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Does Compost Attract Bees?

Does Compost Attract Bees

Swarming bees will find shelter in trees and other hollow protected places. Once in a while they may shelter in unusual places such as in some types of walls. Homeowners are often shocked finding a mass of tiny insects moving in and out of their compost bins. They may think that bees have made a hive in the compost. So, does compost attract bees? This article looks at what might be happening with bees living in your compost and how to take care of the situation.

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Beginner’s Introduction to the CDB Beehive

CDB Beehive

With the many beehive types out there, it may at times be overwhelming to know what to settle for. For starters, the type of hive you choose to raise your honeybees in may impact directly your chances of succeeding in the business. Modern hives are ideally designed to make your work much easier as the beekeeper. One such choice is the CDB beehive, one that has been much hyped of late. Other popular choices among beekeepers include the Warre, Langstroth, British National, Top Bar hive, WBC hive, and many others. As a general rule, always start small, irrespective of the style of hive you settle for. That way, you cushion yourself from hefty losses, if things do not go as you expected. This also provides an easy exit in case you reconsider shifting methods along the way. In this article, we shall delve into the nitty-gritty details about the CDB hive.

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How to Harvest Honey: Langstroth, Top Bar & Warré Hives

Honey bees are prolific producers of honey. They keep making honey as long as supplies are available and there is space to store the honey. Beekeeping puts this characteristic of honey bees to use. Larger hives with greater room for honey are used in modern beekeeping. It allows honey bees to make enough honey for their own uses and enough extra that is economically harvested. Various factors affect the best time you can harvest honey from a beehive. High quality honey requires you to wait until it is fully processed and capped in cells, where it is low in moisture content and has a high saturation of sugars. In this article we'll discuss how to harvest honey from Langstroth, Top Bar and Warré beehives.

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Keeping Bees Inside for Winter

Keeping Bees Inside for Winter

Beekeeping is an agricultural practice that requires management of its various aspects. The successful caring for bees in the cold season of winter is important for a good production year in spring. Beekeepers therefore use various methods and equipment to help their honey bee colonies survive winter. One of these methods is keeping bees inside structures for the duration of winter. In this article, we look at keeping bees inside for winter and the use of greenhouses to shelter bees from the cold.

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Beehive Maintenance Guide for Beginners and Experts

Beehive Maintenance

Keeping honeybee colonies for any purpose requires that you check on them and ensure they are doing well. This is called beehive maintenance in beekeeping. It is necessary in all beekeeping operations including in conservation beekeeping. Proper beehive maintenance enables the best health of honeybee colonies. It also promotes better production rates of the beekeeping operation. Maintenance practices vary widely from hygiene practices to those about the structural integrity of beehives. Both beginner and experienced beekeepers can perform proper beehive maintenance. In this beehive maintenance guide for beginners and experts, we outline the various activities you should carry out and their benefits too.

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Analyzing Honeycomb: Drone Comb/Cells

Drone Comb

Drones are the male bees whose role is dwarfed by that of the female worker bees. Nonetheless, they play an important role of sustaining the colony’s lifeline. An understanding of the drone bee's survival and wellbeing is a fundamental when raising successful honeybee colonies. Being able to recognize drone comb is an important for both new and experienced beekeepers.

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An Introduction to Native Bees

Native Bees

Bees belong to a group of insects that belong to the Hymenoptera order, ideally referring to insects with membrane wings. Within this order are a total of 100,000 species of insects. In total there are 25 thousand different kinds of bees in existence. Most people are more familiar with the honey bee, primarily because they are largely domesticated and they produce a food consumed by humans. There are however, many other bees that live a solitary lifestyle. This kind survives and thrives inside small tunnels. Bees are social insects and even in cases of solitary species, you might find a number of females sharing a tunnel. Some other bee species exhibit a semi or social organization with a hierarchical arrangement for the female bees. Bumblebees, tropical stingless bees and honey bees belong to the same family. The social organization of this group is similar across the board, with one fertile female queen vested with the responsibility of laying eggs for the colony. The other colony members will devote their lifetime to serving the queen and handling any other important tasks within the colony. These include cleaning, defense, feeding brood, feeding the queen, removal of dirt or dead bees, foraging, and many others.

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An Introduction to the WBC Beehive

WBC Beehive

Current techniques of keeping honey bees are highly advanced when compared to where beekeeping has come from. The modern hive is a neat and well-stacked rectangular box with ideal interior design to provide a habitable home for honey bees. Throughout history, a number of beehive styles have been used, with most of these designed and redesigned through trial and error. One such design is the WBC beehive. The initials stand for William Broughton Carr. We shall delve into more details about this beehive type in this article.

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