After the honey has been harvested, it's taken into the Vai house, where the whole family (plus an intern) pitches in to get the honey off the combs and into bottles. - Use a hot decapping knife to remove the caps from the honeycomb (figure A).
- Put the combs into an extractor, which uses centrifugal force to spin out the honey (figure B).
- Heated spout pours out the raw honey (figure C) into a strainer, which strains out the big chunks.
- Honey is put through two more strainers to filter out the wax, then the bottling begins. The bottles are given to friends or auctioned off to benefit Vai's charity, Make a Noise, which he formed as a means to establish music listening libraries in schools.
The Bee Man David Saraf, the Bee Man, is an expert on all things apian, or bee-related. Here he shows host Tracy Griffith how to put together a beehive from a kit that can be ordered online. - The kit comes in four pieces, which are dovetailed for a tight fit. The first step is to fit the main pieces together (figure D).
- Next, use a staple gun to hold the walls of the hive more securely (figure E).
- Paint the outer surfaces (Saraf says he uses silver paint, which lasts a long time and eliminates the need for a primer). Remember: The bottom of the hive must have a gap of at least 1/2" so the bees can enter and exit.
- Build frames and fit the plastic foundation wax inside it -- this forms the base to which the bees can attach the honey (figure F).
- Fit frames in the box, which is made to hold 10 frames (figure G).
Web extra: More on bees with Steve Vai Q: Are there different bees within the hive?
A: There's guard bees that stand at the entrance and do not allow stray bees in from other hives. There's a cleaner that goes around and cleans out all the cells and prepares them for the queen. There are bees that feed the queen, because the queen can't feed herself. And, you know, there's bees that fan the honey to get the water out. Q: How many bees in a hive?
A: Well, a small swarm can consist of up to 10,000 bees. And according to how big the hive gets, you can have like 150,000 bees. Q: How do bees communicate?
A: They communicate through odors called pheromones, and they can excrete like 32 different odors. And that's one of the ways that they communicate. And another way that they communicate is the infamous bee dance, which you might have heard of. Q: Bee dance? What's that?
A: A bee will go out and find a stash someplace, like a nice stash of flowers, and come back and do this little dance for the other bees. And a bunch of other bees sit around and watch. And what it's saying is, "You go this way toward the sun for this long and then you make a left, and then you go around this way for a while and then you go that way...." Q: Why is beekeeping important?
A: It's a very necessary function, because wild honeybees are actually becoming extinct. Within the past eight years, 95 percent of all wild hives have been destroyed through urbanization and also mites. These mites were introduced accidentally into the environment some time ago, around seven or eight years ago, and they attack honeybees and kill the hives. Q: Aren't you afraid of getting stung on your hands?
A: What happens is you develop an immunity toward it. I've been stung all over, but it doesn't bother me much anymore. I just got stung the other day, but it wasn't even my bee! Q: Do bees want to sting people?
A: There's a big misconception about the aggression of a honeybee. Yeah, they'll sting, but you really got to provoke them. Yellowjackets are nasty, though. Hornets are actually more docile than honeybees. Wasps are bad. People are afraid of bees, but really, yellowjackets are the bees to be afraid of. Q: How did you learn about beekeeping?
A: When I got into honeybees, I started reading about them. There are a lot of good books out there. The beekeeping bible is called The Hive and the Honeybee, this big thick book. Q: Why do bees swarm?
A: When a hive gets too packed, the queen leaves and takes half of the bees with her. The rest of the bees are left to create another queen. So when the queen and bees are moving to their new hive, that's a swarm.A Q: What happens to a honeybee after it stings?
A: A honeybee dies after it stings you. But the queen can sting multiple times, but she won't.
RESOURCES :
Practical Beekeeping
Model: 1861260490
Author: Clive De Bruyn
Discovering Beekeeping
Model: 0747803188
Author: Daphne More
Hooray for Beekeeping
Model: 0613079833
Author: Bobby Kalman
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