Introduction
Many of our food crops are pollinated by bees. Bees also provide several crops. In addition to honey, there is beeswax, propolis, and pollen. In short, bees are a perfect addition to any permaculture design or homestead.

Beekeeping is a perfect fit for a permaculture design. One permaculture design principle is the use of zones. The home is zone 0. Near the home are the most visited areas or zones, such as a garden; the less visited zones are further away. Bee hives can be placed in further zones as they do not need constant attention, except for certain times and they provide significant extension of your zones. Another permaculture principle is stacking and multi benefit. They also provide many benefits.

I have kept bees for several years in several locations. At one time I had 16 hives located a few miles east of Spokane, Washington. Later I had hives while living in California and will have more bees when I relocate to the Ozarks.

Beekeeping fundamentals
To beekeepers the life of a honey bee is fascinating. From a single queen to tens of thousands of workers, almost all the bees in a hive are female. There may at most be a few hundred males or Drones in a hive. These Drones have only one purpose in life and that is to mate with virgin queens. I will spare you the details, suffice it to say the male does not come out of the encounter very well.

A hive contains only one queen at a time. The function of a queen is to lay eggs, several hundred thousand of them of a lifespan of five years or more. The queen cannot feed herself so must be tended to by worker bees. As a worker bee emerges from the comb cell her usual first jobs are hive maintenance, keeping it at the correct temperature, tending to the queen, guarding the entrance, processing honey, building comb, etc. As she ages the worker moves to field duties, collecting pollen and nectar. The life of a field bee is very short, they literally wear themselves out in a few days during times of heavy honey flow or become lunch for something else. A bee can live six months during winter and times of low flow but is lucky to last six weeks during heavy flows.

A bee can travel up to five miles searching for nectar and pollen but the more productive trips are less than a mile. This is how a bee can significantly extend your Permaculture design. The bee sips nectar from flowers and collects pollen in pollen pockets along the back legs. As it moves from flower to flower pollen will stick to the bee and be transferred to the next flower. This a hugely important benefit of honey bees. Other bees can also spread pollen but not nearly as well as the industrious Honey Bee.

There is much more to learn about bees and I refer you to some of the standard reference listed below. I had a hive across the road under a Sour Cherry tree. I would spend long periods of time just leaning on the fence just watching. Bees managing hive temperature, others guarding the entrance, field bees coming in with pollen pockets full. If the honey flow was heavy I would pull the top off and pull a frame just to watch.

Stings
Now for a subject that everyone who works with bees knows all too well. Many people are afraid of stings. For some  people the fear is real and can lead to severe allergic reactions. For those keeping bees may not be a wise choice or at least keep Benyadrel on hand. Allergies can develop even after many years of no reaction. A prominent bee researcher at UC Riverside had to leave the field completely after 20 years because of a sudden allergy. For some like myself the first sting of the year will produce the swelling and itch but that quickly goes away. Then further stings for the season usual just have the pain of the puncture and an itch. I get stung on the ankle a lot because of not wanting to wear heavy work shoes during the hot parts of the day, instead using my normal walking shoes.

Why do bees sting? It is not a self preservation because the act of stinging kills the bee. The stinger is barbed and once inserted cannot be easily pulled out. As the bee leaves the stinger and poison sack are ripped from the bee. Bees sting as a protection for the hive. Usually a field bee will not sting because her most important mission is returning to the hive with a load of nectar and pollen. But a bee at the hive has much more to protect, the brood and honey stores are important for the hive survival.

When you do get stung, do not reach down and pull the stinger, you just completed the bee's job by emptying out the contents of the poison sacks. The best thing to do is keep the edge of the hive tool sharp and scrape the stinger out. More on tools late

Africanized Honey Bees
You have read a lot about this pest in recent years and no discussion of beekeeping is complete without some mention. The Africanized Honey Bee (AHB) is the result of an experiment in Brazil to make a harder working bee. The European Honey Bee (EHB) evolved in the forests and temperate climate of Europe. During winters the bees live off honey stored from summers bounty. Nectar flow typically does not start until temperatures rise to around 50 degrees. The evolution of the EHB favored bees that did not waste time flying about when temperatures are below that.


African bees do not have those temperature restrictions nor do they need to deal with long winters but as they have been predated by humans for a few hundred thousand years they developed a nasty temperament as a defense mechanism. It was thought that crossing the harder working EHB with the smaller African Bee would better utilize the tropical climate. But the temperament of the African bee was dominant. The result is a nasty bee that can interbreed with the EHB. In 1957 this experiment escaped (or was released, the debate continues) the lab.

The AHB has smaller hive requirements so it swarms much more often that the EHB. It is much quicker to defend the hive and will pursue an attacker further in much larger numbers. The drones fly higher than the EHB drones and are faster thus having a greater chance to fertilize a queen.

To the Naked eye, there is no difference between the EHB and the AHB. The only sure way to determine one from the other is a microscope analysis. Over time as the AHB crosses with native stocks of EHB there is a little hope that they will calm down.

One issue is the spread of the AHB. The bees spread into South America seems to have stopped and the same could be happening here. The line of maximum northern summer extent is around central Arkansas. I did see a 2007 map that showed one county by the AR/MO line with observed AHB.

Diseases
Bees have several unique problems. For many years types of Foulbrood caused beekeepers to loose hives but was easily controlled. Once an outbreak started though the only cure was destruction of the afflicted hives. Over the last several years new challenges to beekeepers have risen. The first two have been with us the longest, the Trachael and Vorra mites. These mites are presenting greater problems as mites evolve resistances. A more recent and still unexplained problem is Colony Wasting Disease. CWD is major problem to beekeepers.

Essential equipment for beekeeping
Enough about the bees, time to drag out the checkbook. Beekeeping does require equipment, not necessarily a lot. Most beekeeping suppliers have a beginners kit with all the necessary equipment to start a hive.  Costs for beginners kits are under $150.  Costs of packages of bees, and Nucs vary and are dependent on the weather.

•    Veil. There are several types of veil. The Alexandra style is complete as it is. It does not need a hat or bee suit. These are fine for a docile colony during a honey flow and I keep one in the pickup. The other common style uses a pith style helmet. There are several styles of these, some that have a more rigid framework to keep the veil away from the face and some that zip to a beesuit for a more complete seal.
•    Bee suit. You have seen the typical image of a beekeeper working hives wearing a white cotton coverall. The white beesuit offers more complete coverage and is relatively cool. If you work bees without a beesuit, wear light colored cotton and avoid the dark flannel shirt. Modern materials have replaced cotton to make lightweight suits that are completely sting proof.
•    Gloves. As you gain experience you will start to work without gloves. There are many advantages to not using gloves, the biggest being is that you will be easier on the bees. Crushed bees are a danger signal to the hive and may make it more aggressive. But there are times you have to use gloves so get a good pair of light gloves that cover the lower arm and have a closure at the top. Avoid heavy gloves, Deeskin with Canvas uppers is well worth the investment. I always have at least one extra pair along as no matter how light they are you will sweat.
•    Smoker. The bee smoker is a tool the beekeeper uses to control the bees and reduce chances of stinging. It is a metal container with a leather bellows. The bellows pumps smoke out a small chimney. Suitable material such as dry grass, tree bark, or burlap sacks are used for a smoldering fire. Avoid some Burlap seed sacks as they are sometimes treated with an insecticide.
•    Metal bar. Bees have several products. The one we are most familiar with is Honey and many know of pollen. Another is Propolis. This is a sticky substance used to seal cracks in the hive. It is used to seal the hive parts together making the beekeeper work harder. A thin metal bar is used to pry the Propolis glued parts apart. The most common has a bend at one end and is used to scrape hive parts. I keep the other end sharpened to scrape stingers. Another type is flat with a hook at one end to help lift frames.

Hives
The typical hive in use in the US is the Langstroth style developed in the 1850s with the discovery of the concept of Bee Space. In the hive when the bees find an area greater than about 3/8 inch, they will fill it with comb for brood and honey. If the space is less than that they will seal it with Propolis. It had been known for some time that Bees generally build comb in rows about 1 3/8 inches apart. The Bee Space and Comb separation numbers are the basis of modern beehive design.

The Langstroth bee hive consists of several boxes called supers. Supers are typically made of wood with interlocking corners. A recess along the top edge holds the frames in place. More on frames below. Other parts support the functions of the supers.

Supers are available in plastic as are frames and plastic foundation. My experience with those has been limited as they did not appear to work as well as traditional wood and beeswax.

I will not be addressing top bar hives as I have no direct experience with them. I hope to get that experience in the near future.

The modern hive consists of several parts:
•    The bottom board is the support for the beehive above and leaves an easily defensible opening for the bees.
•    Deep Super. The brood chamber super is about 9 5/8 by 19 7/8 by 16 ¼. It was designed so the queen can lay eggs in a ball-shaped area of the hive. This allows bees to swarm around the brood and honey supplies during winter.  
•    Shallow super. A deep super full of honey can get very heavy so a shalllow super of almost half the depth of a deep super. These are used for honey collection and during times of heavy honey flow shallow suppers are added as needed. The shallow suppers are then removed and the honey extracted.
•    Queen excluder. The queen is larger than the workers and to prevent the queen from laying eggs in the frams to be used for extraction, a grill is placed between the top of the brood chamber and the stack of supers above.
•    The top board  is the roof and provides some ventelation. There is often an inner board to to reduce the space and to keep the bees from adding comb or Propolis.
•    Frames. An important part of modern beekeeping is the removable frame. The wooden frame can be easily removed then taken to the extractior. The frame has grooves to accept a sheet of foundation. Foundation is a sheet of beeswax impressed with the pattern of the honey comb to encourage bees to draw out the comb on the frame rather than randomly. Typically there are ten frames to a super.

Bees
Getting a bee hive started means collecting equipment and bees. Bees used to be shipped all over the country by Parcel Post and by freight. Sears and other companies had extensive beekeeping supply sections and you could order your bees delivered by the US post office. It is not so easy now. One method is to capture a swarm. If you have the equipment ready you can break off a branch or shake them into the hive. Sometimes they will stay sometimes they will move on. Another method is to buy a split from a beekeeper. The beekeeper will take several frames of brood and honey with bees and place them in a super with a new queen. Sometimes this is done in a special five frame hive box called a Nuc. As soon as the hive is drawing comb, producing honey and the queen laying eggs you transfer the frames to a regular deep supper. A third method is to buy a package of bees in the spring. Check local beekeeping suppliers for scheduled package deliveries. A package of bees is usually 3 lbs of bees, a can of sugar water, and a queen in a small matchbox sized container. The bees are shaken out over the frames of a deep super, the feeder placed at one end and the queen released. Most of the beginner books on beekeeping show this method of starting a hive.

I have used all the above methods. The easiest is to start with a Nuc or a split from a local beekeeper who can set you up and show you what to do. The queen will be laying and the bees will have drawn comb for eggs and honey storage.  Once you have a couple of hives going you can do your own splits.  Packaged bees require more work to start and the risk is slightly higher but they are cheaper to ship.

Tending the hive
One advantage of bees is that they do not require constant attention. During the colder months bees huddle in a swarm and work off their stores of honey. If it was a poor year you may have to feed them a sugar water solution but that is done only once a week at the most. In early spring when things are just starting out you will want to check on them every couple of weeks or so to make sure they have room and are not making new queens. During heavy honey flows you will be looking in on them much more often, adding suppers, taking full ones off for extraction, all depending on the flow.

Extraction consists of taking the frames out of the super then removing the caps. Caps can be removed by scratching or a hot knife. For a few frames they can be set to drain into a pan in a warm room. For several supers, you may want to find a local beekeeper that will run the frames through a rotary extractor. For many hives the purchase of your own extraction equipment may be in order.

Recall that the Honey Bee evolved in European forests. They find rotted holes in trees a perfect well insulated home with sufficient room for brood and food stocks. One hazard of forest living is fire. The bee is sensitive to smoke, is a sign that the hive needs to be protected. Bees can do a very good job if controlling hive temperature but a five can overwhelm those protections. Then the need to protect the becomes secondary to preparing to flee and set up another hive. The bee will fill its stomach in preparation to having to flee. Like us humans with a full tummy the bee has difficulty bending to insert the stinger. During times of high honey flows the bees can be worked without smoke but more care must be used. The odor of a crushed bee will alert other bees that the hive is in danger and will increase attacks,

Sources of equipment
First check your local area for suppliers and through them local beekeepers.
Dadant has been around for a long time and are located in Hamilton IL.
http://www.dadant.com/?gclid=CITS96GEwJICFSEYagod1lVDcQ

Other suppliers:
http://www.mannlakeltd.com/
http://www.brushymountainbeefarm.com/
http://www.betterbee.com/

Recommended books:
The New Starting Right With Bees
A long time favorite and the first book on beekeeping for your library

Backyard Beekeeper
A more in depth treatment of starting with bees.

ABC & XYZ of bee culture
One of the standard reference works on beekeeping and a must have for your library.

The Hive and The Honey Bee
The other standard reference work but not updated as often.

Magazines
Bee Culture
http://www.beeculture.com/

American Bee Journal
https://www.dadant.com/journal/