Beekeeper friendly or bee friendly - decisions decisions

1. beetogetherlux@gmail.com
Which profile describes the type of beekeeping YOU wish to practice?
Beekeeper Friendly Bee Friendly
Bee products If frames are used then this simplifies
extracting honey using a centrifuge.
The use of a queen excluder separates
the brood from the honey, and therefore,
the honey cannot contain eggs, larva and
cocoons.
As the honey supers tend to be half the
size of the brood boxes, the honey frames
fill up more quickly, and therefore, it is
easier to obtain honey from a specific
period of time (e.g. spring honey and
summer honey).
If top bars are used (not frames) then the
honey is extracted by crushing it.
As there is no queen excluder, you have
to be patient until the pupae have all
hatched and the box is completely full of
honey.
As you have to wait till the box is full of
honey (or at least one top bar), your
honey is more likely to be multi-floral.
That is, there is less control over the type
of honey you obtain.
Bee lifecycle The use of a queen excluder is less
respectful of the bee's lifecycle as it
prevents the queen from going to the top
of the hive.
The bees and queen naturally start
building comb at the top of the space
given to them.
Race of bees Any race of bee is possible.
Naturally you will prefer a calmer bee. A
purebred Buckfast (artificially inseminate
queen) has been bred for this purpose.
Any race of bee is possible though you
will favour local bees where the queen
has mated with the drones in the area or
indigenous bees that have been artificially
inseminated (e.g. Carnica, Black, not
Buckfast).
Queen You may decide to accept that the queen
has a colour dot on her to indicate the
year of her birth.
You will not accept that the queen has her
wings clipped.
Beehive
systems
Any beehive system using frames. You
can decide whether or not to use a queen
excluder, knowing that if you add a honey
super on top that there is a risk that the
queen starts laying in the honey super.
You may wish to paint it in silver to reflect
the sun so that the brood boxes do not get
too hot.
You will favour intervening in the hive as
little as possible, relying instead on your
senses to determine the health and
happiness of your bees.
You will favour leaving the wood natural or
painting it with linseed oil.
Equipment
material
You may wish to consider one of these:
Favouring natural materials;
Favouring wood from sustainably
managed forests;
Avoiding metal, such as nails, frame
separators;

2. Beekeeper Friendly Bee Friendly
Feeding When needed, I will feed my bees sugar
candy and sugar syrup.
You may wish to consider one of these:
- not feeding my bees at all
- feed my bees with fermented honey
(difficult to obtain)
- feed my bees with organic or non-
organic sugar candy and sugar syrup,
particularly for small colonies and colonies
that start late in the season (e.g. June)
Bee Diseases
and Pests
You will treat for Varroa as you consider
your bees an investment.
You may treat for Varroa. You accept that
your bees might die and that you may
need to spend 100 to 125 EUR to replace
them.
You will probably not accept cutting out
the drone cells as a means of reducing
the number of Varroa.
Swarming You will favour creating artificial swarms to
prevent swarming.
You will favour letting the hive swarm and
if you are lucky, you will capture it.
Land If you are sharing land with other
beekeepers, do you share the same
philosophy and the same or similar
beekeeping practices?
Same, plus
You will favour being in an area where
pesticide and herbicide usage is low or
non-existant (e.g. organic farming
practices).
A list of farmers, including beekeepers,
producing organic food can be found
here.
If you are sharing land with other
beekeepers, do you share the same
philosophy and the same or similar
beekeeping practices?
Land
authorisation
Please refer to page 9 and 10 in this
document that gives some information on
the relevant regulations for having bees
within a city / village and links to find the
correct contact person for the commune if
you intend to keep bees in the
countryside:
http://www.slideshare.net/BeeTogetherLux
/bee-social-bee-prepared-event-w-bee-
together-2015-01-13
In the case of the countryside, the contact
person will send you the form to be
completed.
Same