Bee house from Rotholz

The pictures show our bee house with ten beehives in it. One beehive has about 30,000 – 40,000 bees in it. Among all the bees is one queen. She is much taller than the others and has a red dot on its back. All those bees produce about 260 kg honey. One kg honey costs in our area more or less € 20,--. The bees are very important for nature. They pollinate the plants and trees. Without bees it would really be a desaster for our environment. A beekeeper needs to take care of the bee house and the bees. They need to be fed – especially in winter – and also during the rest of the year you need to have a look at them. You have to check if there is an illness, if there is enough space left in the beehive, from time to time you need to harvest the honey (centrifugalize), it’s important to check the temperature – bees don’t like it too cold – and so on and so on. We learnt that a bee house needs to stay in south-east direction so that the bees get the best sun they need for flying. As a beekeeper you need to know if you react allergic to bee poison. If that’s the case you have to think about being a beekeeper because it happens every now and than that they sting you. Another imortant fact is, that you need to be and to feel calm when you start working in the bee house. When you are calm, the bees are calm. When you are nervous, the bees are nervous too and the chance that you get stung is much higher! But, however! It doesn’t matter if you like bees or not. Most of us love having some honey on a fresh baked brown bread with butter for breakfast!