If you want to start beekeeping as a hobby or as a home-based business, you need to decide which kind or variety of honeybee to purchase. Honeybees domesticated in Europe and in North America all belong to the several subspecies of the Apis mellifera, or Western Honeybee.
Some honeybee breeding companies selectively breed and hybridize subspecies of the Western Honeybee to produce desirable qualities such as disease and parasite resistance, good honey production, reduced swarming, prolific breeding, and gentleness. The drawback to this practice is that subsequent generations of hybrid bees generally have a tendency to increased aggressiveness and defensiveness.
Honeybees in North America are, for the most part, descendants of bees brought from Europe by early settlers in the 1600s. These bees adapted fine to surroundings in North America, and nowadays both the wild and domesticated honeybee colonies in the United States are descendants of European honeybees.
European settlers also brought bees to South America, but they did not adapt as well to the tropical climate there. Domesticated European honeybees in most South American countries require intensive managed. Because of this, in 1956, researchers imported honeybees from Africa into Brazil. The African bees grew and started colonizing South America and hybridizing with European honeybees to create what is known today as the 'Africanized' honeybee.
Africanized honeybees soon started to displace the European bees and to spread, and today every country in South and Central America has established populations of these honeybees.
Africanized honeybees reached the United States in October 1990 and have interbred with European honeybees. This variety of honeybee tends to be considerably more aggressive and protective of its hives than the European honeybee, causing a degree of concern among U.S. farmers and beekeepers.
The most common European bee in the United States is the docile 'Italian honeybee'. The benefits of this kind of bees are gentleness, high honey yield, low swarming tendency and realistic disease opposition. An undesirable feature of Italian honeybees is that they retain larger populations within the hive in the winter and thus need larger amounts of winter stores.
The 'Russian honeybee' is other honeybee variety that is raised in the U.S., they are docile, reasonably disease resistant and capable to sustain both hot and cold temperatures.
The backbone of the honeybee culture in the U.S. is the European honeybee, which, apparently, has started vanishing at a rapid and alarming rate. Some people believe that the Africanized honeybee might "... someday be the salvation of our [U.S.] beekeeping industry." In parts of the Southwestern United States today, beekeepers are already successfully raising Africanized honeybees. In parts of the Southwestern United States today, beekeepers are already successfully raising Africanized honeybees.
Deciding Upon Honeybees - Summary
?Before deciding to buy honeybee, keep following chief features in mind: quantity of honey creation, swarming routines, disease resistance and degree of fierceness.
?In selecting how to procure the honeybees to start your beekeeping activity, remember to consider not only price and shipment cost, but also guarantees offered by suppliers and their reputation - especially if you decide to purchase your new honeybees online.
?Note that a single healthy hive can house about 40 to 45 thousand bees. Change the quantity of bees you obtain according to the number of hives you have.
?Keep in mind that you must have your bees prepared to move into the hives by early April.
?Most importantly, make every effort to get your bees locally if at all possible. If this is not an option, contact local beekeepers to help you decide on which bees to get. Beekeeping depends on climate and other geographical fundamentals, and local beekeepers who know the surroundings in your area l know what works best - and what will not work.
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