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How to Decrystallize Honey
Add to Favorites 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 …
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How Do I Know if My Bees Are Too Hot?
Add to Favorites 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 …
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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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Why We Need to Protect Native Pollinator Habitat
Add to Favorites Doug Ottinger – Regardless of whether we live a rural lifestyle, an urban one, or something in between, our existence, and continuance of the world as we …
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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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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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Successfully Installing Packaged Bees
Spring is one of the busiest times in beekeeping, as it is with much of agriculture, but it is also a very rewarding and intriguing time. In effect it is “planting time,” when the scene is set for the coming season, and what takes place in March and April can often have an irreversible influence on what comes over the next several months.
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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.
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