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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. An apiary is …
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How to Decrystallize Honey
Every so often someone asks me how to decrystallize honey. Now, they don’t use those exact words. Usually, the conversation goes something like this. “Um, I’m not sure what happened …
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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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How Do I Know if My Bees Are Too Hot?
One of my favorite places to be on our property is in the bee yard. I will occasionally sneak in there with camera in hand and just watch. Bees are …
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How to Manage Ants in a Beehive
There is nothing quite like the sights and sounds of bees buzzing around, gathering pollen and nectar on a warm summer day. Summer and bees just seem to go together; …
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Who is the Queen Honey Bee and Who is in the Hive with Her?
The honey bee hive is a busy place where every bee has a job. The hive consists of the queen honey bee, the drones, and the workers. Part of learning …
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Succession Planting With the Best Plants for Bees
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 bees, our goal …
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Let’s Talk About Losing Bees
Like many beekeepers, we lost bees this winter. New packages failed to build up in a normal way last summer and were unusually slow to build comb and put away stores into fall. In September, aggressive yellow jacket predation weakened them further leaving them unable to carry themselves through the cold.
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What To Know As Spring Unfolds Into Summer
If April is the beekeeping equivalent of planting time, then May is when our efforts start to germinate.
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Propolis: Bee Glue that Heals
Honeybee propolis is a brown or reddish resinous substance made by bees to protect the hive against animal and bacterial invaders. The word “propolis” is a compound of the Greek words “pro” and “polis” and translates to, “Before the city.” Bees use propolis as a building material to fill gaps and crevices, varnish combs and shape entrances, sometimes creating fantastic gobs that supposedly aid ventilation in the hive.
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