for another use, like candle making, and the honey is then drained through a strainer.

In the simplest, low-tech version, the honey in the uncapped frames is left to drop into a waiting container with gravity doing the work. The majority of beekeepers prefer to use a mechanical extractor. Most extractors depend upon centrifugal force to fling the honey from frames. The size and style of extractors affect the time and convenience of extracting.

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The most basic extractor is just a barrel that holds the uncapped frames. The frames are loaded into the extractor, and it can be turned by hand or electronically, allowing centrifugal force to fling the honey out of the frames. Smaller home-use extractors hold two to six frames, larges ones hold nine, and commercial ones hold many more. When the honey from the frames has been spun out, the frames are removed and filled frames are put in their place. This is repeated until all the frames are emptied.

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A honey extractor is a can with a revolving reel or basket. The reel spins rapidly so that centrifugal force throws honey out of uncapped combs. The smaller type extractor should be placed in the honey house in a convenient place and on a platform high enough to allow a four or five gallon food-grade bucket to be placed below the honey gate or outlet valve of the extractor. The extracted honey collects in the bottom of the extractor, then is poured out through the honey gate into the bucket. It is then poured through a strainer to clear the honey of small particles of wax and other debris, and then into a settling and bottling tank. Let the honey settle at least 24 hours in a closed container with a spigot at the bottom. The honey is then put into jars.

Honey is most commonly bottled in standard one pound or two pound jars or in plastic honey bears. State agriculture departments regulate label standards. Most labels from well-known suppliers meet these standards, which are highly uniform throughout the country.

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PRODUCTS OF THE BEE HIVE

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HoneyHoney in liquid, extracted form or in the

comb is the premier product of the bee hive. It contains protein, vitamins, minerals, and enzymes. A specific honey varietal is the result of a beekeeper paying close attention to what is in bloom in the area around his or her beehives. When the specific bloom is finished, the beekeeper collects the filled honey frames and takes them to a safe storage place until it is time to extract the honey. This ensures that no other nectar will be mixed in and that the honey will remain a single varietal. In the United State alone, there are more than 300 specific honey varietals.

Many beekeepers simply allow their bees to forage freely within a two to five mile radius around their hives. In this case, the mixed honey is unique and a true reflection of the flowers and trees in bloom in the neighborhood of the bees.Some honeys are prone to granulation, which does not affect the quality of the honey. Granulated honey is easily returned to liquid state by re-heating it in a pot of hot water that has been removed from the heat source.

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Comb HoneyComb honey production is considered to be

one of the highest forms of the beekeeping art.This is honey in its purest, most basic, and ancient form. The honey comb is made of 100% pure honey and the edible wax created by the bees. The comb is cut from the frame in the hive with no processing involved other than cutting and packaging. The goal of producing comb honey is to produce perfect, fully-filled and fully-capped combs of honey.

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Comb honey requires the use of special, extra-thin 100% beeswax foundation to enhance the delicate palatability of the product. It is the most unprocessed form in which honey comes — the bees fill the hexagon shaped wax cells of the comb with honey and cap it with beeswax. You can eat comb honey just like a chewy candy. Because the honey in the comb is untouched and is deemed to be pure, honey presented in this form comes with a relatively higher price tag.

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Cut Comb or Chunk Honey

Cut comb or chunk honey is simply a hunk of honeycomb submerged in a jar of extracted liquid honey. Chunk honey is a product that is somewhat similar to cut comb honey, but it involves smaller pieces of comb that are placed in jars and then surrounded by liquid honey.

Creamed honey that is sold in markets is granulated honey for which the crystallization process is controlled to result in tiny crystals rather than large, unsightly, chunky ones. Over time, harvested natural honey can crystalize.

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Although the honey is not bad and won't taste any different, the chunky crystals aren't pleasant on the tongue.

Making creamed honey involves using a process to control the formation of crystals so that very tiny, smooth, oval shaped crystals are created. This end product is non-drip, very spreadable, and velvety smooth on the tongue.

Creamed Honey

BEESWAX

Beeswax is a by-product of extracting honey, and the capping wax is virgin wax that is free of debris and contaminents. Cappings are washed and dried, then melted using indirect heat and poured through a filter into molds. This premium beeswax has a distinct, pleasing aroma and is light in color.

Beeswax is highly valued in candle making. As a natural and renewable resource, beeswax candles are highly regarded as an environmentally friendly product. Because of their high melt point, beeswax candles are the most dripless, smokeless, and longest burning candles you can buy. 

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Beeswax is used in a multitude of products including: beauty products and cosmetics, soaps, shampoos, moisturizers, lotions, lip balms, healing salves, creams and ointments, lubricants, furniture polishes and conditioners. Additionally, it finds its way into a myriad of industrial products and uses.

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POLLEN Bee pollen is packed full of nutrition and many consider it a “super food”. It is cleaned and dried and sold most often in health food stores and at farmer’s markets. Bee pollen is consumed to boost energy, aid digestion, and reducesymptoms caused by air-born allergens.

PROPOLISPropolis is a highly effective antiseptic,

contains antioxidants, and has anti-inflammatory properties. Its uses include skin healing products and it seems to be effective against some bacteria, viruses, and fungi.

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ROYAL JELLYRoyal jelly is rich in essential amino acids which cannot be biosynthesized. It is used for a wide variety of general health conditions such as asthma, hay fever, insomnia,stomach ulcers, skin disordersand for boosting the immunesystem.

BEE VENOMEven the venom of the dreaded bee sting is thought to have amazing powers in treating arthritis. Many beekeepers report being cured of arthritic hands and joints after being stung.

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