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The queen is the most important bee in the colony and is very different from both other types found in a hive. The queen's job is to breed with the drones and lay eggs. It may not be much of a job, but it is through her that the colony can continue year after year. The queen lays enough eggs to keep the hive in workers for the spring and summer and also knows when to begin laying eggs again in the winter. There is only one queen per colony of bees and when she dies the worker bees will choose new worker larvae to replace her. In order for the worker larva to develop into a queen, they must be fed a special substance called 'royal jelly' which contains mandibular gland secretions from young worker bees and more honey than worker bees get. The queen also has control over the hive in that she secretes pheromones to regulate the behaviour of all the bees in the hive.

The lifespan of the bees varies greatly between different types: the queen can live anywhere from two to seven years; workers live for 30-50 days, whereas drones live for around 55 days.

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Beekeeping guide

Basic Bee Information

The key to getting into beekeeping is understanding the bees. There are three types of bees found in a bee colony, and each has their own specific role to fulfill.

The most abundant type of bee in each colony is the Worker bee. This is a female bee that is incapable of reproduction and has tasks both inside the hive and out. These tasks include 'housekeeping' which takes place for the first two weeks of a workers' life. Housekeeping involves repairing damaged sections of the hive, clearing away bee carcasses, and feeding the queen with royal jelly which only bees of less than ten days old can make because they have a special secretion from their mandibles at that age. After two weeks, worker bees can fly and so are sent out to collect nectar and pollen. After another two weeks of collecting worker bees are put on guard duty, protecting the entrance to the hive from intruders

Drone bees are males whose only job is to breed with the queen. They are only allowed in the hive if they will mate with the queen, and then they are sent out. No drones live permanently in a bee colony and workers keep them out of the hives in the autumn so they die each winter. Drones do not have the necessary tools to collect pollen or nectar and are therefore useless apart from their breeding capabilities.

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Tips for Bee Farm Keepers

• Research honey production standards that might be applicable to you. Feeding bees artificial pollen could be an issue in your state.
• If you are taking care of a small honey farm full-time, you can do it alone, but hire someone to help you extract honey when the time comes. You’d need to hire hand for bigger farms or else your operation could fall into pieces for lack of manpower and proper maintenance.
• Employ your family and kids especially if you are farming full-time, it will help keep expenses down and is a good way to start the children young into the business.
• The kind of honey produced depends on what they are fed. Different flowers, because of their different complex sugar ratios, produce different flavours of honey. The most commonly used plants by larger honey producers is canola. Experiment on different kinds of flowers, to see the results. You could specialize in producing a certain kind of honey for a niche market.
• Heat employed when extracting honey affects the quality of honey, some small operations avoid it as much as possible to preserve the quality of their produce.

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1Honey Farm Essentials

If you have decided to pursue the project, be sure you have the farm, vehicles and the equipment needed to start the business. For a small farm, you would need bees with queen, brood chamber, honey containers, honey boxes, attire (hat, veil, and overalls), hive tool, scratcher for unsealing the honey, manual or motorized extractor, and freezer for storing honey.

Alternatively, you can operate a large honey farm by buying honey from small farmers and distributing it to schools, restaurants, households, pharmacies and hotels under your own label. Usually, small farmers do not allot time and energy on marketing their produce. As a bigger outfit, with perhaps between 10 and 20 employees, you can do extensive marketing. Expect to spend about $100,000 for fixed assets and working capital when starting.

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Start a Honey Farm

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Guide to Beekeeping Business

Summary: Some people raise bees for a hobby, others do it for a business. As a business, it could raise enough to support a small family. If you have the interest or resources to start a honey farm, explore the possibility of getting into business with it. Our guide will help you by providing some basics of starting a honey farm.

Honey farming could be a hobby, but it could also be a full-time job that could support a small family. Small bee farmers can produce average of 100 lbs. of honey per year.

If you are into honey farming as a hobby, you can turn that interest into a business. If not, and you are outright interested in getting into business, try working as a beekeeper employee for a while, even just part time, to assess whether beekeeping is indeed for you.

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