Established beekeepers in Canada take the winter months to rest up and plan for a new year of beekeeping, decide what bees to order for spring, and check over their equipment — repairing, cleaning, building or purchasing hive equipment as required.

At this time, new beekeepers should be making plans to buy the equipment and bees you’ll need to get started when spring comes. To help, Country Fields Beekeeping Supplies Ltd. has prepared A Guide for the Beginning Beekeeper for an overview of basic beekeeping information:

• Basic Equipment gives an overview of the equipment needed to get started, naming the hive parts and explaining the purpose of each piece. The guide also discusses how to prepare new equipment, and whether used equipment is a safe choice.
• Personal Equipment covers the protective clothing, gloves, and tools for the beeyard, as well as suggesting a few good beekeeping books that are suited to beginning beekeepers in Canada.
• Beeyard Location can make the difference for a health hive and strong honey harvest. In general, you’ll want to set up your hives in a sheltered site away from frost pockets or areas of heavy pesticide use, where it will be easy to get in to work the hives. In addition to a source of fresh water, bees should have nearby sources of nectar and pollen throughout the season — the guide gives some examples of good forage plants you might look for in the area.
• As a beginner, you will usually obtain your bees by ordering either a package of bees or a nucleus colony (nuc). The guide explains the process for installing your bees — package or nuc — in the hive equipment.
• Feeding your package or nucleus colony with sugar syrup will help them build quickly. As well, the bees will be under stress from being moved, and this can make them susceptible to disease. Fumidil-B is normally added to the sugar syrup to combat Nosema (”bee diarrrhea”) disease, and it is common for spring feeding to include treatment against foulbrood diseases as well.
• As the colony begins to build up in population, and the main blooming period for forage plants (the “honey flow”) gets under way, the next question is when to add supers to give the bees more room.

  “The rule of thumb for honey supering, is that the bees should never be using all the comb available to them,” says George Wheatley of Country Fields. “When the super is one-half to two-thirds full, add another super. When the second super is half full and the first completely full, add a third super, etc. The honey crop may be removed when the frames are fully or two-thirds capped with wax.”

The guide wraps up with a discussion of record-keeping to help you manage your hives, a list of other equipment that you’ll want to be familiar with, and a reminder to New Brunswick beekeepers to register with the Province, as required by law.

See the Guide for the Beginning Beekeeper on the Country Fields Beekeeping Supplies website at www.countryfields.ca, where it is also available in a “printer-friendly” plain text format.