Beekeeping

Bees

Honey

Beeswax

Royal Jelly

Propolis

Bee Nutraceuticals

About . . . Beekeeping

The relationship between honeybees and the beekeeper goes back through the centuries. This relationship and the techniques used to manage honeybee colonies continues to evolve today.

If you want to know a little more about beekeeping, or find the latest in detailed beekeeping techniques, just follow the links:

About . . . Bees

What is a bee?

The honeybees we know and love here at Honeybee Centre aren't just like any other bee. Not only do they collect nectar, they use this nectar to create our favourite sweet treat - honey! When carrying the nectar back to the hive, their bodies break down the complex sucrose of the nectar into two simple sugars, fructose and glucose. Tucking it neatly into a honeycomb cell, the bees will then beat their wings furiously overtop of this syrupy sweet liquid to fan out the moisture and thicken the substance. When it is complete, the bees will cap that cell with beeswax, sealing the perfected honey for consumption later on.

Bees are flying insects, and close relatives of wasps and ants. They are found on every continent on earth, except for Antarctica.

Bees of all varieties live on nectar and pollen. Without bees, pollination would be difficult and time consuming - it is estimated that one-third of the human food supply depends on insect pollination. Bees have a long, straw-like tongue called a probiscus that allows them to drink the nectar from deep within blossoms. Bees are also equipped with two wings, two antennae, and three segmented body parts (the head, the thorax, and the abdomen.) 

Learn more about Bees

Worker Bees

Drones

Queens

Life in the Hive

Worker Bees

Worker bees are all female, and they do almost everything for the hive. From birth to her death 45 days later, the worker bee is given different tasks to do during different stages of her life. Worker bees are responsible for everything from feeding the larvae (the baby bees) to tending to the queen, to cleaning the hive, to collecting food, to guarding the colony, to building honeycomb.

Worker bees are the most familiar-looking members of the honeybee hive, as they make up about 99% of each colony's population.

The stinger of the worker bee is barbed, so when she is forced to defend herself or the hive, her stinger will become stuck in the skin of her victim. She is unable to pull it out, and dies when she inevitably tears herself away from the stuck stinger, leaving it behind with the venom sack still pumping venom into her victim.  Consequently, honeybees are very gentle - they don't want to die any more than you want to be stung. Be nice to them, and they'll be nice to you.

Drones

Male bees are called drones. Their job is to mate with queens from other hives. If they do get the opportunity to mate, they die immediately afterwards. If they do not mate, they can live up to 90 days (that's twice as long as a worker bee!)

You can identify drones in the hive by their big round bodies and large eyes. Drones are incapable of stinging.

Queens

There is one queen bee per hive - she is the mom of all the other bees. She is the only fertile member of the colony, and lays about 1,500 eggs a day during spring and summer.

Queen bees are distinguished from the other members of the hive by their long abdomens and small wings. Soon after birth, queen bees will go out and have a wild weekend, where they mate with 15 or more drones over a three day period before retiring to the hive to lay eggs. The queen will not leave the hive again unless the colony swarms (looking for a new home).

When the colony needs a new queen bee, they simply choose a healthy larva, hatched from an egg of the current queen, and feed it Royal Jelly, a special, super-nutritious food. Royal Jelly, produced in the heads of young nurse bees (worker bees whose job it is to care for the eggs), helps this larva grow into a queen. Queens can lay about 1,500 eggs per day and can live from 4 to 7 years, that's up to 57 times longer than a worker bee - it's no wonder humans love adding Royal Jelly to their diets, too!

Life in the Hive

Contrary to popular belief, honeybees do not build an external structure that contains their hive. They love to live in hollow spaces, whether that means a hollow tree, an empty fallen log, or in a traditional man-made bee hive.

They do, however, build the inside of their hive. Honeybees make their own special wax (beeswax), which they use to create perfect little hexagons inside their home. These little cubbyholes are called cells, and in them, the bees store everything from eggs, to pollen, to honey.

To seal their hive and to protect against diseases, the bees make a substance called propolis. Propolis is a combination of beeswax, honey, and tree resins, and is anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, and anti-viral. It disinfects and protects their hive. It is also very sticky, and honeybees love to use it to seal up any cracks or holes they may encounter on a housekeeping mission. For more information about propolis, check out the About Apitherapy page.

With such a large population all working together, some great communication skills are needed. Bees do their talking in two ways - by scent and by dancing. When a honeybee is warning her sisters about an intruder, or if all the ladies in the hive are particularly happy, honeybees have the ability to release a special hormonal scent called pheromones. The bees can detect these scents and interpret their message. A happy bee pheromone smells suspiciously like lemons, and a warning-smell has a banana-like scent.

When a forager bee needs to alert her sisters as to where a nectar source is, dancing comes in handy. She does special turns and wiggles to show where she found the food - essentially drawing a map. Come check out our observation hive and watch for dancing bees!

About . . . Honey

What is Honey ?

Mature honeybees collect nectar from plant blossoms. Nectar is 80 to 95 percent water and 5 to 20 percent sucrose (table sugar). As the bee transports the nectar back to the hive, a protein enzyme in her honey stomach, called invertase, breaks the sucrose down into the two simple sugars, fructose and glucose. Young bees remove water from the sugar solution using two methods. They pass the nectar from bee to bee and 'drink' the water out of the nectar by absorbing it through their stomach wall. They also create heat and air flow in the hive by vibrating their wings and flight muscles, thus evaporating water out of the nectar which has been stored in open cells. When most of the sucrose has been converted to fructose and glucose AND enough water has been dehydrated out of the mixture to bring it approximately 17% water content, we have a delicious sticky mixture, called honey!

After honey is made, bees cap it with beeswax to maintain the low moisture content.

Learn more about ...

 . . . Honey Processing 

Many years ago, beekeepers crushed honeycomb to get liquid honey! That method of honey processing produces less honey for the beekeeper as it forces bees to spend time and resources building replacement comb rather than making more honey. Honeybees consume 7 kilograms of honey to produce 1 kilgram of beeswax. The advent of the centrifugal extractor, allowed beekeepers to 'scratch' or 'slice' off a thin layer of wax from the surface of the comb and spin the honey out using centrifugal force. The integrity of the comb is maintained and the bees have far less work to do to repair any cracks or shallow spots in the comb.

Whole honeycomb is available for people who want to enjoy honey completely untouched by human hands. They cut off a bite size portion of wax and chew the honey out of it. Wax will disolve if chewed for about 15 minutes, but most people discard chewed wax like they would gum.

The vast majority of people prefer liquid honey, so extractors are used to remove honey from the comb. Freshly extracted honey contains bits of wax and the odd bee knee or elbow. Honey may be cleaned by allowing it to settle in a holding tank for a day or two, or by pumping it through.

What is the best kind of honey?

Best Type of Honey (best first)

Raw Honey

Pasteurized Honey (most store bought)

... Varieties of Honey

The flavour, colour, texture, and aroma of honey depends on which plants the bees gathered nectar from. Blueberry nectar honey is dark amber in colour and has a brown sugar after taste. Raspberry nectar honey is extra light in colour with a slight fruity taste, and buckwheat honey is almost black in colour with a heady, pungent odour and flavour. Generally, a dark honey will have a higher vitamin content than a light honey.

There are hundreds of flowering plants in the world that produce nectar, this provides the potential to have hundreds of types of honey.

Wild flower honeys represent a blend of flowering plants and usually vary in colour and flavour from region to region and from spring to late fall.

Creamed honey is finely granulated honey that has 'set' in the jar. It may have a creamy consistency or be quite hard. Any liquid honey can be processed into creamed honey.

. . . The Nutritional Value of Honey

Honey is primarily fructose (38%), glucose (31%), water (17%), maltose (7%), and small amounts of trisaccharides, other higher carbohydrates, sucrose, minerals, vitamins, and enzymes.

Nutrition Information

per 21g serving (1 tbsp)

. . . Healing with Honey

For thousands of years, the unique antimicrobial and antioxidant properties of honey have been valuable for healing cuts, scapes, burns, and even open wounds. Generally, darker honeys and those with higher water content have stronger antioxident potential.

. . . Storing Honey

Store honey at room temperature with the lid on tightly. Honey is hygroscopic and thus attracts moisture from the atmosphere. If the moisture content of the honey is too high, it will ferment.

All honey granulates, and the rate of granulation is strongly influenced by the temperature of the honey.

No granulation

Slow Granulation

21 degrees Celsius (room temperature)

Fast granulation

14 degress Celsius (slightly below root cellar temperature but well above refridgerator temperature of 4 degrees Celsius)

About ... Apitherapy

What is Apitherapy ?

Apitherapy is the use of honeybee products for health and healing.

Apitherapy products can be categorized as follows: 

Body Care Products

Our offering includes healing salves and ointments, pampering lotions and cremes, soaps and lip balm. See our lineup of Burt's Bees products. 

Nutraceutical Products

We offer the purely natural nutritional and healing products, bee pollen, royal jelly, propolis and honey.

Bee Venom Therapy

We supply information, equipment and live bees to support people practicing Bee Venom Therapy.

See our selection of apitherapy products

The Hive . . . nature's medicine cabinet ! ! !

What honeybee products are used for Apitherapy?

Bee Pollen

...  is the male reproductive material of plants used by bees to feed their larvae. Pollen is the honeybee's exclusive source of protein, containing all the essential amino acids that people require. People use bee pollen as a multi-vitamin and/or to build up their resistance to air-borne allergens.

Propolis

... is tree resin mixed with bee-produced enzymes, used to protect the bee hive from bacteria, fungus, and viruses. People use propolis as a remedy for colds & influenza, and to build up the immune system. Propolis is also used topically for treating various skin conditions.

Royal Jelly

... is an enzyme enriched food, produced by young worker bees and fed to queen bees for their entire life. People use royal jelly as a multi-vitamin, as an immune system booster to promote longevity, and for mental clarity.

Honey

... is plant nectar, converted to simple sugars, dehydrated, and used for energy and winter food. People use honey as a natural sweetner, as a sore throat remedy, and for healing wounds.

Bee Venom

... is produced by worker female bees to defend themselves and their colony. People use bee venom to treat over 40 illnesses, including warts, arthritis and multiple sclerosis.

Beeswax

... is produced by worker female bees for building the honeycomb structure that is used for brood rearing and storing of honey & pollen. People use beeswax for a number of items including candles, cosmetics, and furniture polishes.

For more information regarding Apitherapy, go to