Maintaining your hives by ensuring your bees are living in tidy conditions is one of the most important parts of beekeeping, as it’s your job to make sure your bees stay in good health. As a human, you probably spend ample time cleaning your house, as a tidy environment leads to good mental and physical health. In the same way, you should put time and effort into your bees’ home to ensure they can function properly. If they’re healthy, you can get the most out of your hive—follow along to learn how to properly maintain a healthy beehive.
Determine Your Level of Maintenance
Deciding how much time you need to commit to your beehives can be challenging, but it doesn’t have to be. In fact, depending on your personal goals, you can determine how much you should intercede with your bees and their normal operations. Read on to learn more about some of the most common maintenance levels for beekeepers.
Low Beehive Maintenance
Low beehive maintenance is a common choice for those that don’t want to intercede in their hives or harvest anything from their bees. This approach allows bees to take on their natural operations and health restoration without your intervention. Additionally, you can take this approach if you don’t need to harvest bee products. However, you should still check in on them occasionally to ensure they’re doing okay.
Regular Beehive Maintenance
Regular beehive maintenance is the most popular beekeeping approach, as it requires a decent amount of work and intervention. However, you don’t have to spend hours and hours caring for your hives. If you want to harvest honey and beeswax, you should take the regular maintenance approach. In this case, check on your bees at least once per week or at the very least every other week to ensure their health, safety, and honey stores.
Intensive Beehive Maintenance
Intensive beehive maintenance is another common approach for beekeepers. If this is your main hobby and you want to spend most of your time on it, you should consider it. Additionally, those who want to harvest pollen and royal jelly will need to take this approach. Check on your colonies every two to three days to monitor the amount of bee products inside the hive.
Now that you know some of the most common approaches for beekeepers to take when it comes to their colony goals, you should also know some basic things you can do to keep up with your hives and ensure you have healthy bees.
Install
First, install a few things in the apiary to ensure your bees stay happy and healthy. Consider these additions to your beehives.
Rain and Shade Structures
Rain and shade structures are highly important, as the elements are some of the most destructive things for beehives. Rainwater can kill your bees and damage their hive’s structure. Additionally, excessive heat from the sun can wreak havoc on your colony by damaging their hive and causing bees to leave. That said, install a rain cover and shade structure to help shield the colony.
Entrance Blocks
Entrance blocks are exactly how they sound—they block the entrance to intruders. In fact, they narrow the opening, making it less likely for hive robbers from other colonies to enter. Also, they can help eliminate heat loss during the cold months, as the hive must stay at a high internal temperature regardless of the weather. Don’t worry; your bees will still be able to find the entrance to their home.
Excluders and Supers
Excluders and supers are another important addition to your hives. Excluders prevent your queen from laying eggs in the combs meant for honey, while supers provide additional space for your bees to store their honey during the summer months. If you don’t have excluders in your hive, ensure you install them before your queen lays her eggs.
Replace
Aside from installations, you should also replace a few things to make sure your colony has everything it needs to stay safe and healthy. That said, consider making these repairs and replacements as soon as possible.
Damaged Beehive Parts
Like your home, beehive pieces don’t last forever. With that in mind, replace and repair damaged beehive parts as soon as possible. If you don’t, other things could further damage the hive. For instance, broken or warped pieces make your colony more susceptible to animal attacks and other destructive forces of nature. As a bonus, fixing up the hive can add appeal to your garden.
Lost Beeswax
Beeswax is an incredibly important part of the hive, as it helps the bees build the interior of the hive. That said, if you notice a lack of beeswax, you should consider replacing it as soon as possible; otherwise, the overall hive structure may deteriorate. If you need to replace it, you can take the excess from another hive or purchase bulk raw beeswax online.
Provide
Providing for your bees is yet another one of your responsibilities as a beekeeper, but providing these things can also help you maintain your bee’s health and wellness. Check out these important things to provide for your honeybees.
Enough Ventilation
Ventilation is key when it comes to colony health. Depending on the season and weather conditions, ventilation can mean different things. For instance, if the hive is overheating during the summer months, you should add ventilation holes to let air in. On the other hand, you can apply black tar paper to the exterior during the winter months to keep heat in. Also, you should remove snow immediately to ensure proper ventilation.
Adequate Windbreaks
Wind can do some serious damage to your apiary; therefore, you should provide some type of windbreak. Providing protection from the wind, whether it be a solid fence, a living tree, or another type of structure, is an important part of beekeeping.
Now that you know how to properly maintain a healthy beehive, you can be the best and most successful beekeeper to your bees. Although honeybees don’t need constant human intervention, part of your job is to make sure they have everything they need to survive, produce honey, and pollinate local plants and crops.
