Beekeeping supplies

Companies that have beekeeping stuff deal with all the equipment that is required for this business, like attire for bee keeping which is essential from head to torso, full body suits and just head gear. Along with this equipment they also sell journals and books on beekeeping to help people to understand this field better. Some of the better known beekeeping companies have been in the business for more than a hundred years.

Books for providing short courses in beekeeping

Beekeeping families have a lot of subsidiaries to the beekeeping business too. They use the bees wax to make candles and collect honey which is sold locally in the stores. The books have information on candle making and collecting honey too apart from instructions on the main business which is bee keeping. These family businesses are mostly long standing ones and continue from one generation to the other.

Businesses have advanced technologically

Stepping into the shoes of their ancestors has not been easy for many of the families. Only those families where the parents thought of the new technologies and got their business mechanized with the latest equipment, and advertised with on the internet with their own websites so that they could bring in more customers and higher profits, was the business profitable and worth running. For others the cost of maintaining an old business was too high and they could not handle the expenses anymore.

As most descendants of beekeeping families knew no other business they preferred to stick to it, and if the financial situation was not good, then they became commercially owned businesses A business that once started as a hobby, with just about enough honey to put on toast and biscuits in place of marmalade, became a big time business with the popularity of the use of honey.

Earlier honey was not a very popular edible thing as people used sugar and molasses for sweetening their food, but once they found that honey was much cheaper, beekeeping became popular and was taken up by many as an agricultural business. However, now the only problem is that people worry about the safety of the honey that is collected because of all the pesticides that are used. Now with organic foods being more popular and a movement by organic food growers, there is a lot of honey that is free of pesticides. Now many families owned companies supply bees wax for candle making and cosmetics to other manufacturers of these commodities.

California's Almond Orchards

Almonds were initially found in central Asia and China, far away from California. Almonds were first brought to California by Franciscan priests, but they were not very successful in cultivating almonds here. It was almost 200 years later in 1900, that those who were interested in almonds found that the climate and weather conditions in California were perfect for almond cultivation.

Almost 6 thousand almond growers in the state, cultivated over half a million acres of land to cultivating almond orchards that were genetically far superior to what was available earlier. Almonds are grown successfully for commercial use only in California, and the main reason is the climate in this state which is most suitable for growing almonds. Almond trees need cool winters and hot summers and do not thrive in below zero conditions, and that is what exactly the climate of California is.

Bees are required for pollination as the almond trees are not self-pollinating. The almond trees are in full bloom in February and it is during this time that bee keepers set up their bee hives in the almond orchards so that the harvest may be lucrative for the almond growers. Because of the inability of almond trees to self-pollinate, the almond growers plant several varieties of almond trees.

Harvesting of almonds

Almonds are harvested after August and in the beginning of October. Almonds have to be harvested when the shell splits and the nut dries up completely, because of this opening in the shell. When the almonds are ready to be harvested, the orchard owners have the areas swept clean of all debris so that the area is completely clean.

Once this has been done they call in the mechanical tree shakers which shake the trees gently and all the dry almonds fall to the ground. They are left there to dry up completely. The well dried almonds are swept into rows and are deposited in a huller after being collected mechanically.

Almonds are high in nutrition

Almonds are a highly nutritious food as they contain vitamin E, Magnesium, Riboflavin, Copper and Phosphorous. At the same time it is very low in fat content and is free of cholesterol and sodium which are bad for the heart. More than half of the almonds cultivated in California are exported.

Beekeeping in different areas of the world

Several locations all over the world produce honey for food and medicine. There are many beekeepers in certain parts of Europe, Africa, Asia and the United States. Though bee keeping started in Europe and was brought to the United States later, it is more modernized in the United States. There are different cultures for keeping bees in different countries.

Honey is used as food in most of the cultures and in some for religious concoctions that are sweetened with honey. The Americans make honey for commercial purposes to be sold in supermarkets and also to send it abroad to other countries for sale. The honey is put into containers with their brand names put on it and sent out to areas where honey is scarce or not produced at all.

There is no mass production of honey in many countries

Unlike in America, most of the other countries do not produce enough honey to be able to ship some to other countries too. America manages to harvest enough honey in one season so that it lasts them until next spring to get ready for the next shipment.

The bees are usually inactive during the winter and produce honey only in the warmer summer months when there are more flowers around the place for pollination. This is when the mating starts too and then the bees are busy producing honey and taking care of the larvae. United States is known to produce the most honey around the world and also to provide it to the supermarkets all over the world.

Excerpted from the book How To Become A Bee-Keeping Pro! by Wings Of Success.

This excerpt has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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