Beekeeping is amazingly appealing as it enables you to have pure homemade honey. Also known as apiculture, beekeeping can turn out to be an enthusiastic passion that you can turn into a lucrative profession. Installing beehives at homes may look like a piece of cake, but when it comes to maintaining it, well… the job is utterly challenging!
It’s a common misconception that once you manage to install your hive and introduce the bees, you could simply sit back and start enjoying home harvested honey after a few months. The reality is, there is enormous regular maintenance and care work that you need to carry out before you create the room for getting avant-garde quality honey from the hive.
Today’s post aims to explore the best hacks to care and maintain beehives at home. Keep reading and get to know about all that’s involved!
Taking care of beehives at homes – Prelude
It’s worth remembering that you need to start taking care of your beehive right after completing the installation work. When you maintain the beehives properly, it creates favorable thriving conditions for the honeybees.
You should always focus on keeping the apiary structure strong so that you can promote a healthy honey harvest.
The top 5 hacks to care and maintain a beehive at home
Let’s delve deeper and check out the best methods of maintaining and taking care of beehives at home.
- Repairing or replacing the damaged parts
Like other mundane objects, beehives also wear out with time, harming their usefulness. Due to weather, these apiary structures may often experience damages like cracking, rusting, and rotting. Besides, insects or large animals can also harm the hives.
Whenever you notice some damaged parts on the structure, go for repairing them immediately. If you feel that the damage can’t be repaired, don’t hesitate to replace them. You strengthen the entire hive and add more to its durability when you do so.
- Replacing lost beeswax
Bees use wax to make the combs, and it acts as one of the most critical components to line the structure interior, making it more convenient for bees. Besides, when it hardens in the joints, it strengthens the entire structure. While harvesting honey or maintaining the hives, beeswax can be lost. You should immediately fill the gap by getting replacement wax from another hive or natural wax from a shop.
- Keep the hive ventilated enough
Proper ventilation can help keep a hive free from the damaging effects of high temperatures, freezing, and condensation. Thus, when you see signs of poor ventilation in the hive, go for adding ventilation holes to provide the hive with better air circulation.
- Arranging windbreak
Strong and rough wind can leave beehives in devastating condition. Besides, they can act as the agent that introduces moist air to the hive interior, which is highly harmful to the hive. Therefore, don’t forget to shield your hive with a windbreak in the form of a fence made up of robust posts and sheets of sturdy materials.
- Preventing hives from termites and woodlice
Termites and woodlice may destroy your wooden hive, and you should be pretty careful about this. You can employ soil treatment methods or liquid insecticides to control these harmful organisms. However, make sure that the control method doesn’t harm the bees.
Conclusion
As said before, creating favorable conditions for your bees by caring and maintaining the hive may help you increase honey production. Therefore, use the given hacks and enjoy beekeeping at its best by reading blogs at beeattire. The more you care for your bees and hives, the better honey you get!