bees
What You Need to Know About Apiary Layout
The cold days of winter are a great time to plan for next spring and summer. These plans might include the garden, the orchard, livestock, or the apiary.
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Succession Planting With the Best Plants for Bees
Add to Favorites Even before we began keeping bees, we tried to garden in such a way as to not harm bees and other pollinators. Now that we are keeping …
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Tips for Planting Flowers That Attract Bees
Add to Favorites Bees contribute so very much to our world and unfortunately, we often neglect to recognize that. Oh, we know in our heads that over 150 fruits and …
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How to Customize Your Hive With a Screened Inner Cover and Imirie Shim
Add to Favorites Just as you can alter the entrance to your Langstroth beehive, you can also alter the top. Two pieces of optional equipment to consider are a screened …
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Emergency, Swarm, and Supercedure Cells, Oh My!
I remember seeing the queen in our first ever hive and thinking to myself, “I’ll never find supercedure cells since I’m going to do all I can to keep her alive forever.” Of course, that’s not the reality of beekeeping.
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Natural Bees Comb Building: Boon or Bust?
The construction of natural bee’s comb is a wonder to behold. Festooning bees clasp legs to form hanging chains, a behavior many beekeepers describe as measuring, and set to work building hexagonal cells using wax flakes they excrete from abdominal glands and shape with their jaws. Each bee appears to work independently, yet somehow cells built by many bees working on different areas of comb come together seamlessly.
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A List of Plants That Attract Bees
For thousands of years, bees have been helping feed people, but now in the face of an onslaught of chemicals and disease, they’re in need of a helping hand. One course of action you can take is growing plants that attract bees.
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How to Help Bees During Spring Rain and Storms
Spring rain is a welcome sight to a homesteader who is busy sowing seeds and planting crops. However, those same spring rains can turn into devastating storms that often leave beekeepers wondering how to help bees weather the storms?
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5 Tips for Starting Beekeeping
Will you utilize the most commonly used hive style, the Langstroth beehive or do you fancy yourself a top bar or Warre beekeeper? For protective equipment, you could use a veil, a jacket with vail, or a full body bee suit – which works for you? Location of your hive can impact your bees based on sun exposure (summer v. winter), wind exposure, accessibility, proximity to neighbors, and so on.
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How to Talk to Vegans About Honey & Bees
I have yet to meet a beekeeper—commercial or hobbyist—who doesn’t adore his or her bees. There is a beauty and a romance to beekeeping that begins with the sun, and, if you are lucky, ends in a bonanza of the best tasting honey you have ever known.
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