Bee Maintaining

Copyright (c) 2012 Pete Mitash

Bee Keeping (or Apiculture ) - a profession for insect lovers. It involves the maintenance of honey bee colonies, collection of honey, filtration of honey, packaging and selling it to the end users.

Collection of honey is one of the most ancient human activities and is still practiced by many in parts of Africa, Asia, South America states for personal consumption and livelihood.

Earlier honey collection was restricted to certain tribes living in the forest. They usually venture out deep in the forest and look for wild bee hives. They smoke out the bees and remove the entire honey comb, tear it, smash it up along with the eggs and larvae to collect honey which was harsh. This destroys the entire life cycle of honey bees. The honey collected was then strained through baskets this was unhygienic, but the honey collected was for immediate consumption. They also had the entire forest at their disposal for more honey collection.

During the medieval period Bee keeping was done in a more systematic manner as the demand for honey and the wax increased. Many abbeys and monasteries were centres of beekeeping as beeswax was used for candles and fermented honey was used to make a type of alcohol in certain region of Europe. The bees were also preserved while harvesting the honey for further collection. The people handling bees were also careful while handling bees as they used safety clothing to protect themselves from bee sting. The protective clothing merely a cloth covering their entire body with only small holes to see through it. Fixed comb hives were also used by some communities around the world. Any hollow structure was used for harvesting, but here also entire honey comb was damaged while removing hive and collecting honey.

The 19th century saw the revolution in bee keeping practice. During this period moveable comb was used to collect honey. The bee keepers used wooden frames with rectangular hive box which can be easily removed and can be placed back inside. They maintained enough space between two frames. The bees then would build parallel honey comb in the box without touching each others frame. This practice helped beekeeper to inspect and collect honey from single frame when it is full and slide it back in the frame for further production.

Nowadays a growing number of people are adopting bee keeping as their profession in urban areas also. It can be easily done in their backyards. The initial cost of setting up an apiary is also very low. It has now been legalized also. Home owners use their landscape to feed their bee population by planting flowering plants. The Equipments like smoker, uncapping fork and filtration tank can be procured very easily. The work shirt or the protective suit, the gloves, the hooded hat and veil used for self protection can be procured through online clothes shopping sites and thereby making it easier to start bee keeping as a hobby or profession.

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