Where does the bee swarm come from?
The honeybee colony is endowed with an instinct which brings about an increase in the number of colonies from time to time. One colony may produce two or more new colonies a year. When a colony in a nest or hive is too populous, the old queen, accompanied by some drones and thousands of young and old workers, flies to a distant place to begin life anew. None of these new settlers will ever return to the old nest. As the bees leave the entrance of the old hive, they fly gyratingly into the sky with a loud hum until they cluster on a tree branch. This cluster is referred to as a swarm of bees.
The swarm hangs there temporarily. Scout bees go and find a hollow tree or any suitable place for the new colony. This place may be a hive installed by a beekeeper. The exploratory team of scouts, if lucky, will return with a favourable report to the swarm still waiting on the branch. The swarm will follow the scouts into the new found home.
The first swarm to leave a hive during the season is called the prime swarm. A prime swarm is always accompanied by the old queen and some older workers. Before leaving the old hive, they take in honey and other essential commodities from the old hive, so that when they settle in the new nest, they can begin to build combs within a short time to enable the queen to lay.
After the prime swarm, any other swarm leaving the parent hive is termed a secondary swarm. It is composed of young workers, young drones and a young queen, completely docile and showing little or no sign of aggressiveness. (They may begin to show some aggressive tendencies after some weeks).

Baiting the hive A beehive must be baited for it to be colonised. However, it is possible for bees to colonise a hive without baiting but it can take a long period. To bait the hive, the following steps must be taken
1) Clean the hive and ensure that it is free from organism that can arrest scout bees and there must be no petroleum coated substance in the internal walls of the hive
2) scrub the internal hive body with unrefined beeswax. The smell attracts scout bees who invites the swarm to their new home. Other attractants are lemon grass oil, fermented locust beans etc but beeswax odour last longer and it's the most efficient.
3) make sure that the hive is covered and the entrance is not too wide, the size of a match box is enough. It must be placed on a stand.
4) apply black engine oil at the base of the hive stand to prevent ants and spiders from accessing the hive. Spiders and ants can arrest and kill scout bees. The oil must not touch the hive because it is an insects repellant, remember that bees are insects too.
5) leave the place and make sure no one is present because African bees avoids human as much as possible.
The hive can be checked a week later, the flight of bees in and out of entrance confirms colonisation.
It is wrong to use honey to bait hives as it will attract ants and foraging bees will only come for it.
It is also important to know that the frequency of swarming varies with seasons. It is most frequent in early dry season - dry season - early wet season. It hardly occurs during harmattan and periods of high rainfall such as june - july in West Africa climate. I had experienced swarm capture the same day an hive was baited.

The hive tool, bee brush, cutlass, buckets etc are accessories because one can visit the hive without them. Below is a photo of bee brush and a hive tool

(4) A Hive tool: A hive tool is necessary to pry up and remove the frames of a langstroth hive. The kenyan top bar hive may not need a hive tool, but a knife instead. A knife may be required to pry open top bars or frames which are usually glued to the hive body by the bees. The knife is also useful for cutting a portion of the comb attached to the hive body, separating to combs joined together and cutting out the honey comb from the top bars during the honey harvest. A knife can perform almost all the functions of the hive tool and the hive tool cannot be used to cut bee combs as neatly as possible.
(5) The bee brush: Bees must sometimes be brushed gently into a container or a hive. A brush with soft hairs is useful for this, buf if the bee keeper can obtain a strong large quil like an ostrich or turkey feather, there is no need to acquire a bee brush

(3) Personal Protective Equipments: These includes; bee hat, bee gloves, overalls and boots. This materials must be worn completeley to avoid bee stings. Effective bee-proof personal protective equipment helps beekeepers, especially beginners, to have confidence when approaching and opening hives. Bees always, sooner or later, find holes in veils and clothing, so it is good idea to repair these before visiting the apiary. Regardless of what others say or think, there is absolutely no need to project the
image of being a hero by being stung. Wear clean, light coloured and smooth clothing. Bees dislike
dark and woolly clothing including felt hats, woolly socks and some types of leather gloves that have a rough surface. Bees can panic and are likely to sting when they are caught in hair and fibres of clothing.Wear clean, light coloured and smooth clothing. Bees dislike a number of odours. Avoid contamination on yourself or your clothing by oil, diesel fuel, dog and horse odours and build-up of excessive perspiration. Don’t use hair spray, deodorants, cream and any other scent materials. YOUR SAFETY FIRST

(2)The Smoker: This is an important equipment that is used to sedate or calm the bees when performing hive operations. It consist of a milo can size container and a nozzle. A bellow is assembled to it to blow air into the container where there is a burning material like dry pawpaw leaves, coconut coir, dry wood pieces etc. Palm fruit chaff is prohibited it will tint the comb and contaminate the honey. The smoke escapes through the nozzle and it's directed to bees when the bellow is pressed. Care must be taken when emptying the smoker after use to avoid bush burning. The beekeeper will not work on bees comfortably without a smoker and the hive area would be excessively rowdy. Below are smoker with bellow operated manually and an electric smoker with electric bellow.

The pictures below are 28 bars hives under construction, with bars arranged, with cover and installed on iron stand. Note the entrance for bees. It is a matchbox size and can also be at one side wall bottom.

The bee hive must be covered with water proof materials and placed on a stand. The best stand is iron stand and the four legs can be dipped into spent engine oil container to prevent ants from accessing the hive. Invading ants can force bees to abscond their colony. Bee hives can also be suspended firmly with rope on a tree. It is in the bee keeper interest to place the hive in a position for easy inspection.

Each top bar width must be 32mm for West African bee hive. The comb drawn from each bar downward is 18mm width and a space between adjacent combs is around 7mm (adding up 18mm+ 7mm + 14mm = 32mm). The 7mm gap on both side of 18mm thick comb is known as bee space and it is vital. The bees moves along this space between adjacent combs. Disobeying this critical dimensions would make hive inspection messy because the bees would link up the bars with honey combs. The length of bars can be 400 - 470mm but must be standardize in case of switching between hives. The bars must cover the hive completely. It is important to supervise the carpenter when cutting top bars from planks. Wood that should be used for cutting top bars must be seasoned otherwise, it would wrap, bend, or shrink depending on the type of wood few days after cutting. A wood like melina is an exception because its bar would retain its size and shape after seasoning.

Note the trapezium shape of the hive body. The base is at angle 115° to the top and less wide. Note the top bars with same size arranged. The bees draw combs from the bars downwards. The number of bars determines the size of hive.

To start beekeeping:It is easy to start beekeeping, the first step is locating a suitable land that is free from noise, over 1 kilometre from settlement, flat terrain and free from flooding. The bee yard could be sited on a farm land but must not be closed to foot path and must be confined. There must be forage ( plants with nectary flowers) within at least, 3km radius. The following materials should be acquired to commence beekeeping;
(1) The Beehive: This is the engine room of beekeeping. It is where the colony of honey bees exists. Beginners are advised to use Kenyan top bar hive whose advantages had been stated. It should be baited by rubbing beeswax or propolis to its internal walls and entrance. The odour from these materials will attract scout bees. The scout bees will invite the bee swarm thereafter. Depending on the scale, the apiarist can acquire more to expand the apiary/bee yard. The remaining hives can be colonised by splitting of colonies or baiting to capture swarm. It is also possible to purchase package bees which are in nuc box and the bees can be transferred to hives. This is a common practice in the western world.
Honey bees dislikes some wood and may not colonise them especially when wet. They release odours or chemicals offensive to the bees.Teak is an example. However, their trees hollow can still be colonised because of unexposed layers. Examples of bee friendly woods in West Africa are gmelina, locust bean, kapok, obeche etc

How honey is made:Workers on foraging duty visits flowers of selected plants like apple, cucumber, cashew, citrus, mango, almond, water melon, gmelina, kapok, pumpkin etc to suck their nectar. They return to the hive where the nectar is regurgitated and passed on to other workers and stored in the cells of honey comb. Enzymes are added to the nectar when in the false stomach of foraging worker and during the process of transfer to hasten the conversion of nectar to honey. The nectar stored in honey comb will then be fanned by workers until about 70% of its water is lost to evaporation. Thereafter, the honey formed is capped with beeswax by workers and consumed when needed. They do not store honey for humans but for themselves in case of scarcity of food or swarming.

Life-cycle of bee
Development begins with the egg, laid by the queen. The egg hatches into a small larva, which curls into a small ‘c’ shape at the base of the cell. The coiled larva grows quickly and almost fills the cell.The cell is then sealed (capped) with a wax cap by workers.
The larva then spins a cocoon (develops some body structures) on the cell walls. After spinning its cocoon, the larva lies longitudinally on its back
in the cell with its head near the cell opening. This stage is known as the pre-pupal stage. The pupal stage follows in which the larva develops into the fully formed adult. The ready to emerge bee chews the cap around the perimeter of the cell and pushes the cap outwards to open the cell and climbs out. The cap placed on brood cells is porous to allow
movement of air into the cell. The caps on healthy worker cells are slightly convex and those on drone cells are domed or bullet-shaped.

Drones
Drones are rectangular in shape, broader and larger than workers and not as long as the queen. The wings are large and almost cover the stumpy abdomen.There are about 400 drones, and often more, in a colony during the main brood rearing season. Although drones don’t forage, their presence in the hive is considered to be good for the well-being of the colony. They are not designed by nature to forage and they make no contribution to the
colony’s food supply. Newly emerged drones are fed by workers for the first few days of their life and older drones feed themselves directly from honey stored in the combs. The role of the drone is to mate with a virgin queen, but he shows no interest in her inside the hive. Instead, mating occurs outside the hive and on the wing. Drones are powerful fliers and have large eyes with approximately 8,000
lenses that helps them to detect queens taking mating flights. The compound eyes almost meet on the top of the head reducing the size of his face. Very few drones mate with a queen and those that do mate, die immediately after mating. Drones are sexually mature approximately 16 days after emergence and live up to ninety days. At times of severe food shortage and during the rainy season
drone brood and adult drones are ejected from the hive. Drones are not normally seen during rainy season,although sometimes the colony will tolerate some if the colony has become queenless prior to the onset of rainy season.

A worker foraging

Most queens in managed hives are generally replaced after two years by the beekeeper because peak egg-laying diminishes after that age. Some beekeepers requeen their colonies annually.
Workers
The worker bee is the most familiar caste to us as she is the bee we see foraging on flowers in our gardens. She has a tapered abdomen and is approximately half the weight of the queen or drone, but she is specifically adapted to her tasks in life. The number of workers in a feral honey bee colony may be around 10,000 individuals, but as high as 60,000, or more, in a productive colony managed by a beekeeper. Workers have a number of roles such as
feeding honey bee larvae, building comb, processing nectar, storing pollen, cleaning cells and the hive, removing dead bees, collecting water, foraging for nectar and pollen, and defending the colony. The worker’s flight is fast, and usually direct to and from the hive. She is capable of carrying heavy loads of pollen or nectar. The tongue of the worker is long
to enable deep penetration of flowers to reach nectar. Her sting is barbed which she uses exceptionally well in defence of the colony.

Castes of the bee colony
The queen and workers are females and the drones
are males. New beekeepers must make it a priority to quickly learn and identify the differences of the castes. It is important to acknowledge that all members of a bee colony rely on each other and cannot survive individually.
The Queen: There is normally only one queen in a colony. She is basically an egg laying machine and can lay more than 1,500 eggs per day during the peak brood rearing season m. She is also the largest member of the colony having a long body and tapered abdomen well designed for backing in to the hexagonal brood cells to lay her eggs. Her tongue is shorter than that of the worker bee and her sting is not barbed.Since the queen mates outside the hive during flight with a number of drones, her female progeny will consist of several sub-families who have different father drones but the same mother queen.
In nature, queens may live up to five or more years.
However, at any time, the colony may rear a new queen to replace one that is declining in egg-laying capability. This declining queen will lay in usually four to six queen cells constructed by the worker bees. Approximately 16 days later, the first fully developed queen that emerges from her cell will immediately attack all the other queen cells by opening the side walls of cells and stinging the occupants.
Nature determines that if another virgin queen has already emerged, then they will fight until one is killed. Several days after emergence, the queen will take orientation flights to familiarise herself with local landmarks. She will then mate with 14 to 24 drones during mating flights taken over the next few days. Semen is stored in the queen’s spermatheca where it remains viable. When mating occurs in poor weather, or very early or late in the season
when the drone population is low, the queen may not have an adequate store of semen and she will be superseded in a very short time.

Timiblanko:
Good morning sir... I am following up on the steps...

Good morning

To start beekeeping, honey bees must be nested in beehives which are structures that mimics their natural nests such as hollows in trees and rock crevices. However, the beekeeper or apiarist or apiarian can manage the beehives for optimum production by performing some operations which is impossible in natural nest. In the natural nests, man destroys the bee colony first to collect the honey and the honey is often contaminated. This activity is not only unhealthy to the ecosystem, it is also a threat to honeybees population. There are different types of beehives to start with beekeeping. In choosing a typical hive, it is best to consider ease in construction, management, cost and nature of bees in the environment. This is the reason i recommend Kenyan Top Bar Hives (KTBH). It is important for one to know different castes of honeybees and how honey is produced first.

One of the lucrative aspects in agriculture is beekeeping because of its softlanding start up, improved crop production and high income generating potentials. Honey bees are insects that produces not just the liquid gold (honey), but also produces other valuable materials like bees wax, propolis, royal jelly, bee pollen and bee venom. Each of these are in demand in many industries. Bees wax is used in making polish, candles, hardeners in cosmetics etc. Royal jelly is a milky colored liquid, highly nutritious and quite expensive. Like royal jelly, bee pollen is also nutritious with high proteins. Bee venom is used in apitherapy and it is known to be effective in treating athritis. Propolis is commonly used as bait in bee hives and resinous glues. Honey has the highest demand among all the products of beekeeping due to its sweetening properties and medicinal use.
Honey bees are common pollinators of some crops because of their high foraging activities. They visit flowers to suck the nectar and collect pollen. This is not done simultaneously by a bee. During this process, they accidentally pollinate the flower by brushing some pollen grains to its stigma. This enable the fruit to emerge thereafter. In North America and Europe, bee keepers are usually contracted by farmers for pollination services and the farmers pays in return.

It's is a lie

It is apparent that these labour union leaders are hoodwinking Nigerians for their selfish interest. It took them over two weeks to announce the strike after many had accepted their fate. They said the reason was due to consultations of state chapters but no consultation of state chapters before the agreement. No fuel price agreement which was number one reason for the proposed strike. On the issue of electricity tarrif and metering, the reduction should have been discussed on the table and a committee can be formed by the federal government later, to examine the feasibility of the tariff and the labour union go ahead with strike. I as a poor Nigerian youth hope is being dashed because of betraying decisions by these labour union leaders. I look forward to seeing another group floating new labour union.

Our Ooni of Ife was lost amidst the hausa language in a villa that is the power house to over 150 tribes and he continue to fake smiles. A sacred stool that even his predecessor did not leave the palace until Ooni Adelekan whom all Yoruba Obas respected by leaving their palace when that happened had been desecrated.

It's obvious there are discrepancies in the result provided. Delta state recorded 166 from the result provided yesterday but 18 today. Should we trace it to low turn out of test or politricking. There is no case from Kano that usually records about 100 but declined to less than 10 in previous days.

MetaPhysical:
Im still watching but the fact that only men are giving witness to OP issue, and also men are the ones offering solutions seems to me this is a gender specific issue and its a man disease or whatever we call it....syndrome or ailment.

At first, Im suspecting its related with sexual activity. Male problems around lower bodies are typically result of sexual habit.

But on second thought, if it also result in bood in stool then it is perhaps something to do with digestive tract or lining and I will say those suggesting ulcer are not wrong.

It affects both gender but men are at higher risk just like other diseases which some may be reverse. It is also hereditary and some can cases can be due to anal penetration during sex. If you want to know the major cause, search google.

Insert anusol to your anus, it will stop the bleeding and dry the anus. It is also available in pharmacies. Take cautions on your diet, avoid eating solid and too much fatty foods. Drink herbal decoctions always like bitterleaf, efinrin or the package ones like moreke, alomo, yoyo bitters etc.

Why do we treat ourselves like animals, they don't need to sit on the floor.

Release the bird back to the bush immediately and sanitize yourself. We don't want another animal to human transmission of disease again.