3:00 snapshot #1319: Honeybee presentation

[urbpan]

One of our zookeepers has taken on the task of maintaining the honeybee hives. She invited staff to come see inside the hives. (This was taken afterward.)



Some of our zookeeper interns were among the first to suit up!


I love the interns--so young and excited for anything!


First remove the jars of sugar water,


Tease out the...racks? Jeez I don't remember what each comb unit is called. I know there are apiarists reading this who will inform us.


This comb looks good: lots of worker cells in the middle, with honey at the margins.


This one includes a clump of drone cells, the bulging ones at the lower right corner. The queen can choose to lay fertilized or unfertilized eggs. Fertilized eggs become workers (or a queen if the workers choose to make it so) and unfertilized eggs become drones--male who leave the hive to mate with queens from other hives. Drones are a little bigger than workers, so their cells puff out bigger than the worker cells. This information was useful, thinking back on the bumblebee hive I found recently.

Comments

[ssorca19.livejournal.com]

i keep thinking i'd like to give beekeeping a try, but (other than the box, ect) I worry about the specialized equipment needed... I mean you need to have a spinner, etc, if you want to process honey, right? I havent clue where I'd keep all that.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

It seems pretty cool, I'm not really sure how much room you would need. I'd want to be a little more hidden from my neighbors first.

[iheartoothecae.livejournal.com]

You might want to look into top-bar hives. They require less equipment than the Langstroth hives (stacking box hives like in the photos here).

http://www.biobees.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=16447#16447
http://www.goldstarhoneybees.com/products/14-How-To-Videos/

[iheartoothecae.livejournal.com]

OMG, I want to be a beekeeper zookeeper.

The rack thingies are called frames.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Ah, that makes sense.

She's the lead keeper of our "hooves and horns" area, and is volunteering her time to be our in-house beekeeper.