Beekeeping Varieties

Beekeeping can be considered a major form of art and science. It is presented in different mechanisms that allow people involved to choose which ever is more convenient for them. Let's take a look at the development of the various forms of beekeeping over time.

There is what is called as traditional beekeeping which involves the employment of the design of fixed frame hives. This entails having a hive filled with moveable wood and plastic frames with each one having a plastic foundation or sheets of wax. The bees use these sheets to build cells that serve as foundation for the complete creation of honeycombs. There are two cell sizes for the foundation. The first one is the worker foundation which allows the bees to make small, hexagonal worker cells while the other one is called as drone foundation which facilitates for the production of male bees via larger drone cells.

There is a box on the bottom portion which is called the brood chamber wherein the queen and most of the population is situated. The upper boxes are the ones that serve as honey containers. The young nurse bees are actually the ones responsible for producing wax flakes that are necessary to build honeycombs wherein brood raising and honey deposition occurs. The frames in this design can be readily moved during the extraction phase of honey.

Modern beekeeping in the United States involves the utilization the Langstroth hive. This hive was recognized for its characteristic of being open on top while having movable frames. In the UK the most common figure in beekeeping is the British National Hive which is made to hold the likes of British Standard, Manley, and Hoffman frames. There is prohibition of unframed boxes, bee gums, and straw skeps in most of the places in the US. This is because these designs cannot be properly inspected for diseases. But there are certain hobbyists located in the UK who uses straw skeps for the collection of swarms before placing them in common hive designs.

Natural beekeeping is making strides in order to promote anti-chemical methods in the industry. The people behind this plea believe that colony collapse disorder can be eliminated by getting rid of the trends that usually take the needs of bees for granted. Moreover they attribute the overall depletion of the health of honeybees to activities like crop spraying, pollination for commercial crops, sugar water feeding, and artificial insemination of queens. Natural beekeeping accounts state that efforts should be done in order to ensure the safety and welfare of honeybee colonies which can affect the overall condition of nature.