Some common and or frequent questions new beekeepers ask. Below we will go into a small amount of detail to answer these frequent questions to help put your minds and questions at ease.

Uncertainty where to get knowledge.

There are lots of ways and opinions on how to bee keep. Try and stick to the norm, stepping outside of the norm can have adverse effects. You might think that no one has tried your idea, but I guarantee some old beekeeper in the middle of nowhere would have tried that and there is a reason people have certain systems in place. Don't stray too far from the norm and try stick to one to two peoples guidance.Too many people will provide conflicting opinions and leave you more confused than before.

Getting your first bee colony.

Obtaining a colony is relatively straight forward, here at brood brothers you have two options, a full single beehive or a nuc. A full single hive is 10 frames of bees and a laying queen. The colony typically will house around 25 - 30,000 bees. Ready for a honey flow simply because of the higher number of bees in the hive. Compared to a nuc which is 5 frames with drawn comb, bees on the frames developing larvae and a laying queen. This is a great start if you have your own equipment. You will just need to remove the 5 frames of bees and place in your hive and you are all set to allow those bees to grow over the next few weeks into a full hive. A nuc typically has around 5,000 bees so you can see the population difference and therefore cost difference.

Confusion about beehive placement.

The best place to put a beehive is in direct morning sun and away from the prevailing wind, you don't need sun all day, you can have shade in the afternoon, morning sun is critical to warm the hive up and get the bees working in the morning. We recommend elevating the hive up off the ground to reduce any moisture the ground contains, we use pallets. Some people will erect a structure for the beehives to sit on. We simply elevate to about knee height so we can work the hives without bending over and hurting our backs.

Floral source needed for bees.

Allowing your bees to have a varied inflow of pollen provides a well rounded diet. If you find the bees are only bringing in one type of pollen or no pollen at all you may need to look at supplement feeding or look at planting a nice wildflower garden or wildflower sources along your driveway and or pollen heavy trees to help your bees flourish. Just like us humans we need a well rounded diet to have active healthy lives and so this translate the same way for bees. You need a varied inflow of pollen to get all the fats, minerals and protein sources for newly developing larvae and pupa in the hive.

Handling queen bees.

Handling queens is very tricky, if you need to mark a queen or simply need to place her in a cage you need to be careful. So how does one start by picking a queen up. Simply grab her wings gently raising her up, this is what we call picking her up by her handles. You may want to practice this technique on some drones as they are relatively useless within the hive and doesn't matter if you accidentally harm them. By practicing and seeing the drones are unharmed means you will be able to move on to the queen.

The health of your bee colony.

The queen is the main point you want to cover to maintain a healthy colony, the younger the queen is the better her laying ability. This in turn translates to more bees in the colony, means more labour to bring in resources. This translates into a varied amount of pollen entering the colony, the colony has lots of hands to help clean, build and maintain the hive therefore the health of the colony starts with a strong queen.

Nectar dearth.

A nectar dearth is essentially when there isn't nectar entering the colony, a dearth is generally referenced at the end of the season when the summer flow has stopped and there is a quick snap to nectar entering the hive. This can cause robbing, the bees realize flowers aren't producing nectar and colonies are still very strong so the workers that aren't working will soon try and steal the honey stores from smaller weaker colonies. At the end of summer robbing is a real issue. Robbing isn't an issue in the middle of summer as nectar is prevalent and the bees don't have cause to rob each other. It only happens in a nectar. You need to quickly reduce your hive entrances down so your hives are able to defend themselves against thief's.

Common Beekeeping Questions and Challenges for Beginners are:

Varroa Treatment Recommended Protocols for Maximum Efficacy

Brood Brothers Queens

Brood Brothers Full Depth Single Beehives

Brood Brothers Nucleus Hive (NUCS)

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