countryside
What Happens When the Queen Bee Dies?
By Perry and Beverly Riley – Raising honeybees is a challenge. One day your hive looks good and a few days later you wonder if it’s going to live. There are all …
Read More
It’s Harvest Time
Extracting, or the honey harvest, is going to befall almost every beekeeper if their efforts are successful and the site of those activities can vary from a garage or the family kitchen to large facilities specifically designed and built for handling the harvest. Many of the new hobbyists may quickly find that harvesting honey in the kitchen can be a test of spousal relations.
Read More
Beekeeping with the Warre Hive: The Original Homestead Beehive
By Ernie Schmidt, Washington – Beekeeping with the Warre hive, for me, is the easiest way to care for bees. The Warre beehive was developed specifically to be a homestead hive. …
Read More
Preparing for The Queen Honey Bee
There is a decision to be made when starting beekeeping and ordering bees: do you want the two-pound or three-pound hive? You will only get one queen, but how many worker bees do you need right off the bat? That depends on your hive in your honey bee farming project.
Read More
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.
Read More
Varroa Mite Treatments for a Healthy Hive
Originally published in Countryside May / June 2017. Subscribe for the full digital issue! Varroa mites have been in the United States since the late 1980s and are considered a universal …
Read More
What’s Better? Buying Bees or Catching Swarms?
By Ed Dane – Is buying bees better than catching bee swarms? It is if you buy nucs. There are several ways to start beekeeping. Most beginners start buying bees via …
Read More
How to Make Beeswax Candles
Story and Photos By Laura Tyler, Colorado – Beeswax comes in a range of colors, from lemon-yellow to warm, grizzly brown — depending on its age and what part of the colony …
Read More
A List of Plants That Attract Bees
By Alan Harman, Michigan – 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 …
Read More
Adventures in Raising Honey Bees
By D. Parnell, Tennessee – I am not a professional beekeeper in any way, shape or form. It’s been said that if you speak with 25 different beekeepers, you’ll learn of 25 different methods raising …
Read More