{"id":6971,"date":"2022-01-02T15:01:37","date_gmt":"2022-01-02T20:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beekeepingfornewbies.com\/?p=6971"},"modified":"2022-09-11T17:29:51","modified_gmt":"2022-09-11T21:29:51","slug":"what-is-beekeeping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beekeepingfornewbies.com\/what-is-beekeeping\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is Beekeeping? (A Primer For Beginners)"},"content":{"rendered":"
Updated on September 11th, 2022<\/p>\n
Honey bees are very beneficial insects. In addition to their role as pollinators, they provide us with various natural products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Throughout history, humans made the honey bee one of the most domesticated insects in the world to capture its products and services. This domestication is what we call beekeeping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beekeeping is the ancient agricultural practice of managing honey bees in enclosed structures called beehives. Beekeepers may obtain crop pollination services from these bees and harvest their honey, beeswax, pollen, and other products. Beekeeping can be a hobby or commercial in nature.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Honey bees have been kept since antiquity for their ability to make honey and wax and their value as pollinators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this article, we provide an overview of what is beekeeping and some of its history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beekeeping is technically called \u201capiculture.”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The word “apiculture” is derived from the Latin “apis,” meaning “bee” and “cultura” for “growing (similar to “agriculture”). Thus, apiculture is considered a form of agriculture or farming, where the honey bees are considered livestock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From the Latin derivations, beekeepers are “apiarists,” and their yards full of beehives are “apiaries.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Beekeeping is also considered farming in standard usage and by various governmental agencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In beekeeping, bees raise brood and produce hive products such as honey in manufactured enclosures called “beehives.” From beehives, beekeepers harvest apicultural products for human consumption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition, honey bees play a significant role in agriculture as pollinators of crops such as almonds, apples, blueberries, and much more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n See our article Is Beekeeping Agriculture?<\/a> for more details on how keeping bees is considered farming.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The honey bee (Apis mellifera<\/em>) is an insect in the family Apidae<\/em>, order Hymenoptera<\/em>. It is native to Eurasia and Africa but has been introduced worldwide. There are two subspecies: the Western honey bee (A.mellifera mellifera<\/em>), which lives in Europe, Asia, North America, and Australia; and the Eastern honey bee (A. m. scutellata<\/em>), which lives in parts of Africa and South-East Asia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The honey bee is a social insect, with colonies consisting of multiple generations of queens, female workers, and male drones. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Worker bees gather nectar and pollen from flowers. They use these items to produce honey, beebread (primarily pollen), and royal jelly as additional foods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While foraging, honey bees pollinate plants by carrying pollen between flowers on their bodies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While some other insects also make honey, honey bees hoard excess honey during times of abundant nectar flow. In contrast, bumblebees do not store honey, instead of using it immediately for their current diet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The bees’ instinctive hoarding of honey for later consumption provides “surplus” honey available for harvesting by beekeepers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to honey<\/strong>, honey bees provide other products for human consumption and use:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since bees are livestock, commercial beekeeping operations also market bees and queens for sale to other beekeepers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The use of honey bee products by humans dates back at least 40,000 years, as evidenced by the use of beeswax.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Domestication of honey bees may have begun about 10,000 years ago, coinciding with the rise of agriculture. “The widespread use of bee products among Neolithic groups could mark the beginnings of honeybee domestication. Neolithic farmers began co-opting cattle, pigs and other animals around this time, and may have seen honeybees in a similar light.”[2]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Clay cylinders excavated in Israel date back 3,000 years and appear to be the oldest beehives yet discovered.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n In Medieval times, honey gatherers would seek out honey bees nesting in tree trunks. These early beekeepers protected and nurtured these colonies for the eventual honey harvest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Harvesting honey with these early beekeeping methods typically requires ripping out the comb and the destruction of the colony.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Beginning in the 17th century, scientists began to study the behavior of honey bees and how to collect such large quantities of honey. These studies led to new beekeeping techniques that allowed for a more efficient honey collection without destroying the colony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Incremental innovations led to movable frames, facilitating hive inspections and honey harvesting. Movable frame hives based on the concept of “bee space” developed by Reverend Lorenzo L. Langstroth constitute the vast majority of beehives used today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n See our article on why we think the Langstroth hive is the best type of beehive for beginners<\/a>. In that article, we also discuss the other types of beekeeping: Warr\u00e9 hive along with the top bar and other horizontal hives.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nWhat Is Beekeeping Called?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Beekeeping Is Agriculture<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
About Honey Bees<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Hive Products<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
A Brief History Of Beekeeping<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n