Where is beekeeping done

Honeybees are entirely behavior-dependent on the climate in which they live. Timing for beginning a hive will vary depending on your local climate and geography. Read widely and connect with local beekeepers and beekeeping groups specific to your area to learn how others have found success.

Here in the Pacific Northwest, the right time to start a hive is early spring between late March and early May. As the chance of frost lessens or stops, early flowers will appear, giving your bees the ability to collect nectar and pollen. We suggest using autumn and winter to do all of your research and planning.

Once spring arrives, you will want to be completely prepared for your bees to arrive with all of your equipment ready and your hive in place on your property. You will want to feel confident and versed about the task at hand! If you can order it, it's in stock. Langstroth Hives. Warre Hives. Top Bar Hives. Protective Gear.

Bee Feeders. Honey Harvest. Beekeeping for Beginners. Is Beekeeping for Me? Beekeeping is local. What are honeybees? According to [ 19 ], industrialized countries such as China and Argentina produce the honey at low unit cost, and export to the world market.

However, Nepali beekeepers are unlikely to produce honey at prices that can compete with these major producing countries even though they are of varied resources. The price and volume of Nepali honey is not competitive compared to honey from its neighboring countries and supply of honey is also not consistent. This makes Nepali honey noncompetitive for mass market. It is estimated that in the honey sector, an important proportion of the exports is happening via informal channels not reflected in official statistics.

The trends of the production and exports of the natural honey were shown in Figure 2. Situation of the production and export of honey from to This figure showed that the export of the natural honey was lowest in the year — Then after, it increased sharply in the year In the year , it showed decreasing trend of export. The production of trends is increasing since the beginning of , which shows the higher potentiality of the honey export from the Nepal.

The average landholding of small-scale farmers in Nepal is just 0. Food security is not possible without income security; honey production through beekeeping could be a useful avenue for improving economy. Poor, marginal, and even landless farmers can benefit from beekeeping to support their livelihoods as it can be started even with limited resources giving income and supplying nutrition to them [ 21 ]. Beekeeping provides hundreds of families the chance to earn enough to provide for themselves, lifting them out of poverty for good.

Honey sector is considered as one of the income-generating activities for resource poor farmers including women, youth, and underemployed sections of the community.

Beekeeping is increasingly recognized as a market for numerous employment opportunities in the rural and urban areas of the Nepal. Beekeeping is also recognized as the gender-inclusive activity, where women also participate in the honey harvesting and collecting process. Over , farmers are directly or indirectly involved in beekeeping [ 22 ].

In the 15 years period of beekeeping history, the average price of honey from the A. Beekeeping is critical for local development as it typically requires minimal investment, generates diverse products, can occur without land ownership or rent, and provide flexibility in timing and locations of activities. Beekeeping could be the important agribusiness options to the landless and small-holder farmers in order to sustain their livelihood.

Beekeeping being as a profitable business earning good income makes more people to engage for their sustainable livelihoods [ 24 ]. Beekeeping is attractive business and high proportion of the annual income is secured from beekeeping activities for many farmers in the world.

It helps in diversification of source of incomes for rural communities that help minimize the demands of land and pressure on forests. It requires little capital input, so it does not compete with other aspects of the farm system for the scarce resource [ 19 ].

Beekeeping has gained much attention as a means of raising the productivity of farm systems in the developing world. Beekeeping can also form the basis for gaining and transmitting knowledge about ecological processes [ 25 ]. Beekeeping can contribute to the pollination services, assuring crop yields, and can also be used to strengthen the livelihoods through commercialization to increase economic revenue.

Beekeeping contributes to the provision of pollination services, assuring crop yields, and helping maintaining plant biodiversity in natural ecosystems.

Honeybee pollination has been reported to increase seed production in oilseed, rapeseed, and sunflower seed, as well as the oil content in the seed, and beekeeping activity provides benefits in terms of employment, pollination of crops, and conservation of biodiversity [ 26 ].

The ecological importance of bees in crop pollination and the preservation of the biodiversity of both flora and fauna are unquestionable. Pollination is a valuable ecosystem service for the production of fruits, vegetables, nuts, cotton, and oilseed crops among many other agricultural crops [ 27 ].

Bees and other pollinators make important contributions to agriculture. The pollination-dependent crops seem to be five times more valuable than those that do not need pollination [ 29 ]. Honeybees are the single most important insect pollinator species for the diverse crop yield, both quantitatively and qualitatively [ 30 ].

Most importantly, make sure there is solid fencing between the hives and property lines. Also remember to only breed the amount of bees your acreage can hold.

It is recommended to have no more than four beehives on a quarter acre or less. You have read up on the requirements for beekeeping, gotten your hands on all the equipment, and assembled a beehive to place in the perfect apiary site. Each bee is unique and delivers various benefits to your beehive.

For this step, you may want to take some time to read about the pros and cons of potential bee types you are interested in. Do you want the popular Italian bees which produce a substantial amount of nectar in a short amount of time?

Or what about Caucasian bees which are known to be the gentlest of most bee colonies out there? Maybe you live in an area with climatic conditions so you would prefer dark Carniolan bees.

There are quite a few different bee races, so do your research and shop around a bit. Keep all of these characteristics in mind when shopping for your bees and you will find the perfect race fit for you. This step includes purchasing the almighty queen bee to begin the breeding process. You are now ready! After installing your package of bees into your new hive, you can take a day or two to relax. After all, you deserve it! Most beekeepers recommend you re-open the beehive in two to three days after installing your bees.

When plants stop flowering, restless bees may try to steal from other hives, and those pesky wasps will likely try to force their way in. The weeks before cold weather sets in are also a time to make sure the hive is properly ventilated to avoid wetness and rot, and that the cover fits tightly to prevent rain and snow from seeping in.

Some beekeepers tilt their hive so that any excess water runs out of it, or wrap it in cardboard or blankets in particularly frigid climates.

All these steps are vital in maintaining a healthy hive year-round. And then there's the big picture of hive health. Since , beekeepers and scientists have been looking for the cause of "colony collapse", where about 30 to 50 percent of colonies die off mysteriously. One-third of the food we eat in the U.

But while putting focus on the "why are bees dying? Marchese sees the major die-off and disappearance of colonies happening among large-scale agriculture, not small beekeeping. GMOs and various pesticides have been questioned in colony die-offs, but studies haven't concluded they're the major cause in bee deaths.

A single colony can make up to pounds of honey in a healthy season. But you've got to extract it from the hive first. Harvesting honey is an exciting, if sticky, operation. The simplest way to do it is to merely slice the combs of honey off of their frames, cut them into bricks, and store them whole for easy eating. But to extract the liquid honey from the comb you need a few more pieces of equipment: a heated uncapping knife to slice off the wax cappings from the honeycomb; an uncapping tank, where you rest your frames while uncapping them and where excess honey will fall and be stored; and an extractor, which will spin several uncapped frames at once, separating the honey from the intact combs.

A mesh strainer removes any leftover wax or bee parts, and the honey can then be bottled for storing, selling, or gifting. Marchese points out that an additional benefit of being part of a honey club is the use of shared equipment instead of buying your own ; it takes a good amount of hands to harvest an entire hive, and fellows often spend days together sharing equipment and grunt-work.

It's also a fun opportunity to sample what neighbors' bees have made. Bees will naturally nest anywhere that's dry, where there's enough space, and where they can access a variety of flowering plants.

But if that spot is a tree in your yard or an eave of your garage? Call an exterminator or bee-removal company. Now, it is illegal for them to kill the bees. Most exterminators will give the bees to established beekeepers another way for them to get new colonies , but don't let them just wipe out the little things. And to remove the honey from their hive?

The kind of extractor you buy to remove honey from framed hives won't work for the free-style shape of a natural hive, so Marchese's short answer: "Eat the honey in the comb, no need to purchase expensive equipment. Or hand crush the beeswax to separate the liquid honey the old fashioned way. There you have it—a pure, natural product that, if extracted at the right time, is shelf-stable indefinitely, and you can eat it straight from the comb without fear of contamination.

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