Bees are some of the most important critters on our planet. In fact, bees are responsible for almost one in every three bites of food we eat! Without these striped insects, we'd be in serious trouble. That means its our job to protect them and to teach future generations how to do so, as well.

Not sure why it's so important to teach children about bees? Let's review a few reasons.

Children Are the Future

As we grow older, it will be up to our children to shape the world around them. Teaching them to respect and care for bees, which are responsible for so much plantlife on Earth, is a key step in helping them build a better future. And by starting these lessons, you'll be setting an excellent example for your children. After all, they learn first from parents and teachers. You could be the one to start helping them understand why bees are so important.

With some hands-on education and a few fun exercises, you and your children could be well on your way to helping the bees for years to come.

A Healthy Respect for Our Buzzing Friends

Children might have a bit of fear surrounding bees because they sting. While it's important to respect and care for bees, fearing them doesn't need to be part of the equation. In fact, fear of bees may even harm them in the future.

The best tool against fear is education. By learning about bees, your children can begin to understand that these tiny creatures are much more than buzzing, stinging insects. They help bring us flowers, honey, fruits, vegetables, and so much more.

Time to Start Teaching!

Now that you know how important it is to teach our children about bees, it's time to gather some information. We hope these kid-friendly bee facts help you and your children learn.

Beekeeping is a thriving business -- according to the USDA, since 2014, the number of colonies maintained by beekeepers has been at a 20-year peak. The reason for this is simple: beekeeping is a practice both exciting and lucrative. Managing the complex, social creatures makes for an engaging challenge. And in addition to the critical role bees play in global food production, they also produce a number of essential products. Beyond the obvious creation of raw organic honey, bees also make pure royal jelly, beeswax, propolis, and much more.

All this may have you wanting to care for a colony of your own. Read on to find out what kind of equipment you need to start beekeeping like a pro.

Protective Gear

When people think of beekeeping, their minds most likely conjure images of astronaut-like white suits with veiled hats -- and they would be right. Due to the risk of getting stung, beekeepers virtually always wear a beekeeper hat, beekeeper bodysuit, and beekeeping gloves. There is a particularly heightened risk while maintaining a colony because when one bee stings, it releases pheromones signaling other bees to do the same. Thus, one sting can have a chain reaction effect, resulting in a coordinated attack. Fortunately, between the veil in a beekeeper hat, the full-body suit, the special gloves, and boots, beekeepers are well-protected while caring for their colonies.

Hive Tool and Bee Comb

A hive tool is the primary means by which beekeepers engage with their colonies. These versatile devices can help to open boxes, detach honeycombs, collect propolis, and much more. Beekeepers should also go out equipped with a bee brush, so they may gently remove bees from a surface when necessary.

Bee Knowledge

They say knowledge is power, and beekeeping is no exception. There is no shortage of literature on the practice, from detailed instruction manuals for maintaining different types of hives to complex analyses of bee behavior. Make sure to do your due diligence and read up on beekeeping best practices, and on information about the bees themselves.

Glorybee has more than just bee products. Browse the beekeeping section of the site to find starter kits, hives, and more.

 

Let's talk about bees and the sweet, sticky substance they produce – honey.

A single pound of honey would require a honey bee to fly three times around the globe – approximately 90,000 miles. This, however, is far too much for a single honey bee to do. Within its lifetime, the average worker bee produces only about a one-twelfth teaspoon of honey.

Thankfully, beekeeping hives may contain anywhere from 10,000 to 60,000 bees and produce anywhere from 20 to 60 pounds of organic honey per year.

Americans seem to be crazy over this sugary substance. An average of 1.3 pounds of honey are consumed per person per year.

And what is honey, exactly?

Chemically speaking, it is an acid, typically ranging in pH from 3.2 to 4.5. This is what gives it anti-bacterial properties. In terms of production, honey is the final product regurgitated by bees, as a result of the enzymatic process done to flower nectar collected in a bee’s honey crop.

What Makes A Hive Run?

Hives rely on bee pollen – a condensed pellet of flower pollen collected by worker bees – as a primary source of food. Contained within one pellet is over 2 million grains of flower pollen. Some beekeepers sell these pellets (of bee pollen) for human consumption – perhaps for its nutritional value or for bee pollen supplements – by accumulating the grains attached to bees as they re-enter their hives with small pollen traps.

When it comes to the raising of bees, secretions from bees’ heads, or pure royal jelly – protein, sugar, vitamins, minerals – is fed to larvae in their first days, before development into worker bees. When it comes specifically to the raising of the queen bee, royal jelly will be fed to the larvae continuously until it develops into a reproductive female of the hive, later moving on to lay approximately 1,500 eggs per day.

The typical worker bee, on the other hand, is female and performs different tasks throughout its lifetime. As a young bee, it builds structures within the hive and cares for larvae. Only after a few weeks does it move onto flight and leaving the hive for the outside. The oldest bees take on these outside tasks, including the collection of pollen and nectar, as they are the most dangerous.

The last and least common type of bee is the drone, the only male bees of a hive, typically with larger eyes, larger wings, and boxier torsos than their worker bee counterparts. Their sole purpose to mate with other queen bees, which is important for genetic diversity.

The Beekeeping Kit

Beekeeping equipment involves, first and foremost, protective tools, which include a beekeeper hat (or jackets with veils) and beekeeping gloves, in order to prevent stings, aggressive responses from bees.

Other beekeeping tools may include a bee brush and a smoker. The brush may be useful for gently moving or pushing away bees from areas you need clear. Smokers are useful for making aggressive bees docile. The smoke covers up the scent of alarm pheromones produced by hive guards, reducing defensive reactions to a keeper, and most significantly, the smoke tricks bees into thinking there is a nearby wildfire. In anticipation of a move, bees fill themselves up with honey, which makes it anatomically difficult to sting. Thus, they are more docile.

Lastly and likely most importantly is the hive tool, which is used to cut into propolis, the adhesive that binds hives together, and to remove honeycombs.

Beekeeping For Beginners

Luckily, beekeeping basics are not too difficult to grasp. As long as you have an idea of how hives work, what types of bees play which roles within a nest, and what tools are necessary, the maintenance of a hive (or hives) becomes less daunting of a task.

Not only can raw honey be produced, consumed, and/or sold from this hobby, but also fermented honey, bee pollen, royal jelly, honey stix, honey candy, and honey vinegar, amongst others.

Beekeeping is not only an excellent hobby but also a way to earn money. Bee-lieve it or not, beekeeping is booming in the U. S. right now. North Dakota produced 33 million pounds of honey in 2013, after all! That is a lot of great product that goes for a great price.

If you're interested in learning how to beekeep, but don't know where to start, fear not! We'll go over everything you need to know about, including ordering beekeeping hives to how to set up your beekeeping equipment.

Ordering the Bees

Many people find it counter-intuitive to order bees before the beekeeping kit has arrived, but there is a method to the madness. One of the reasons why you should order the bees early is because by the time spring rolls around, it will be difficult to find an apiary that is still taking orders. Therefore, the best time to order bees is in January. If you order the bees in January, you can expect your bees to arrive at around April or May.

One of the best places you can start looking for bees are in your local beekeeping groups. People who keep bees in your area can point you in the right direction. There are also other facts to consider, such as whether you want nucs, package bees, buying a hive that is already working or catching a swarm. Each one of those options has its merits and demerits.

Selecting the Hive

A beehive is one of the most important pieces of beekeeping equipment in a beekeeping kit. There are two types of hives that you can use in beekeeping: the top-bar hive and the Langstroth hive. In the top-bar hive, the bees’ frames stay in a horizontal manner instead of a vertical manner. In this hive, the bees create the comb without foundation. When harvesting the raw honey, every bar that has a comb and honey is removed from the hive from the top side.

The Langstroth hive is the other type of hive used in beekeeping. This hive is made up of boxes placed on top of each other. Each box has frames where the bees make their combs and store honey. When you want to do something like harvesting honey, doing maintenance or access the bees, the boxes are pulled up like files in a cabinet. If you feel that the hive needs more space, you can vertically add more boxes, as this is the most common hive with many beekeepers.

Collect Beekeeping Tools

Beekeeping is an investment that requires you to gather supplies before you start the project. At this point, you should have already decided on which beehive to buy. There are a few supplies you should also get.

Some of these may be included in your beekeeping kit, or you can source separately. Some of those supplies include protective gear such as beekeeping gloves and a beekeeper hat. You will also need feeding supplies. Finally, you should brush up on your beekeeping knowledge by reading some books on beekeeping.

Place the Bees in the Hive

This is the best part. The bees have arrived and it is time to introduce them to the beehive. As much as this is an exciting part, it is also a dangerous undertaking. A wrong step can leave you in a lot of trouble. You should introduce the bees to the hive per our beekeeping 101 series here. Within a short while, the bees will start to get used to the new home.

Keeping the Bees Happy and Healthy

Bees need care just like other farm animals. Bees require care on a monthly basis and on a seasonal basis. One great thing about keeping bees is that you do not require investing a lot of time taking care of them. However, you should check them frequently. Constant observation is one of the ways of keeping the bees happy.

It is also beneficial to you because you will learn new things about bees every time you go to check them. Because of the changing seasons, you should organize beekeeping errands by season. For instance, help your hive build itself up in the spring, keep it healthy in the early summer, and treat for mites and extract in the late summer so your bees can succeed overwinter.

Beekeeping is an exciting prospect. Although it can be expensive to start beekeeping, the costs go down after the initial investment in supplies. A beekeeping kit is available at an affordable cost and it is also readily available.

It's beekeeping season! In 2014, the USDA tracked an estimated 2.7 million honeybee colonies in the United States, and colonies maintained by humans are on the rise. A backyard apiary (noun; a place where beehives are kept) is the perfect way to bring a little nature to your home. But if you're just starting out and don't know the difference between royal jelly capsules and the queen herself, this handy vocab guide to beekeeping for beginners will help you get started.

Beekeeping Hive Terms

A Package: The most common way to buy bees, a package consists of a young queen and a box of workers. A typical package will contain between two to four pounds of bees, a queen bee, and a food source, usually sugar water or syrup. The queen should be packaged in a cage to separate her from the worker bees.

A Nuc: Short for "nucleus colony," a nuc is just what it sounds like. A partially-developed colony with a brood nest and queen, these bees have already taken the first steps toward building the infrastructure necessary to continue reproduction and continue their population. This option is quite a bit more expensive, however, due to the difficulties of suppliers raising the colony and the careful transportation to the hive's new home.

A Super: The box that acts as the heart of the hive, each super is fitted with removable frames where bees can build wax or store honey.

Brood: The term brood refers to immature bees that have not yet emerged from the comb. Before developing into winged bees, the brood will pass through several stages: egg, larvae, and pupae.

Bee Byproduct Lingo:

Bee Pollen: A pellet of flower pollen packed by worker bees to be used as food by young honey bees, bee pollen can be used as a protein-rich additive for smoothies or as a topping for yogurt or oatmeal.

Raw Honey: Unheated, unpasteurized, and unprocessed, raw honey is the purest form of honey collected straight from the hive by extractor. Note: most supermarket honey is categorized as "commercial honey," which has been pasteurized for easier filtering, safety, and to look more appealing on shelves. While pasteurization may slow down the crystallization process, it also kills yeast and can affect the taste and aroma of honey. Raw honey, on the other hand, allows delicate flavors to come through.

Royal Jelly: A secretion from glands in the heads of worker bees that is used to nourish bee larvae. Pure royal jelly is a mixture of water, proteins, sugars, and trace vitamins and minerals. While all bees are fed royal jelly during their first few days of life, future queen bees will continue to be fed the substance throughout their development. A well-managed hive can produce up to 500 grams of royal jelly per season, which can then be capsulized. Royal jelly capsules are often used as dietary supplements.

This is by no means a comprehensive list. For more information on beekeeping equipment for beginners, check out this blog post. There's a whole world of beekeeping lingo out there to get acquainted with, and it can be a little intimidating at first. If you need help getting started, contact a local meetup group for beekeepers in your area. The community is usually very friendly and welcoming.