5 reasons why your hives don’t attract bees is premium content I am dishing out to my readers at no cost. There have been complain from many beekeepers, especially the newcomers, about setting up hives and having no single bees in them after many weeks even months.
To be sincere, I too have been in that shoe and I fully understand how this feels; most times it breaks our hearts, especially when you have plans on how to make fast cash from the farm setup. In this article which is focused on reasons why your hives don’t attract bees, I will be trashing out some take-home points you can equip yourself with. Enjoy.
- Wrong site selection: every location or every land available can’t be used for beekeeping setup. There are criteria to be considered in selecting the right and best location for your beekeeping setup.
Among those criteria, which I already spell out in one of my previous posts on beekeeping, are tree covers. When hives are installed in the open field, it is not safeguarded from harsh weather conditions such as direct sunlight, heat wave, excessive wind etc.
Once bees come over to scout out the installed hives or habitation and discover that the environmental condition is not conducive enough they will turn down your offer to house them. There are other factors and everything on beekeeping which you can look up in my Book: BEEKEEPING GOLDMINE.
- Inadequate supply or application and use of wrong bee attractants: I have discovered that many young bee keepers in the bid to save money or reduce cost by all means, have resorted to over-management of bee attractants during bee hive baiting and rebating.
The act of not applying optimum bee attractant will result in the scouting bees not smelling the attractant while on their duties. This does not also mean you over applying it as this will result to increase in cost.
Now, finding the right attractants is the major thing. If you apply the wrong attractants either perfectly or optimally there are great chances that the bee hive will never get colonized. Getting the right attractant for your baiting is key.
- Chemical application or its presence in the environment: installing your hives on a crop or close to a crop farm is not an issue at all but the issue here is that the chemicals used on the crops will surely affect your bees.
It’s either the productivity of the bees are reduced or it results in their death or distort their body biology. No form of chemical either insecticides or fertilizer should be applied on the land where your bee hives are installed.
- Faulty Hives: not everyone understands the basics of bee hive construction. Its beyond buying of wood and giving it to carpenter to nail together. There are things to look out for while designing and constructing a bee hive; it may be Kenyan Top bar hive or the Tanzania Top bar hive.
Even though the Kenya Top Bar Hive have some similarity with the Tanzanian Top Bar Hive yet their design differs. One of the major faults you can find or make while making your hives includes having too much space around the hive or buying warped woods.
While constructing your hives you must ensure that there is no space around the hive except the only entrance made for the bees. Once bees come to scout the hive and discover holes around it, this will make them insecure and reduces their chance of staying back.
And if the bees settle for the hives, they will probably invest most of their time hunting for tree gum which they make into propolis which they will use in closing those holes. This processes or work might take them productive months to complete.
- Interferences: this might be unintentional as most times new bee keepers just install their hives anywhere they feel on the farm and except it to colonize overnight. If there are anything bees hate then its interferences.
Interference can either be by animate objects like humans (when hives are installed on foot paths), animals then inanimate objects like wind direction. Never install your hives along foot paths.
The on and off human on the foot path is a distraction to their own movement. And there is no way people pass there that one or two persons won’t be tempted to open or try to upset the bees.
As for wind, hives set in the open or where there is excess wind flow will cause lot of trouble for the bees. Hives under trees are a bit secure reason the wind serves as windbreak thereby reducing the velocity of the moving.
High distort the flight balance of the bees making it quite difficult to forage. And for scouting bees who saw such installed hives they might never want to give such a place a trial.
I am sure you enjoy this post, there are much more in stock for you if you really want to take your bee keeping farther and make more profiting on the long run. I have a book prepared both new Bee keepers and those already in the line.
It’s a book written out of my practical experience over the in the bee keeping field. It shows you how to get started from the beginning to the end. Click the link below to pick a copy: BEE KEEPING GOLDMINE
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