ENVS 2210 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: The Hives, Queen Excluder, Propolis
22 Apr 2017
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The equipment required to manage bees include a smoker and a hive tool as well as some level of protection against bee stings. You can wear coveralls and more than anything else a bee veil to cover your. Beekeepers occasionally use gloves, although it is preferable not to wear them to facilitate the manipulation of frames when inspecting a hive. A good smoker is an indispensable tool to pacify the bees by puffing smoke onto them. Smokers can be filled with different types of fuels to produce sufficient smoke; wood shavings are a material generally preferred by most beekeepers. The hive tool is made out of forged steel and is used to separate the different parts of the hive because bees glue them with propolis. This tool is necessary to examine the colony in order to assess its condition in terms of food reserves, population, absence of bee diseases, presence of a queen, etc.
