Good hive management is essential for proper development of the colony. Good hive management practices include:

• Proper planning of work, including making sure all needed materials such as frames or additional hives are available.  Working fast, but calmly and smoothly, removing lid and top-bars gently, and blowing smoke gently around the flight entrance.
•  Provide extra room, when bees have filled all the bars with food and brood.
• Separate the honey area from the brood chamber with what is called a ‘queen excluder’ this prevents the brood from developing in the honey chamber.
• Removing old combs from empty hives

The following practices should be followed in order to manage bees properly when rearing them.

1. All unnecessary movements or noise when working with bees should be avoided.
2. Avoid perfumes and scented lotions when working with bees. Strong scents attract The bees and incite them to sting.
3. Use smoke to control the bees. Smouldering pieces of dry cattle dung will provide the best smoke for bee handling.
4. Do not puff in too much smoke as this may affect the quality of honey through smell. Smoke induces the bees to start consuming some honey thereby reducing their tendency to fly and sting. Smoke also assists to direct the bees away from areas of the hive in which the bee-keeper is working.
5. Avoid killing bees as this will annoy the others and incite them to sting or swarm.
6. When opening a hive, blow a little smoke into the entrance holes several times and then move behind the hive. After 1 or 2 minutes lift the top cover and detect or determine the empty side of the hive without combs. Then start working from the empty side of the hive. Every time you lift a top bar blow some smoke into the gap to keep the bees away and after the operation is over, quietly close the hive and move away.
7. Controlling Swarming: is a method by which bee colonies reproduce and control over Crowding.

• A major cause of swarming is that the colony has grown so large that the hive is getting congested.
• If swarming is not checked a lot of colonies will leave the apiary, leaving behind small colonies that will take time to build-up again. This will result in producing very little honey.
• Prevent swarming by harvesting honey or dividing the bee colony in order to provide adequate room in the hive. This will result in brood rearing and honey storage.
• Dividing a colony prevents swarming, this can be done by removing 12 to 15 combs that should include bees, sealed, and unsealed brood, honey and pollen, into a capture hive.
• Carry the capture hive to a new site and transfer the colony into an empty hive, which has already been installed. This will have been properly baited or positioned for bees colonization.

Avoid using open fire because it kills bees and causes bush fires that are unplanned and destructive to bee pastures.

• Where sprays and dusts are used to control crop pests, a farmer and bee-keepers should cooperate if the lives of bees are to be protected.
• The danger can be minimized by the farmer not spraying crops when flowers are open; and the bee-keeper shutting hives the night before spraying is to begin making sure no chemical dust will fall on his hives.
• One can also avoid hanging hives close or where there is heavy use of pesticides or insecticides.