How to Get Comfortable with Bees

beekeepers have bee suits, gloves, a smoker when they can keep them lit and kitchen towels to work with bees. (charlotte ekker wiggins photo)

How to Get Comfortable with Bees

It’s almost like magic one of our club’s new beekeepers noted watching me work bees without gloves. The truth is, once one gets over the fear of bees, most everyone can do the same.

But first, it’s important to get used to the bees. Here are the top 10 things a new beekeeper can do to get used to being around bees:

1. Observe from a Distance: Spend time near the hive, observing the bees from a safe distance. Place a bench close by so you’re tempted to observe whenever you can. Watch their flight patterns, how they interact with each other, and how they enter and exit the hive.

2. Wear Protective Gear: Always wear appropriate protective clothing, including a beekeeping suit, gloves, and a veil, to minimize the risk of stings. Feeling protected can greatly boost your confidence.

3. Attend Beekeeping Workshops or Classes: Join beekeeping workshops and classes in your area. This hands-on experience under the guidance of experienced beekeepers can provide invaluable insights and help build confidence.

4. Start with Calm Bees: Work with calm bee breeds or colonies known for their gentle behavior, especially when starting out. This can help ease anxiety and build confidence in handling bees.

5. Work during Calm Weather: Choose to work with the bees during calm, sunny weather when they are less likely to be agitated. Avoid working with bees during windy, rainy, or extremely hot conditions.

6. Move Slowly and Deliberately: Bees are sensitive to sudden movements and vibrations. Move slowly and deliberately when working around the hive to avoid startling them.

7. Listen to the Bees: Pay attention to the sounds the bees make. The buzz of a contented hive is different from the buzz of an agitated hive. Learning to differentiate these sounds can help you gauge the mood of the bees.

8. Practice Patience: Beekeeping requires patience. Take your time when inspecting the hive, handling frames, or performing any task related to beekeeping. Rushing can lead to mistakes and agitate the bees.

9. Start with Simple Tasks: Begin with simple tasks such as hive inspections, feeding, and adding supers. As you become more comfortable, you can gradually take on more complex tasks such as splitting hives or harvesting honey.

10. Learn to Use Kitchen Towels. Many beekeepers depend on a smoker to keep their bees busy. I prefer to drape kitchen towels over my colonies, especially when they are small. The towels keep them covered so they don’t notice a disturbance.

By following these steps and gaining hands-on experience, new beekeepers can gradually develop confidence working with their bees. Patience, observation, and respect for the bees are key principles in beekeeping.

For more beekeeping, gardening, cooking and easy home decor tips, subscribe to Garden Notes.

Charlotte

Learn About Bees. Take a Class!

My bee buddy david draker, left, and I have taught beginning beekeeping classes for many years. this year we are turning the class over our new great plains master beekeeping journeyman, a beekeeping program out of University of nebraska at lincoln training beekeeping educators. (christine richards photo)

Learn About Bees. Take a Class!

If you’re one of those who think beekeepers are basking by fireplaces resting over winter, think again. Winter is when most beekeepers are catching up – on reading, hive repairs, classes, and planning plantings. We don’t get to spend time with our bees, that’s true, but winter is anything but relaxing. Before you know it, bees are leaving hives to forage for pollen and start their spring increases all over again, if you’re lucky. National numbers suggest we are now losing one out of every two colonies over winter. 

So why would anyone want to keep bees? Actually not everyone should be a beekeeper. If you’re thinking you are “saving bees,” native bees are the ones that need help, not honey bees. Plant native trees, shrubs and flowers to provide unique food sources native bees need. Bees are important. One out of every three bites of healthy food are pollinated by bees, honey and native ones.

1. When I started keeping honey bees, the first question I was usually asked was what was I going to do with “all of that honey.” I didn’t start keeping bees for honey; I wanted bees to help me with fruit tree pollination, one of the many reasons someone also might want to be a beekeeper.

2. If you do want honey, it can be several years before bees collect enough extra honey you can have. It takes 2 million flowers to make one pound of honey. In the Midwest, colonies need between 50-80 pounds of honey to get through winter not counting extra honey for you. Keep planting!

3. If you are thinking of starting a business, there are other hive products that can be the foundation of a cottage business: beeswax, propolis, bee pollen are all bee products used in from lip balms and soaps to tinctures. Some people also do well selling actual bees.

4. Some of the students of our local bee club beginning beekeeping classes decide not to keep bees because it’s too expensive, takes too much time, they’re afraid of being stung…Those are all excellent reasons not to keep honey bees. Taking a class may help you realize that before one spends a lot of money to buy equipment. Success comes in many shapes and sizes.

5. Actually we don’t need a ton of beekeepers, we need good beekeepers following best management practices and mentoring others.

6. Where I live, the Rolla Bee Club supports beginning beekeeping students throughout the year at monthly meetings from lectures to hands-on practice with bees at teaching apiaries. They also host beginning beekeeping classes January-March. The first class January 27, 2024 is full; registration is open for the second beginning beekeeping class February 24, 2024 and for the Second Year Beekeeping class March 23, 2024. Check with your local bee club for their classes; most offer classes over winter when they are not busy with bees.

If you don't have a club close by, pick up a copy of A Beekeeper's Diary; Self Guide to Keeping Bees. It's the workbook we use for our beginning beekeeping classes. It will quickly give you an overview of how to get started and hopefully save you some money.

If you do nothing else, take a beginning beekeeping class; you will be amazed at all beekeeping requires and how fascinating bees are. Did I mention they are an important part of our food chain?

Charlotte

How to See Teeny Tiny Eggs

Plastic magnifying sheets and magnifying glasses are handy to have. (charlotte ekker wiggins photo)

How to See Teeny Tiny Eggs

One of the challenges in beekeeping is seeing the teeny tiny eggs queens lay. Maybe the sign of a pin head in the first few hours, it’s a critical skill to help monitor the health of a colony.

Over the years I’ve tried a number of options including reading glasses stronger than my prescription. Not the best option since safely moving can be challenging and its not easy to remove the glasses under a bee suit.

Here are a couple better options:

1. Magnifying plastic sheets. These are inexpensive and easy to use to better locate the tiny eggs. I found several available on Amazon for $1 each. The magnification is 3X.

2. Magnifying glass with light. These are also relatively inexpensive. The light helps with seeing the eggs when the sunlight is not in the right spot. Home and garden centers and craft stores have several options,

What about black foundation? These can still be challenging but they do help with better seeing the eggs. The one challenge I have is my bees don’t like the frames so it takes some convincing and sugar water to get them used.

Charlotte

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Bee Club Basics 2nd Edition

Second reference book in a three-set series is out. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)

Bee Club Basics 2nd Edition

The second edition of “Bee Club Basics, How to Start a Bee Club” is now out. It’s a helpful guide for those who want to start an educational non-profit. It will also come in handy for those wanting to re-invigorate their current bee clubs. The COVID 19 pandemic has made us all multi-functional so we can meet online or safely in person.

To be successful beekeepers, it’s helpful to have a supportive community. Having a bee club that invites beekeepers to meet, share information and lend a helpful hand is critical to the success of a beekeeping community.

In particular rural areas of the country, where internet service is not reliable, there are still some basic meeting principles that work in bringing people together.

Have you willed the coffee to finish like the rest of us? (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)

I founded a bee club where I live in 2014 at the request of my beginning beekeeping class students. The forms I used to start this club including a club charter, then club by laws and other samples in between, are included in this book for easy reference. They are all collected in the back section for easy access and copying.

i also asked Michele Colopy, LEAD for Pollinators, a non-profit offering beekeeping organizations management advice, to review this edition.

And should you like to see the advice in action, you’re welcome to our club meetings. We put into practice the advice in “Bee Club Basics 2nd Edition” and use the enclosed samples ourselves.

I’ve established a dozen nonprofits since 1979. I know how challenging it can be for a new person to tackle the process. This book makes it more manageable and offers tips from someone who has some experience navigating non-profits. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me with your questions.

This 286-page paperback joins “A Beekeeper’s Diary, Self-Guide to Keep Bees 2nd Edition” as part of a three volume reference series I’m writing. Currently there are no other reference books like mine on the market. Kim Flotum, Bee Culture magazines retired senior editor last year, said I was “revolutionizing the way beekeeping was taught.”

All I am trying to do is to help other fellow beekeepers.

Charlotte

Using Glass Feeders Inside

Homemade feeder, left, compared to Boardman feeder, right. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)

Using Glass Feeders Inside

One of the changes our state association made to recommended best management practices a couple of years ago was to no longer feed colonies outside the hives. Outside feeding encourages robbing and the spread of viruses carried by bees with compromised immune systems due to Varroa mites.

One of the more popular outside feeders are Boardman feeders, plastic or metal trays that hold sugar syrup-filled glass jars a half inch off the surface so bees can feed from the punctured tops. This design also has horizontal legs that hold the feeder at the hive front.

Even though those are no longer recommended on the outside of hives, the feeders can still be used by putting them inside the hive.

Boardman feeders used inside a hive to supplement feed. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)

And in the event you’re short of a feeder, you can make your own. The idea is to hold the jar lid off the ground so bees can access the upside down jar. A square piece of wood with two glued smaller pieces on either side will hold the jar so bees can feed.

So no need to throw out the Boardman feeders, they can still be used just not at the hive entrances.

Charlotte

Award-Winning Beginning Beekeeping Book

“A Beekeeper’s Diary Won First Place in the 2022 “How to” Category. (Independent Press Award graphic)

Award-Winning Beginning Beekeeping Book

A potential new beekeeper asked me earlier this week about my award-winning beginning beekeeping book. “Have you used it yourself,” she asked.

After 10 years of teaching beginning beekeeping classes and 8 years of running a bee club, I still do, I told her. “A Beekeeper’s Diary Self-Guide to Keeping Bees” has been used in all of my beginning beekeeping classes, starting with the many check lists I’ve developed over the years to help new beekeepers keep track of all of the decisions they have to make.

Even though I know the book is helpful, there’s some pleasure in hearing others think it’s a good product.

The second edition has a very handy detailed index. (Becky’s Graphic Design)

The Independent Press Awards in 2022 is the latest award. They chose “A Beekeeper’s Diary Self-Guide to Keeping Bees” as the best in 2022 the “How to” nonfiction category. The Independent Press Awards bring increased recognition to the thousands of exemplary independent, university, and self-published titles published each year.
​"A Beekeeper's Diary Self-Guide to Beekeeping" has also been approved by Great Plains Master Beekeeping out of University of Nebraska as covering scientifically-based best management practices. The Great Plains Master Beekeeping program started in Nebraska and now includes Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, Nebraska and Kansas.
The diary reinforces information new beekeepers receive in beginning beekeeping classes and guides them through the decisions they have to make to get started. The diary has places for documentation, an important skill for good beekeeping. “It’s easy to skip this step in the first year but by your second year you will be thankful that you have those records.”
If a new beekeeper can’t get to a beginning class, the diary will help fill that gap. I like to be practical!
As much as I appreciate the awards, the best reward is to have a struggling beekeeper say “now I get it” after reading the book!

Charlotte

Beekeeping Pry Bars

Beekeeping “hive tools” are basically pry barns. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)

Beekeeping Pry Bars

A “hive tool”, the basic beekeeping tool, by any other name would be a small pry bar. The basic hive tool is to help a beekeeper get into a bee hive by prying through the tree-sap based glue bees make to seal up the hive.

In the three examples in the photo above, can you tell which one was sold as a “hive tool” and which one was sold as a pry bar?

The difference between the silver pry bar and “hive tool” is 1/4 inch. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)

Look again, the difference is only 1/4-inch in length and can be a savings of several dollars per hive tool.

The two small pry bars on the right were purchased at a local home and garden center in the tool department. The all blue one has a blue paint coat all over the bar and cost $10. I use marine blue as my signature color for garden benches and my hive tools. It’s an easy way to discourage hive tools from disappearing when working in other apiaries.

The middle, all silver small pry bar is getting a signature yellow paint on it. The original one belonged to my bee buddy David and was inadvertently given away at our last club meeting. Cost of the middle silver one, not counting the paint job, $5 each.

Here are two popular hive tool prices original and on sale. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo) o

And on the left of the top photo, an original beekeeping “hive tool,” purchased for $13.

So if you’re like me and tend the loose a hive tool or three during a season, checking your local home and garden tool section may save you a few dollars.

And if you’re just starting your beekeeping journey, pick up a copy of “A Beekeeper’s Diary Self-Guide to Keeping Bees” 2nd Edition. The award-winning book will walk a new beekeeper through the process and provides some basic bee biology information, too.

Charlotte

Beekeeper Bee Pins

These 1/2 inch wood bees are perfect to pin new beekeepers. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)

Beekeeper Bee Pins

Have you ever wondered when someone becomes a beekeeper? I have. Enough so that in our bee club one doesn’t get to call themselves a beekeeper until they have successfully helped at least one bee colony through winter.

There are people who “have” bees; the beekeeping community even refers to them as ‘‘bee havers,” people who for whatever reason get bees and then get sidetracked.

To be a bee “keeper,” you are learning a new language, quickly becoming an amateur biologist and trying to merge yourself into the world of bees. One doesn’t dictate to bees; to be a successful beekeeper, one learns to take cues from our bees. And it’s a continuous learning process. No two years of beekeeping are the same.

During the 2020 COVID quarantine, the one thing we heard repeatedly from club members was that they had successfully helped their bees through winter and were wondering when they would get “pinned.” Not knowing what the pandemic future would bring, we mailed the bee pins that year. The one Kathy Krupp is wearing on the left side of her shirt is on an embossed tag so that it didn’t get damaged in the shipment. Some people choose to wear them together, others will just wear the half-inch painted wooden bee pin alone. Regardless, it’s fun to watch people looking at shirt collars at club meetings to see who has a pin.

New “beekeeper” Kathy Krupp now coaching other potential new beekeepers. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

The wooden bees themselves are shipped already painted. I add glued tie tacks to keep them secure. To make them more friendly-looking, I will also spend a few minutes painting in eyes, sometimes looking in various different directions.

David Draker pins his protege Sharon Contini with her “bee” pin! (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)

The effort is minimal and so worth it when you see the faces of people who now get to call themselves “a beekeeper” getting their official bee pin!

Charlotte

Multi-Purpose Beginning Beekeeping Guide

Autographing diaries before they get shipped. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Multi-Purpose Beginning Beekeeping Guide

The second edition of the award-winning “A Beekeeper’s Diary Self-Guide to Beekeeping” is now available.

The 310-page large print 8.5x11 inch paperback is available in print with black and white photos and ebook 70% color photos. The book covers the first 3 years of beekeeping and supports beginning beekeeping classes with helpful guides and checklists; stands alone as a helpful guide for those who can't make a beginning beekeeping class but still want to start keeping bees, and includes an extensive helpful index.

This 2nd edition includes 310 pages in large print for easy reading.(Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

A Beekeeper's Diary 2nd Edition is also now a study guide for Great Plains Master Beekeeping's (GPMB) online Apprentice to Journeyman test. The GPMB educational teach-the-teacher beekeeping program is out of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln and is now including Missouri in their 7-state program.

Handy check lists guide beginning beekeepers through the options. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

The beginning beekeeping book and diary includes basic beekeeping information and guides appropriate to Midwest states.

The diary also includes space for notes. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

The diary retails for $34.95 and is available where most books are sold.

Autographed copies are available here.

If you are just starting your beekeeping journey, welcome!

Charlotte

Which Side Up?

The notch on a hive inner cover sits under the outer cover. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Which Side Up?

Of all of the things in beekeeping that can confuse new beekeepers - and there’s a healthy list of confusing things - which way the notched inner cover sits on top of the hive is close to the top of the list.

The inner cover is a hive lid that sits under the hive outer cover. It usually has a hole in the center to help bees move air through the hive to keep it cool in summer. During winter, ice and snow can close up the hive entrance prohibiting bees from taking cleansing flights when temperatures allow.

For that reason, I like to use notched inner covers on my hives during winter. The two-bee space notch gives bees an alternate hive entrance and exit in the event snow blocks the bottom entrance.

The inner cover notch can serve as a top hive entrance. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Some inner covers are made without notches. If you don’t have one you can easily make one by removing a half inch of the inner cover border to create a notch.

Without the notch, bees may die caught between the lid and inner cover. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Without a top notch, bees can get caught between the inner cover and the lid and die.

Yes, they may still have access through the inner cover center hole to move back down into the hive but some don’t make it.

For more tips on beekeeping including how to start, get a copy of “A Beekeeper’s Diary Self-Guide to Beekeeping 2nd Edition.”

Charlotte