A Delaware inventor wants you to consider raising bees

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The life of a beekeeper can be rewarding, yet challenging.

Early mornings often start with a visit to the apiary, where the hum of busy bees signals the start of another demanding day. Daily tasks include inspecting hives, checking the queen’s health, managing pests and harvesting sweet, gooey golden honey — all while enduring various weather conditions and avoiding stings. The true reward lies in the satisfaction of successfully nurturing a thriving colony.

It’s work George Datto is very familiar with. After 15 years of beekeeping, Datto has spent the last four years helping improve beekeeping efforts at Delaware’s Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library. Overseeing 10 hives at the museum’s apiary, he also educates visitors and sells locally sourced honey.

“Beekeeping is heavy, hot work. A gallon of honey weighs 12 pounds and a gallon of water weighs 8 pounds,” he described. “So just the typical challenges faced by all beekeepers, swarm prevention, [keeping] healthy hives and keeping hives alive.”

All that hard work could play a role in limiting the number of people willing to take on the tough task of beekeeping. But Datto’s been working on that problem. He’s developed a new hive designed to ease many of these challenges called the Keeper’s Hive.

The new hive design originated in 2016 when Datto and his team merged their expertise to develop the hive. They’ve been working over the past eight years to test and refine the hive to its optimal design.

Most hives in the U.S. are the Langstroth hive model, featuring stacked rectangular boxes with frames that can be removed one by one.

“It’s been the hive that most people use around the world, and it’s [a] very effective hive with the exception of requiring a lot of lifting to do management of the hive,” Datto said. “Therefore, oftentimes when used by the beekeeper, the management doesn’t get done because it requires a lot of lifting.”

Originating in the 1870s, the Langstroth hive was created by Philadelphian Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth and has since become a standard worldwide. Beekeepers must lift and remove three to four heavy boxes per hive, each weighing between 30 to 80 pounds, to manage it properly.

Within a hive, there are two main sections: the brood chamber, where the queen and bees reside, and the honey box. Typically, the brood chamber is below and the honey box is above. Hence, beekeepers often have to move boxes to reach the brood chamber, essential for preventing swarms and diseases that could endanger the colony.