Apiary and beekeeping

An apiary is the place where people keep bee colonies, and beekeeping is the care of them for Honey, wax and other products. Almost all honey on the world market now comes from movable-frame hives.

Older homes for Bees were hollow tree trunks, rock caves, bark, straw, clay, cut logs and hives with movable top bars but no frames. In Ukraine, according to the Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine, beekeeping passed through wild, tree-hive, log-hive and frame stages; tree-hive beekeeping lasted until the late 18th century, and apiaries are mentioned from the 14th century.

The frame hive is tied to two names. According to the same encyclopedia, Ukrainian Petro Prokopovych was the first in world practice to design a collapsible frame hive in 1814. American Lorenzo Langstroth received US Patent No. 9,300 for a "Bee Hive" on 5 October 1852; Cornell University Library sees the start of modern beekeeping in his hive. Key to it is the bee space, a passage of a quarter to three eighths of an inch that bees keep open.

The beekeeper works with a smoker, which reduces the colony's defensive response, and a hive tool that pries boxes apart and scrapes off wax and propolis. Surplus honey is collected in supers; from uncapped combs it is spun out in an extractor at no more than 30 °C.

Why this matters to you: the hive and the way honey is extracted shape what reaches the jar, for example comb or extracted honey. Knowing this helps you read a label and judge an apiary that works openly.