These presentation will help you become familiar with a valuable natural farming resource known as the Honey Bee. Learn how to get started, what to expect, and how to help our friends, and bees! 

AdAgrA 2020: A Living Parable

<p>These presentation will help you become familiar with a valuable natural farming resource known as the Honey Bee. Learn how to get started, what to expect, and how to help our friends, and bees! </p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

AdAgrA: Adventist Agriculture Association

Intensive: Introduction to Backyard Beekeeping

Michael Kevin Johnson

Introduction to Backyard Beekeeping Part 1

Father in heaven, Lord, we are grateful to be here today.

We are thankful that there's people that are interested in protecting and taking care of and keeping these creatures that do so much for each 1 of us and provide us food.

We ask as we talk about them that you will bring to my mind things to say and remembrance and that you will help us all to learn and also ask the questions that we need to ask so that we can know how to best care for this earth that you have provided us with.

So this came in early, this was supposed to be towards the end, but we'll talk about it now.

These are some of the benefits of what you will get out of honey.

There are people that actually will physically go out and intentionally get themselves stung.

I can tell you that I've had some issues with my hands in the past.

And ironically, I get stung periodically.

And I've found that as I'm getting stung, that sometimes the areas where I've had issues with my hands getting all dry and scaly, it's cleared up.

Can't say it's because I got stung, but hey, it's an interesting correlation.

This is traditionally how you would see a beehive in the wild.

That hive, to give you an idea, I think I have a picture of it later.

It's approximately that big and it was in the range of 28 feet up in the air.

It was actually a hive that Right before 1 of the races in Daytona, they called me and they said, Kevin, can you come up here and help us?

So the reason I know how high it is is because I went to the very top of the ladder and I had to go around branches at the top of the ladder to get to that branch.

I actually tied right here and cut off right here and the hive was sitting here swinging like this.

Well, they never bothered me and fortunately, which meant to me, this is a hive that's worth keeping.

If this was what would be called an Africanized hive, About half that hive would have been all over me and stinging me This is traditionally how we keep these These are your traditional Langstroth type hives with the exception of this 1 which looks identical Or actually, you know what?

This is similar to a flow hive, and then those are the Langstroth over there.

That's the traditional box like this that most people keep their bees in.

And this is actually only half of what I have at home right now and then I have another like 9 of them here.

This is what it looks like all the time in front of the hives.

From about maybe 30 minutes after the sun comes up until right as the sun crests below the earth.

They are busy like that all day long and that's how they normally spend their lives, which is why their lives are so short.

For a bee, general worker bee, its lifespan is probably between 2 and 3 months and that's it.

The queen can last several years but the bulk of the bees that you will see, that's it.

Now the way bees see, which is something that I've recently found out is just fascinating, that's what flowers look like to a bee.

So you know you're you're looking at these beautiful flowers but imagine seeing this every time you look at a flower.

I mean that to me I saw that I'm like wow this is neat and I couldn't remember all the flowers to tell you and I was gonna put up a picture of the 1 and the other but I don't know what the flowers were so it was gonna be hard to go okay here's this and what how we see it and here's how they see it but you know this 1 obviously dandelion you know but that's just the seed but that's how they see it and you know these are weeds for the most part that we're ripping out of the ground.

So, you know, we're kind of limited in how we think things see.

The most interesting feature I've found with bees is how they navigate.

When a bee comes out of the hive, It will look where the sun is and by the little wiggle dances that they do, the other bees are telling where it goes in relationship to the sun.

And so, you know, if they're saying they wiggle, I think it's like 10 times, they're going to be going about a mile, I think it is, or something of that nature.

And the direction tells them which way to go from the direction of the sun.

And if you were to, like these right here, the bees that are in this box, they were from my farm in Brantford, which is about 30 miles away.

When I take them back there, because I have not let them out, they will know where they were.

But if I move them to the other side of my field, they will turn around and go right back to where that box was.

They have this internal GPS thing that just tells them.

They haven't figured it out yet, but it tells them exactly where to go and that alone is pretty fascinating.

So they say with a beehive you either move it 3 feet so that they can smell where they're supposed to go if you've moved it or move them 3 miles.

If you only move them a mile away, they're going back to where they were.

OK, this is kind of like what we call the start of the honey season, the honey flow season.

This is actually a maple tree that this is on.

And you can see all this pollen that it's packing up.

And what they do is they just push it all down onto their legs, they have sacks that they fill up, and they take that back to the hive.

Well, this is getting ready to happen in a matter of maybe days to a week.

There's actually people that are already harvesting honey from this year, which is a few weeks earlier than normal but you know it is what it is.

So there are some bees that are going to be collecting the pollen.

And what they do is they come back and they mix the 2 of those together to make B bread.

It's kind of trying to think of what a similar, it's kind of almost like what we would call a flat bread or a, Oh, what's the term?

It's that bread that you pass around to everybody, where you have this starter solution, and then you put it in a baggie, and it what?

But it's kind of a, yeah, it's kind of like a sourdough.

But it's something where it's basically creating bread by it aging, as opposed to just basically mixing stuff together.

And this is literally just mixing the pollen and honey together to create their food.

And this is just a little closer up image that kind of shows, you know, these are the honeys sitting in here, the pollen up there.

This is what a piece of raw honeycomb would look like if you were to slice it.

I have some images inside of this hive that we can look at during breaks and stuff and you can pull them up as if you're working on a hive and it will show you what it looks like in there but of course it won't have the roar and the buzz of 30, 000 bees sitting there in your face doing it, which is kind of nice.

So for the Lord your God is bringing, or bringing you into a land, a land of brooks of honey, or brooks of water, I need my glasses, that's what I need.

Of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, and a land of olive trees and honey.

So, when this just kind of points us to the future, I can tell you that wheat is not something that bees are involved in.

Barley, I'm pretty sure that it's also a wind pollinator.

But when you start getting into all of your fruits, a lot of your vegetables, I believe the number is around 70% to 80% of what we eat is literally a direct result of bees and pollinating.

Right now this time of year, almost 75% of the hives in the United States are headed to California.

And they're doing that for the pollinating of the almond trees.

So if you're trying to get into beekeeping this might not be the best of time.

Oh and to finish the verse, in the land which you will eat bread without scarcity and in which you will lack nothing.

A land whose stones are iron and out of which whose hills you can dig copper." That's from Deuteronomy.

If you come over and see my booth, you'll see this big picture and that's, this is actually the flower for it.

And the bud itself actually is what's going to become down here, the whole base of the pomegranate.

It's the same material, which is kind of interesting when you look at it because a lot of times you'll see that the flower and the fruit don't really have a relationship with what it started out as later on.

But this, the pomegranate, I've noticed it's a real waxy coating and that's the waxy coating stays, fills up and that becomes your pomegranate.

And this is actually at 1 of the local state parks that I took this 1.

Introduction to Backyard Beekeeping Part 2

So we're going to go into the parable of the beekeeper and what we do.

The very first thing that I'm going to tell you as a beekeeper to a beekeeper is to join a local beekeeper club.

In all honesty you're going to find the most information from the people that are keeping bees right around you and most of them are going to be involved in a club, then you end up actually getting a mentor out of it.

Somebody that you can say, hey this is going on in my hive, how do I deal with this, what do I need to do, how can I solve this?

They're going to go, oh I've experienced that and this is how I fix that.

You're not going to get that from me standing up here from Florida if you're in Canada.

I can tell you what I would do in your situation, but I don't know if it's going to work.

The guy down the street is likely going to be the 1 that's going to know what's going to work for you.

This is my wife, And this is 1 of our hives, 1 of the first hives that we brought up to our property.

That's not where our bees are kept any longer.

When I first put them out, my initial thought was, is, oh, I have this hole in the woods, so I'm going to put this take and put all my bees in this hole in the woods so that nobody sees them.

Your best place for them is in an open field.

The shade can create all sorts of havoc on your hives The bee suit which for me now, this is my bee suit I Go out basically dressed like this and I put my jacket on and Then my hood over at the top and that's what I do I will say that if you're gonna buy a beehive and you want to get or if you want to buy a bee suit You want to get involved in bees?

My personal suggestion from experience many things is you see how this hat that she's wearing has a rim on it all the way around?

I would recommend having a hat that does that for the reason of The likelihood is very small That you're going to get stung With because see it it attaches Down here.

This isn't This isn't the best example, but it will zip onto your shirt and it will keep the bees from coming close to your ears, the back of your neck, stuff like that.

And so my recommendation would be to get the style that does have the rim.

And I would also now strongly recommend what's called a ventilated suit which I believe they sell there.

They're not cheap but I can tell you compared to this on a summer day, after you get through, when you got 15 hives that you're going through, or even 2 hives, after you get through the first 1, it's pretty hot.

I mean, I'm sweating just being here right now and you know.

This is a general startup kit right here for example.

You've got your smoker, this is a feeder.

Not the best type of a feeder for because if you put it right in the entrance you can end up having what's called robbing happening where the bees will literally come into that hive eat and fly away.

That's not an ideal situation but they do work.

The queen excluder you've got you know your tools, your smoke, your smoker, your 3 boxes.

This has got, this is basically the taller box, like this 1 over here, they classify that as a deep.

The next 1 down, which is actually this height.

And then they actually have 1 that's only that tall.

Which would come in handy if you were doing bee removals out of somebody's house, but I don't think you wanna go there.

But that's, and there's kits like this in the magazine that I passed out while we were waiting.

And if you look close, well, you might not, I don't know if you can tell it from there, but it's almost like a plastic mesh material.

I don't know how it's going to wash up yet, because I finally bought 1 for myself that I got a few weeks ago, and I haven't even taken it out of the package yet.

I'm still using this 1 right now, but I'm kind of looking forward to using it.

This is kind of a, can you see better the material here now?

Okay, you can see how much air that will let through.

It's like, almost like the difference probably of wearing shorts versus a pair of jeans when it's a hundred degrees outside You know, that's what I'm expecting anyway The best fuel for your smoker is actually pine needles.

Just about everybody in the industry, you know they sell these pellets, you buy 5 pound bags of pellets and stuff.

And I can tell you getting the pellets to light and stay lit and smoke There unless you spend a lot of money buying real expensive pellets You're gonna Frustrate yourself pine needles tends to work really really really well So the next question people would have is what type of hive is the best?

This is actually what's called a top bar hive.

Now that top bar hive is out on my property.

It's made to look pretty and just for fun.

Because I'm a member of the Volusia County Beekeepers, and we have a show that we do every year.

This hive, for example, is 42 inches long from here to here.

And instead of it having frames like this, it just has a single strip of wood with a single strip of plastic as a guide.

But you can see it's got all of these pieces on it and the very back piece here is actually kind of a solid board.

The reason they do it that way is let's say you have a small hive and you only need 4 or 5 of these.

So what you would do is you would move that board right all the way up here so that there's only 4 or 5 frames that those beads need to protect.

Once they start filling that out, then you add another 1 in and you add another 1 in and you just keep moving that board all the way back until they fill that entire box.

That is a real popular, good way to do it.

Because if you were to take and have this box right here filled with bees and you put another box on top of it, then they'd be able to defend it.

But if there was only half full and you had 2 high, then you'd have a problem.

We're going to have to kill the power for a little bit.

We're trying to figure out some of these issues and figure it out.

Why don't we pause right here for a second while they're doing that.

And if you want, we'll talk about some of this stuff.

And I'll show you some of this stuff while the when the lights go out and the fans go off unfortunately so that way we don't we won't fall behind.

I think it should be okay because that's like it's on their projector would be the battle yeah they're probably already So I'll show you a few things that I've got here and actually, you know what I'm going to do while this is happening?

I'm going to, because there's 2 pictures that I put on my flash drive or on my computer that I built into this program that I'd kind of like you to see intentionally.

So what I'm going to do, I'm going to go ahead and hook this in here and I might recopy it while this is happening if I can.

Let me get this copied over or started copying over and then I'll show you some of the stuff here.

So yeah, we're definitely experiencing Computer 101 today.

Now how many people in here have already been keeping bees?

Tried it last year and I'm guessing that you felt that it didn't, wasn't working too well, or?

So, and you see how many how many hives do you have?

Why are you up here instead Why aren't you up here instead of me?

Well, because when I had him, it's been 10 years.

Introduction to Backyard Beekeeping Part 3

This is actually a water meter that this hive came out of.

That's the traditional base, screen, bottom board, your regular frames that you see here.

And then you put the telescoping lid over the top.

And again, here's that's basically that setup.

And so I'm trying different varieties, different types of hives, because I want to be able to experience and inform people as best I can with whatever they might have been dealing with.

That typical frame, this is, okay, you see this right here?

So remember we were talking earlier about you can divide off the hive and I would cut out 1 of these Well, this one's small.

This one's not I and if I had a known queen in here that was laying good anyway I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna cut both of these out from a distance out and across.

And granted, yes, you're going to kill some larva doing this.

And I would take those, and I'd put them in a different box and put them on the top of a frame.

And the likelihood is I would put both of these on 2 different frames as well.

So that way you have twice the chance of having a queen be built and I would make sure that the queen didn't go to the new box when I moved it.

And so this is when you get in there and that's what this picture is here, that's literally what you're looking at when you open up a hive.

And When you start pulling out the frames and you're looking at something like this and like this, you're looking at thousands and thousands of bees that yes, they can sting you.

But that is the honey ready to go right there.

This is another type of hive which is becoming more and more popular right now and it's a horizontal hive.

It's using these frames right here rather than the top bar frames and you can build it longer and still have that same divider like you do with your with your top bar hive so that you can make this hive whatever length across here you want it to be and that's becoming very popular And I'm actually wanting to build 1 of these.

And especially as you get older, you don't have to lift honey supers that can weigh 100 pounds.

So, 10 frame deep of honey, you're talking a lot, a lot of weight.

So this is basically what it would look like inside without the inner cover in there.

So you would put the inner cover in where you can feed them.

And you can see, you can probably see these little lines.

That's where they've taken the plastic cells and they have joined them together so that they can fill it.

And that's the first step to being used in there.

And oh, okay, I was thinking that was the video 1.

That is an essential part of that particular system, because you don't want the queen laying up here, which I have had that happen before, where a queen got up into the top, and my whole system that I spent a fortune on became a brood box.

And it's like, okay, so you get the queen back in the bottom and deal with it.

And this is in a sense how that system works.

You can see these are all, and why they didn't build this to be the correct orientation, I don't know.

I'm sure it has to do with the physics of building it and stuff like that.

Because technically these should be turned.

Where the point, this should be the bottom like this, you know, so that the point, actually it would be like this, because those points should be at the very bottom.

But then when they open it up, it'll just flow down and out the back.

And this, if it, ahhh, I was afraid that was going to happen that's the difference between using my computer and this 1 but you can kind of see sorry but it's squished but this is supposed to be that way and nice and long and this is literally just flowing down out of it.

Yeah yeah if you were to turn it this way and stretch it back out again I don't yeah yeah this is a quart jar but this is you know you can see the foam that's here that's the most foam that I deal with when I do this system that that 1 is the flow hive yeah this is the key that's sticking up out of it.

Okay, so there's 1 of them, this is where I'm glad I was able to get this over here while the power was out.

And you can see how the comb sits in there.

This is a three-frame extractor, which that looks pretty big for a three-frame, but that's all it'll hold because of the way they hold it in there.

And that's available through Dedent, which a lot of this equipment that you can get is.

You can do a huge amount in hardly any time at all.

And if you have a short amount of time to work with, there you go.

The downside is you have to store the equipment.

But still, the honey is being oxidized through this whole process.

Because every time you move it, every time you whatever, you're actually oxidizing it more and more, and you're gonna find that it's gonna have more and more potential of having contaminates and various things in it.

But this is the biggest problem that I found.

You can take it off, you can scrape it off, but actually I scraped off some and put it in a container, and when I came back an hour later, most of it was honey again.

And so I mean, it's not like, it just doesn't look so great.

But you can see when I bottled up Monday night, that's what I was dealing with.

Now I do have these bottles, Some of them are some of my extra honey that I have over there.

And you can see now that there's only a few little bubbles at the very top, but still, it's just that it is what it is.

That's why when you use this method, you have to give it so long before you put it into a show because if you have any bubbles, any foam, you're out.

Okay, the method that I used, okay, that's what it was.

Remember I talked about turning the frame upside down?

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Series

Intensive: Introduction to Backyard Beekeeping

Introduction to Backyard Beekeeping Part 2

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Intensive: Introduction to Backyard Beekeeping

Introduction to Backyard Beekeeping Part 3

58m

BeeKeeping 101

Common Diseases Organically Treated

56m

Special Interests

Understanding and Working with Honeybees Part 2

53m

BeeKeeping 101

How to Start Your First Beehive

1h 13m

Short Course: Beekeeping

Beekeeping- Part 3

1h

Beekeeping Track

Advanced Beekeeping

1h 1m

Beekeeping Track

Basic Beekeeping Part 3

1h 1m

Sound Doctrine