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How do Bees Mate?
An interesting and deadly dance takes place all across the world; in fact, it’s necessary for human survival and yet goes unnoticed by humans year after year. The dance is actually the mating ritual of honey bees.
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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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Top Bar Beehives vs Langstroth Beehives
Not long after our teenage son started raising honey bees, a family friend built him a top bar beehive with an observation window using beehive plans from a homesteading book. It was such an amazing gift.
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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; unfortunately, so do summer and pests.
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How to Make Fondant for Bees
Fondant for bees is a little different than the fondant that you find at the bakery. The bakery fondant can have high fructose corn syrup, cornstarch, coloring, and flavorings added to it. Making fondant for bees is a lot like making candy.
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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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Growing Early Flowering Plants for Bees
Add to Favorites For most gardeners, fall is the time to bring in the last of the harvest, preserve and store what you’ve harvested, and put the garden to bed …
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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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From Point A To Point Bee
When I sell bees to a new beekeeper, the question of moving bees often comes up. I get questions like, “Why do you move them after dark?” or “Can I move them again once they are set?” or “Why do they have to be moved at least two miles away?” These and other questions about the subject are not easily understood and can be very confusing to beginners. Yet, the more we learn about bees the easier they are to understand.
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