Whether you’re dipping your toes in the beekeeping world or are simply curious about the behind-the-scenes of the products you buy, this article will be an interesting read.
While beekeepers are generally intensively busy in the spring and summer seasons, there is also a lot of work that is done when the hive is much less active in the autumn and winter months.
From traveling between hive locations, inspections, maintenance, and harvesting, there is plenty to do during any particular day as a beekeeper.
Traveling To Hive Locations
Typically, experienced beekeepers with multiple hives under management will have them spread out across multiple locations. This can take a significant amount of time depending on how far your hives are from one another. Part of the traveling aspect is also transporting them across different locations. Generally done after sunset, when working bees are back in the hive for the night and activity slows down.
The primary reason for doing so is the variety of honey you get based on different concentrations of flora across regions. While you may get Pohutukawa Honey on the coast, you’ll be looking to place your beehives in deep bush to get Manuka Honey.
The other reason is requests from fruit farmers and gardening enthusiasts alike to have beehives on their properties or sections to pollinate their fruit trees or flower gardens. This is how beekeepers can extract Multiflora Honey or Lavender Honey in New Zealand, with both being a part of Lili’s product range.
Hive Inspections
Every couple of weeks and sometimes more frequently during the summer months, beekeepers check hives frame by frame to inspect for any signs of disease like Varroa mites, while also keeping an eye on the queen, eggs, larvae, and food stores.
Treatment is applied using strips, vapor, or liquid methods directly inside the hive when necessary.
The hive can also produce multiple queens that fight for control of the colony or decide to swarm. It is a beekeeper's job to keep a close eye on the status of the queen and ensure a well-functioning hive.
Food stores are also a key component of the job, especially ensuring that the hive has enough food stored to last during the autumn and winter months, when very little production takes place.
Colony Management
Beekeepers also keep a close eye on the development of the colony. Through beekeeping management systems, a hive can intentionally produce two queens and be split into separate hives once both colonies are able to survive on their own. Beekeepers can also combine colonies that are showing signs of weakness.
If a colony gets too big and confined within the limited spaces of the hive, it can trigger swarming. This is where about 50% to 60% of the colony and one of the queens leave the hive in search of a new home. The cluster typically gathers temporarily on a nearby tree branch, fence, or structure while scout bees search for a permanent location.
The beekeepers respond to this by adding additional beehive boxes on top of one another. You may have noticed a beehive in the summer months with multiple stories made of boxes, normally around 3-4 high, stacked on top of each other. That enables the colony to grow and produce more honey in those important busy months of the summer.
Harvesting And Processing
Honey extraction is the point where beekeepers earn the fruits of their labour. Between mid- and late summer, they start replacing full frames with empty ones, which bees can continue working on. If we want to be more specific, they will brush or smoke bees away from the full frames before replacing them with empty ones.
If you look closely at a full frame, you will notice a layer of thin beeswax that covers the food stored inside each hexagonal cell. Beekeepers will use tools such as a serrated knife, an uncapping fork/scratcher, or roller. Thereafter, the most common extraction method is called centrifugal extraction. Think of it like a washing machine, where you place multiple frames in allocated slots and spin it at a force fast enough to throw the honey out without destroying the frame.
Next up is the filtering process, where raw honey flows through a mesh strainer or cloth to catch any stray beeswax, pollen, or propolis. To keep a natural and organic end-product, beekeepers at Lili’s will go straight into bottling and skip any mixing with preservatives or additives.
Maintenance Work
Mowing lawns and trimming hedges around the hives is also standard practice to keep apiaries easily accessible.
In the off-season (winter months), beekeepers will also spend time cleaning, repairing, and painting old wooden boxes or building new ones. New frames must also be ready ahead of harvesting season in the spring, with old frames typically being replaced every 4 to 5 years.
Off-season is also an opportunity to clean or upgrade tooling, protective suits, and extracting equipment.