Welcome to autumn from Long Lane Honey Bee Farms! Yes, it is fall and time to think about getting our colonies ready for bed, prepared to ride out winter.
We are David & Sheri Burns, owners and operators of Long Lane Honey Bee Farms in central Illinois. We love everything to do with bees. We have been chemical free for years and raise and sell our own queens that we call the Illinois Pioneer Queen. We believe the stock of queen, especially local stock, can make a big difference. We also work diligently to encourage more and more people to start keeping bees.

We are passionate about beekeeping. It is a hoot! We love it. Everywhere we go we promote beekeeping. We need honey bees for our food. One out of three bites of food is from the pollination of a honey bee. If you are reading this and are not presently keeping bees, then you have come to the right place.
ACCESS OUR WEBSITE & ORDER FROM YOUR SMART PHONE
We’ve added a new feature to our website. Now you can log in to our website through your iPhone or other smart phone and our website will detect it is a mobile phone and make the website larger and easier to navigate. Just log in from your smart phone to: www.honeybeesonline.com and check it out. We listen to our customer’s suggestions. 240 million Americans shop on smartphones. 75% of smartphone shoppers never get past the first page of any site that’s not mobile friendly.  People are 51% more likely to purchase from business that have mobile friendly websites.
We are not a big beekeeping box store. Rather we are real beekeepers who manufacture beekeeping equipment, sell equipment, bees, queens and teach beekeeping classes so students can be responsible and successful beekeepers. Our classes are renown and fill up fast. My husband, David, is a master beekeeper, certified in 2010 by the Eastern Apicultural Society of North America. He knows bees. Every class he teaches shows his knowledge and passion for the honey bee. Before David shares an important lesson today on the “Minimal Beekeeper,” let me share with you what’s been going on here at Long Lane Honey Bee Farms and with our family.
WE ARE ADDING ON AGAIN!
Here’s our 5 year old son, Christian, inspecting the newly poured concrete. Several years ago, we built a bee lab-store-classroom. However, while it seemed large enough at the time, we’ve outgrown it. Now we are adding a much larger building to hold our beekeeping classes.
Construction is underway! We are joining our two buildings together by adding a new building between them. This new addition is larger than any building we have now. This will allow us to have more students attend each class.
We feel it is crucial for every beekeeper to take a thorough class on beekeeping prior to keeping bees. Our new building will give us much more space for classes and special projects. We hope to have it completed in one month.
David has several speaking engagements coming up in the next few months in the surrounding states. We’ll keep these posted on our website (www.honeybeesonline.com) for those nearby that want to attend.
WINTER-BEE-KINDS
We are now into full production of our popular Winter-Bee-Kind candy board. We have installed larger production equipment to try and keep up with demand. If this is your first time to hear about our Winter-Bee-Kind candy board, it is a way to feed your bees sugar and protein during the winter, and it provides an upper vent and entrance slot as well as a sheet of insulation to reduce winter water condensation in the hive. The insulation can also assist in holding in heat that is often lost through the top of a hive. For more information click here or go to: http://www.honeybeesonline.com/servlet/Detail?no=145
Those who have used our Winter-Bee-Kind in the past and would like to give us a testimonial that we can use, please drop us an e-mail: david@honeybeesonline.com.
Thanks Sheri. One other part of our business that has kept us busy is removing bees from homes, buildings, trees and various structures. Look at some of our recent jobs. Click on images to enlarge:






Today, I want to share a beekeeping lesson that I’ve entitled the “Minimal Beekeeper.”
LESSON 124: The Minimal Beekeeper
To many people, beekeeping is a fun hobby. To some it is a business, a livelihood. Whether a hobbyist or a commercial beekeeper, we all want to see our bees succeed with minimal help from us. However, bees do face many challenges which requires more of our help than was required 50 years ago.
Today there is much more to offer the beekeeper in the way of tools, hive medication, chemicals to kill mites and beetles, not to mention battery powered mite zappers, traps, solar powered cooling systems, fancy hive tools and the list goes on and on. Like any hobby, there are hobby tools and accessories a beekeeper can buy. Some of these work well and even prevent the hive from perishing. Others gizmos show little sign of improving colony health.
Most of us want to find the minimal that we can do to help our bees. We want to buy the minimal, treat and interfere with the hive minimally.
An ultra-minimal approach can be detrimental though. For example, a prospective beekeeper may decide to save a few dollars and buy used equipment. The danger in using old equipment is that it could be contaminated with diseases such as American foul brood, European foul brood and Nosema. Spores can become dormant in old equipment and “come alive” again when bees are added. It really isn’t worth the risk. It can lead to loss of time and money.
Many new beekeepers jump into beekeeping hoping to save money by building their own hive. For someone who has good carpentry skills this can be enjoyable. However, a slight mis-measurment can lead to a violation of bee space. Any time bee space is violated, it can be detrimental to the hive. Bee space is the space which bees allow for travel. If it is too large, the bees place stray comb to fill the gap. If it is too small, the bees will add propolis to seal it off. Bee space must be monitored throughout the entire hive when building your own equipment.
Others take a more “affordable” approach and build a top bar hive from scrap wood. Top bar hives are fun to experiment with for the experienced beekeeper. However, they can be frustrating to a new beginner. Harvesting honey cannot be accomplished the traditional way of uncapping and spinning the honey out of frames in an extractor. A TBH requires pressing or draining the honey from comb. Because a TBH is a horizontal hive, winter survival is risky because the colony cannot move up into the warmer honey above. TBHs are more successful in tropical climates.
At the other end of the spectrum are the beekeepers who throw everything at the hive, chemicals, medications and new gadgets, but don’t really achieve better results.
I’d like to answer the question, “What is absolutely necessary to keep bees?”
Minimal or Natural?
I like the thought of being a minimal beekeeper. Some might think I’m talking about being a natural beekeeper, but I like the term minimal. I like for my hives to get along mostly without me. Sometimes this is possible for several years, but at other times, they need my help. When a hive replaces a queen but fails, they need my help to give them a new queen. Once they no longer have young larvae, they cannot raise their own queen. We must intervene.
Minimal Feeding
I like to minimally feed my bees. Often I hear beekeepers complain that their hive has become dependent upon the sugar water at the entrance of the hive. They often say their bees seem lazy and not so willing to go out and forage. Bees are opportunists. If the sugar water is close, why go farther? Another reason I try not to feed my bees much is because it does cost. Sugar isn’t cheap, nectar is FREE! I only feed my bees when I determine they need my help. For example, maybe a new package is installed on a cold week in April. It rains all week so the new hive doesn’t have anything in the comb and no way to fly because it’s cold and rainy. They need fed. But once the weather turns around and flowers are blooming, I stop feeding.
Some of my hives demand minimal assistance. Not because they are defensive, but because they are so large and doing so well. Doctors don’t treat healthy people.
Minimal Equipment
What is the minimal equipment needed to keep healthy hives? Smoker, hive tool, hat and veil. These are a must! A hive and one or two extra supers for honey. If you only have one super, you can wait until it is full and capped, remove it, extract it and put it back on in the same day. Doing this only requires one super. However, most of us need two or three supers, because we might not extract the same day we remove a super. So if we have two or three, we can pull one off and spend a few days extracting it while the others are on the hive getting filled up.
For extracting honey, minimal equipment is needed too. Essential tools are a knife to cut the cappings open, and an extractor to spin the honey out. Certainly crushing the comb or letting it drip can work, but not as much honey will be harvested from the comb as with an extractor. Hot uncapping knives are a luxury.
Small hive beetle traps are a must. Screen bottom boards for mite reduction is a must. Green drone comb for mite trapping is a must, one per deep hive body.
Maximum Education
Successful beekeeping is born in the classroom. 50 years ago, beekeeping was easier since there were no mites, small hive beetles, CCD etc. But now, an educated beekeeper is a more successful beekeeper. It is vital to attend a beekeeping class taught by an experienced beekeeper with good credentials. Not everyone has to be a master beekeeper to teach a class. However, a first year beekeeper cannot possibly have the experience and knowledge necessary to teach a beekeeping class. That said, there are some veteran beekeepers who are asked to teach a class because they have 30+ years of experience keeping bees, but haven’t expanded their knowledge of beekeeping since 1972. You may want to watch out for these beekeepers, too.
If you are considering becoming a beekeeper, take a class. It is best to start with a thorough beginners class and then an advanced class. Throughout the year we offer these two important classes.
Some of my friends in the bee business will not sell queens or bees to new beekeepers until they have taken a class. I’m not quite that firm, but I do highly recommend all beekeepers take a beginners and advance course.
A FEW THINGS YOU CAN DO WITHOUT
Pouring a large concrete pad for your hive is not necessary. Use more affordable concrete blocks.
A huge smoker is not necessary if you only have a few hives. Large smokers are for working a lot of hives at one time. A small smoker works just fine for 10 hives or less.
Refractometers are used to measure moisture content in honey. It is accurate and very useful, but again it is a luxury. The best way to know you’re extracting honey at the right moisture content is to wait until the honey is sealed.
Chemicals can be helpful sometimes. But, chemicals are expensive and may not always save the day. Using chemicals and medications should be carefully thought out.
Fancy log books and software to keep beekeeping records are fun if that’s your thing. But a permanent marker for notes on top of a hive is pretty affordable.
So, before you get head over heels involved in beekeeping just remember you don’t have to buy all the fancy stuff. Start out with the minimal: A beekeeping beginners class, smoker, hive tool, hat and veil, a hive with a super or two and a package of bees. Things will probably go just as well for you as a minimal beekeeper.
Check out some of our more popular lessons:
-How to harvest honey
-Wax moths
-Swarming
That’s all for now and thank you for joining us for another beekeeping lesson! Please let others know about these lessons and our business. We appreciate you spreading the word! Your donations help us continue our work and research on the honey bee, such as our recent development of our Winter-Bee-Kind. These lessons are free and will provide you with as much if not more information than you would find in a $30 book. So consider making a $30 donation so that we might continue these lessons, CLICK HERE TO DONATE $30 or go to:
http://www.honeybeesonline.com/servlet/Detail?no=144

Thank you in advance.
David and Sheri Burns
Long Lane Honey Bee Farms
217-427-2678 Website: www.honeybeesonline.com
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When you call us here at Long Lane Honey Bee Farms, there are two people who will probably be answering the phone. My wife, Sheri and our youngest son Christian. Christian likes to get his two cents in on the phone conversations too, so you might hear him in the background. I hope little Christian, who is now 5 months old, will one day become a beekeeper. If he does, I'll have to teach him how to keep bees from being destroyed by varroa mites. But, while we wait for him to grow up, how 'bout I teach you...
A bear devouring a hive is an attention getter! A flood or hurricane washing hundreds of hives down stream is terrifying. These are huge calamities which beekeepers go to great lengths to prevent. We'll put up electric fences or put our hives on poles to protect them from bears. We'll elevate our hives to tower above flood plains. However, many beekeepers do very little to protect their hives from what might be their biggest threat. We seem not to take small things very seriously...small things like the tiny Varroa mite. The Bible says it is the little foxes that ruin the vineyard (Song of Solomon 2:15).
Mites are visible with the naked eye, but they are small. I wanted to put a picture of a mite on a bee in here, but fortunately for me, I didn't see any mites on the bees I tried to examine. But if you google "varrora mites" you'll see plenty of pictures. Older mites become dark and are easier to see than young mites which are almost clear at first.
In 1987 mites were introduced into the US probably as the result of imported bees. Within the next few years mites nearly destroyed all feral hives. A feral hive is a natural hive not kept by a beekeeper, like a wild hive in a tree. But the mites did not stop at feral hives but reached deep within the bee yards of all beekeepers, driving many commercial beekeepers out of business, and hobbyist out of a hobby.
I remember in the early 90s a friend of mine said he was done keeping bees because it was cheaper to buy honey than produce it. Mites drove him out of the hobby. They shouldn't have!
THE MITE CYCLE
All hives will have some mites. Mites are found in a bee hive feeding on pupae and on adult bees. It is important for the beekeeper to understand the basic reproduction cycle of the varroa mite which takes place within the honey bee capped brood cell. An adult mated female mite is called a foundress. The female mite enters the brood cell just before it is capped. She then lays her eggs in the cell while munching on the pupae. First she lays an unfertilized egg and it develops into a male mite. Then her other eggs are fertilized and develop into females. Mites mate with siblings. After the bee emerges from the cell, so do the adult female mites, looking for a new cell. Mites are carried from one hive to another by hitching a ride on the bees.
Good news: We can successfully keep bees even though we have mites!
Okay, to be fair, I must tell you what you will be told by most entomologist and bee inspectors and what you'll read in most beekeeping books and magazines. They give you a standard approach for dealing with mites. So, I'll give you what they say, then, I'll give you my thoughts on the subject. For the record, their way is not bad, wrong or unwise. It is sound advice. And keep in mind that I am not a scientist nor an entomologist anyway, right? I just don't like to use chemicals in my hive. That's where we differ.
Most will tell you to do a mite count to determine if you are over the "economic threshold". This is a fancy way of saying there comes a point where too many mites can be bad for your hive. However, that's like someone telling us there is an economic threshold for rattle snakes in your house. One is too many right? So it is with mites. They can carry viruses and when they bite our bees, viruses are spread. So one is too many, but it is practically impossible not to have some mites.
This economic threshold is determined by placing a sticky board under your screen bottom board for 24 hours and then counting the mites that are stuck to the board. Don't buy those expensive sticky bottom board. Make your own. I'll write a future lesson on how to make a lot of these cool things. Based on your number, you determine whether you are over or under the economic threshold which basically means either you treat with chemicals or you don't. At least this is what is commonly suggested. If you have more than 50 mites within a 24 hour drop period, then it is recommend that you treat your bees for mites.
Of course, I have my opinion right? First, the sticky board count method concerns me. Here's why. If I have a very hygienic hive, they may be cleaning out the mites and the mites might naturally fall onto my sticky board. So, I might see a count of 50 mites, but it may not mean I have a problem, but just the opposite. On the other hand, if I only have 5 mites on my sticky board it may cause me to think I do not have a problem, but in reality, my brood cells could be full of mites and mites might be all over my bees and just hanging on exceptionally well.

So I do not trust the sticky board drop test. Let me tell you how I determine my mite levels and then what I do with that information.
1) Digital photography. I photograph several frames, take the photo back to my pc, and zoom in on my drones and worker bees and look for mites.
2) Open drone brood cells and some worker cells. I actually will pull out purple eye pupae and examine the number of mites on the pupae. Mites love drones because queens emerge from their cells in 16 days, workers in 21 days but drones not until day 24, giving the foundress more time to reproduce before the drone merges.
These two methods give me a much better read on my mite levels.
Mites will be in your hives. They are impossible to avoid entirely, but they can be kept to a level that will not disrupt the hive as much.
While it is true that for many years the answer was to treat with chemicals, this is not a good management practice in my opinion. With all our chemicals we seemed to have developed a super mite that is now resistant to our chemicals while at the same time, some of these chemicals have made our queens and drones weaker. Some of the approved chemicals can be absorbed in the comb for 5 years or longer.
Within agriculture, there has long been an approach called IPM for Integrated Pest Management. IPM is an integration of several approaches to keep mites below the economic threshold. While treating with chemicals is part of IPM, that is a step we try to leave out.

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO ABOUT MITES?

WHEN HONEY SUPERS ARE ON: Screen bottom board, small cell foundation, drone brood foundation freezing, hygienic queens and strong colonies.
ADDITIONAL APPROACHES FOR WHEN HONEY SUPERS ARE OFF: Powder sugar drop
First, if you are just starting out with a new package this year, it will be vary rare to have a mite problem within your package of bees. It is possible, but I typically never see mites that much in the spring or early summer. I just don't care about mites until July and August. Mites become more aggressive and spread more rapidly in late summer around August.
You see, I want my bees to produce honey from April through the second week of August. And they do. I try to stay out of my hives as much as possible during heavy nectar flows so as not to disrupt their bringing in all that honey that my customers are lined up in my driveway waiting on! And, you can't use chemicals any way when you have honey supers on the hive. If you do, your customer's honey will be contaminated with chemicals that can harm humans. You DON'T WANT THAT!!
But, there are some things I can do when my honey supers are on to cut down on mites. First, I use screen bottom boards. I used to be a staunch solid bottom board fan until I experimented with a screen bottom board. Wow! I immediately converted all of my solid bottom boards over to screen bottom boards. When mites fall to the bottom of a hive with a screen bottom board, they are gone, and cannot make it back in. On a solid bottom board, they simply wait for the next passing bee to get on and ride back up to infest the hive.
A screen bottom board also provides ventilation and a cleaner hive allowing colony debris to fall on through. Here in Central Illinois winters are harsh, sometimes getting well below 0 and windy. I do not cover my screen bottom boards. I leave them open all winter to allow ventilation to evaporate the moisture out of my hives. It is not the cold that kills bees, but being cold and wet from their own condensation within the hive from poor ventilation. Screen bottom boards will not get rid of all the mites, but it is one of several approaches that contributes toward keeping mites below the economic threshold.
Secondly, I use drone foundation to lure the mites. You see, as I said earlier, mites like drone cells because the foundress mites have a full 24 days to develop their prodigy since the drone is the longest in the cell. So, you can lure the mites off of your worker cells by placing drone foundation on the outside edges of your brood hive bodies. We sell a one piece drone foundation plastic frame. The cell size is for drone cells so the queen knows to lay only unfertilized eggs producing drones. Then, your mites run to these cells and after they are capped, you pull the frames out, put them in a plastic trash bag, freeze them overnight and your mites are dead. Scratch open the cells and place it back in hive for the bees to clean out, and they will! They get rid of all the mites and dead drones. These frames are a bright lime green so you can easily identify your drone frames. We sell these frames for $4.99 each, much cheaper than chemicals. These can be purchased from our website at: www.honeybeesonline.com under frames and foundation. By scratching the cells open after freezing, it allows you to keep the drawn comb intact, but encourages the bees to clean out the dead mites and drones from the cells. If you scrap the wax completely off, then it just takes more time for the bees to draw it out again.
Thirdly, small cell foundation. I'll skip small cell foundation, because it is not a for sure thing and it should be tried only by very experienced beekeepers. It has to do with bee regression and let's just say that's a whole different lesson. But many claim that by using 4.9 mm cell size foundation, the cells are capped a day sooner, throwing off the mite's cycle and not allowing them to get in on time. Some studies have shown this not to be effective, while other studies show it helps control mites.
Fourthly, work is underway to produce a queen that is so hygienic that her daughters might have the characteristic of detecting a foundress mite, opening the cell and dragging the pupae and mites out before they reproduce. I have attended a conference where this was discussed and the results were shared. It is promising! We may not have to wait, as some suggest that bees are now becoming more aware of mites and are actually taking them out of the hive.
Again, if you find you have a queen and her daughters are keeping mites out of the hive, then that is good queen stock to breed from!
Finally, the answer to all colony problems in my opinion is to keep strong colonies. A strong colony avoids most diseases and pests.
When your supers are off of your hive, powdered sugar dropped in the deep hive bodies can be very effective at controlling mites. For a complete lesson on how to apply the powdered sugar drop, check out our lesson at the link below:
http://basicbeekeeping.blogspot.com/search?q=powdered+sugar
When using powdered sugar, the bees actually clean each other off, and mites go too. And mites get the sugar in their suction cups and can't hang on any more and fall out too! It is impressive.
There you have it! Some natural ways and IPM ways to manage your hives and keep mites from destroying your hive.
I've been working on several more lessons at the same time I've written this one. The next one will be on record keeping. A failure to keep beekeeping logs can result in the failure of your hives.
Remember, call in your hive orders as soon as possible so you can get your equipment on hand soon. So call us for your hive order or bee order. Call us between 9am - 5pm Central Time. We'll be happy to help you get what you need to start keeping bees.

We have lots of hives listed at our main website at:
www.honeybeesonline.com We'd love to earn your business.

Remember... BEE-HAVE Yourself!!

David & Sheri Burns
217-427-2678
Long Lane Honey Bee Farms
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