Feb. 25, 2010 - With spring just around the corner, beekeepers are busy preparing their bee boxes.
On of those beekeepers is Executive Director of the East Texas Beekeepers Association, Dick Counts. He has been dealing with bees for more than 30 years. Not only is Counts busy preparing his boxes, he's reaching out to those new to the business and offering advice and guidance. In addition to producing a newsletter for his area bee club for the last 25 years, Counts also recruits a few students each year and teaches them about the art of beekeeping.
"First thing they need to do is join a bee club," Counts said. "There is one in Collin County, there is one in Lufkin, and here in Tyler... one is Shreveport. There are actually three in the Dallas area.
"There is lots of help out there," Counts said. "Beekeepers are always willing to help beginners. If it hadn't been for an old man that worked in an oil field, that kept bees, I never would have made it."
Counts used his mentor tirelessly, calling him at least once a week.
"'What am I looking at, what's this, my bees are doing this'" Counts recalled. "That is one of the big advantages of belonging to a club, is finding a mentor, somebody you can talk to, that won't think you're stupid. In retrospect, a lot of those questions like that are not being observant, or not knowing what to observe."
Counts suggested that all potential beekeepers, in addition to finding a mentor, should use beekeeping books and utilize beekeeping classes. Next, he suggested purchasing proper equipment.
"A bee suite, a veil, a hat and glove, and then three tools, one of the tools being what we call a hive tool, a frame grip, which makes it easier to manipulate them, and the other one is a smoker," Counts said. "Smokers are very important, especially to new beekeepers. A lot of people don't smoke all the time, 99 percent of the bee keepers do smoke some. I am one of the few that does not smoke."
Counts doesn't like the smell of the smoke so he uses vinegar to do the same thing as the smoke except in extremely hostile hives.
"The theory behind that is that in the beginning, and nobody knows when that was, the bees lived in trees, and that is not always true, not all over the world, a lot of time they are in caves and other structures," Counts said. "But when they lived in trees, and the forest caught on fire, then the bees would gouge themselves with honey in preparation to leave and make a new home. Bees still gouge themselves with honey. So beekeepers discovered that smoke would calm the bees and they would go in and start eating and they could do their thing while the bees where filling their stomachs."
In addition to their personnel gear, new beekeepers also have to get their woodware together to build their hive: bottom board, box, frames and a top, before finally being prepared for a hive. Counts noted a few ways to obtain bees. "He could buy a complete hive from somebody," Counts said. "I would sell somebody a hive, if I had a surplus. Currently, in the winter time, most beekeepers don't have a surplus."
Bees can be ordered as a "package" from a beekeeper that is in the business of making packages. A package is up to four pounds of bees in a screened cage. In that cage is a container of sugar syrup for the bees to live on, because it may take several days to reach their destination.
"They also put a queen that is caged in that package," Counts said. "She is caged because she is not one of those bees, in fact those bees don't just come from one hive. They come from multiple hives, so they are not a cohesive unit, neither is the queen."
Once they have ordered their bees they can be sent through the U.S. Postal service. Other carriers refuse to ship them.
"You get your bees and you can wet them down lightly with water or sugar water into this box," Counts explained. "Put the queen in that cage in between these frames with some candy in it. In three or four days, they will eat the candy and they queen can come out. Because they all smell alike by then they will accept her."
Within three to four days the queen should begin laying eggs. The beekeeper will now have to feed their newly acquired bees sugar water for six to eight weeks. They will begin to secrete wax which they will form into a hexagon patterned honey comb on each of the frames within their box. There, they will lay and care for their eggs.
The second way to get bees would be to catch a swarm. A swarm is a result of the bees reproducing a new queen cell in their hive. Just before the new queen hatches, the old queen and approximately half of the hive's bees leave the hive and find refuge on a tree or other structure.
"I've taken them off of just about everything," Counts said. "You got the same situation with a swarm of bees as you would have with a package of bees, but hopefully there is a drone, so you won't have to do that, but you still have to feed them because they don't have any stores. But they are in the mode to make wax."
Finally bees can be bought through a commercial beekeeper that uses the practice of splitting hives. When a consumer orders from a commercial beekeeper, their hive arrives as a complete working hive, all the queen has to do is fly out and be bred and begin laying her eggs.
That is the best way, other than buying from an individual beekeeper, to get started in bees," Counts said.
Once the boxes are built and the bees obtained, beekeepers search for the optimum locale for their hives.
"Most people are very happy for you to put them out there because they know that they are beneficial, you know pollinate their gardens or whatever," Counts said. "I get a fair amount of calls from people wanting one or two hives to put close to their gardens, although most areas don't need that, but people feel better if they do."
To get started as a beekeeper, or find out more about beekeeping, visit www.easttexasbeekeepersassociation.com.
