Honey is a versatile ingredient. It can be used as a natural sweetener, can be combined with just about any food, and doesn’t spoil easily, making it a household staple for most countries. It can also be used as an alternative medicine to treat various illnesses like sore throat, cold, and cough due to its anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial properties.
As a result, many people are looking for high-quality honey online. Additionally, having honey ready to use at home can be very convenient.
Making your honey from your backyard can be a great way of ensuring that you will have a steady supply of honey at home. You can also sell it and earn a decent amount of money. If you decide to start making your honey, here is how.
Create or Purchase the Hive
The first thing you should do is to make the hive where the honey creation takes place. If you’re handy, you can build your own hive out of strong wood like sugar pine or cypress. You can also make a roof out of composite material and a honeycomb screen.
Build it as large as you desire, and there are even various designs you can for your hive. But it is highly recommended to buy a hive rather than building one as it is cheaper and much easier. They are inexpensive and save a significant amount of time and effort.
You can find numerous varieties of hives when you shop around. Creating or buying a hive from a real log can also be possible. The bees will blend well with your landscaping.
Purchase your Equipment
After you get hold of your new hive, you should not forget to go shopping for the equipment you will need to make your honey at home. Of course, your bee suit is the most important piece of equipment you should buy. The bee suit will protect you from getting stung by the bees when you handle them.
Additional pieces of equipment you will be needing are the following:
- Honey Extractors for harvesting honey
- Beekeeping smoker
- Hive tool that will help you from lifting the frames
- Entrance feeder for winter and fall
You can acquire these pieces of equipment from any e-commerce site, which makes purchasing fast and easy. Once you have gathered all the necessary equipment for handling bees and harvesting your honey, you can move on to the next step.
Buy Your Bees
Now that your hive is ready and you have collected all the tools and gears, it’s time to purchase the workers. Once you have ensured that the hive is ready, you should start looking for the best bees to produce the best honey.
Search for a local apiary within your area and look for a nuc hive, also referred to as nuclear colonies. A nuclear colony is a family of bees used to working together and centered on their queen.
What is great about buying a nuc hive is that the bees already produce comb and honey when you buy them. You will only need to gear up with your bee suit and transfer them to your hive at home. The queen has already been accepted by the colony and has mated with her. It means that you will have an assurance that new bees will take over when older bees die out.
In contrast, you can also buy a set of bees and a queen separately. Some even catch their swarm when one lands on their property.
Place the Hive in the Best Location
As a new beekeeper, the hardest decision you will need is where to place your hive in your backyard. The layout of your backyard determines the placement of your bee hives. Do you have many trees? Is your property on a hill? Is your lawn still wet after it rains? There are numerous elements to consider.
We presume that honey bees adore light from the sun since beehives placed in the sun appear busier and more efficient. However, bees prefer to be placed in a calm and cool shade. Additionally, beekeeping experts recommend facing your hives to the southeast if you want your beehive to be most productive.
You should also consider the wind when positioning your bee hive, especially if you built your hive. Wind can blow down colonies, especially if you are stacking high bee boxes. Lastly, you must position your hive near a food source and water supply. It will help them thrive and become successful in making honey for you.
Take Care of the Hive
You must make your bees, especially the queen, happy for the colony to produce great honey. When the queen is happy, she produces a substance that makes the worker bees work harder and happier so that she can focus on laying eggs.
If the bees don’t appear to be obtaining sufficient food, or if the queen isn’t generating, you may need to purchase some pollen and nourish the bees with a cloth soaked in sugar water and drenched in pollen. It will help the colony become healthier and more successful in producing honey.
You have to ensure that your bees are producing enough honey for you to sell online and for your own consumption. Hence, take care of your hive properly.
Start Harvesting and Selling
Now for the best part: Harvesting and selling your honey. All the hard work pays off, and it is now time to taste the sweet fruit of your labor. Shopify makes it easy to start your own business by creating your brand, online presence, marketing strategies and more.
When it is time to collect the honey, you’ll need a bee suit and a smoker.
When you use the smoker, the bees will fill up on honey and become delicate and sleepy again. Spray a puff or two into the hive, slowly open it up and take the supers full of honeycomb. Once you have access to the honeycomb, you must cut the combs off into large pieces. If you desire honey, use your honey extractor to make the job easy.
Start Producing Your Honey At Home
With this introductory guide on producing and selling your honey in the comfort of your backyard, you can start this new journey right away.
