Frequently Asked Questions
Can a person with allergies start raising bees with a Beepod?
Yes one of our customer is hyper-allergic and dutifully practices polite bee-havior around the hive. he's carful to be gentle and slow around the bees and they respond by not bothering him. Of course any hyper-allergic beekeeper should approach any beehive with a smoker in one hand and an eppipen in the other.
How much honey can we get from a Beepod?
We try to stress that Honey Production is not the reason for keeping bees in a Beepod. That said yyou can expect 10 to 40lbs of honey from a single Beepod in a season. But often not the first season as you are letting them build their new home. Unlike a stacked box hive that yields upwards of 120lbs, a Beepod is designed for fun, education and backyard pollination raher than maximum honey. The other great feature of beepod honey is that you harvest it one bar at a time, not an 80lb box lifted off a six foot stack with a thousand stinging bee in it. Also you harvest Propolis, Pollen and wax more with a Beepod which encourages owners to play around with making candles, lip balms habd salves and various other useful products.
How do bees get started in a Beepod?
Good question, its not like Kevin Costner's Field of Dreams that "if you build it they will come", no you have three ways to get bees and of them only one assures you will get started next year. The most common way to start beekeeping is to order a Package of Bees (and queen) from your local Bee distributer. An easy search of the internet will provide you options. Typically they come from "bee shakers" on the West Coast, But now more effort is being done to produce local bees or over wintered stock thats suited to the climate, flora and stresses or the area. Typically
following early season pollination jobs, major bee breeders plan massive queen rearing efforts to produce tens of thousands of new queens to help pollinate Spring as it springs round the world. These Shakers literally shake boxes of bees into 2 and 3lb packages that they hang a small Queen Cage into with a new fertile queen. These are pallatized and loaded onto semis by the thousands and delivered across America in Mar-April and May.
The second way to get bees is to order a nucleus or "Nuc" colony. Its a bit more expensive and comes later throughout the season but it is a fully operational colony with a laying queen and 5 or more wax comb bars with brood actively thriving.
The third way is to catch a Swarm... and while this is a chancy method with no guarantee of success, it is becoming a viable option for latecomers to seasonal beekeeping.
How do I get them in a Beepod?
Bees are introduced into the inner chamber of the Beepod a number of ways though essentially they have their queen placed inside and most the rest of the colony shaken into the open cradle before sealing it up by placing empty bars and the feeder bar around them to seal them in. If you hung a queen cage with a new queen, between the bars above the bees, they'll rescue her by releasing her from the cage and get started making their new home.
A nucleus colony comes with drawn comb on bars and simply requires you to move the bars from the nuc-box into the Beepod.
What is the cause of the Bee Decline? • Neurotoxic pesticides But we also believe that the present loss in vitality and reduced capability of survival of the honeybee is not only caused by commercial agricultural practices with their monorops and poisons, but also by our attempt of making beekeeping as profitable as possible which has driven and shaped our practices for over 100 years, including: • Artificial queen breeding
Media seems to whitewash the facts but it is becoming hard to continue the myths of Cell Phones, and Bad Beekeeping. The scientific community has proven the population of honeybees has been adversely affected by:
• Mites & viruses
• Mono-crop agribusiness
• Migratory honeybeekeeping
• Recycled wax or plastic foundations
• Feeding sugar/corn syrup in large quantities
• Exploitive honey harvests
• Swarm prevention
• Migratory beekeeping
