Search:

5 new packages will definitely keep you busy this summer! You will also have an excellent opportunity to see how different each colony will become. Plan on having some honey this year, 3 lb...

Just spray it on your shoes and the bottom of your pants legs. This will keep most of the ticks off. I also check my bee jacket often, they are much easier to see on the white fabric. Carry a...

I prefer to think of beekeeping as "interesting" rather than "frustrating". If it were simple and everything always worked according to plan, it would get boring and repetitive very quickly. It is...

Just wondering what other small-scale beekeepers do about product liability insurance when selling only via word-of-mouth and farmer's markets?

I do not use excluders and have never had issues with brood in the honey supers. My advice would be to get rid of them altogether or use them in the fall for mouse excluders (between the bottom...

I would treat this like a CSA share. Charge a set price per hive per season for whatever honey the hive is able to produce. Assume new packages each year and a reasonable life of the equipment. I...

I use C&S exclusively. I like the idea that the wax that contains the product that is eaten by me and others is fresh and new, and has the lowest potential of being contaminated. I think that old...

Does anyone know the origin of finger joints for hive boxes? Do they serve any useful purpose? It seems to me that they expose an enormous amount of endgrain to the elements and create a lot of...

Hiving a package in cool weather is better than letting them run out of food in the package. Check the can and if it is still pretty full then you should be ok to wait a couple of days. Keep them...

This is the configuration I use (all mediums, three are brood chamber, everything above that is honey). I don't use an excluder, never had an issue with brood above the 3rd medium. From what I have...

I switched from jars to baggies last year because of similar problems. I just lay the baggie on top of the inner cover and put an empty medium on top of that, with the outer cover on top of the...

I had several hives die out the same way this winter. Input from other local beekeepers is that the cluster got too small to produce sufficient warmth and they died out from the cold. All of the...

I got a prescription for an epi-pen which I try to always have with me when I am working hives. I also started using a beekeeping jacket this year and I really like it, much better visibility and...

I build all of my own woodenware. One of the advantages of being a really bad carpenter is that nothing fits that tight, so ventilation is never an issue.

Chris, you could also just take enough frames out of your bottom deep to allow the package box to fit in and place your second deep on top. No need for an additional deep. When you come back to...

Holding bees in the package is stressful for them. Any time I can't get all my packages hived on the day I receive them I spray them a couple times per day with 1:1 sugar water and keep them in a...

Eggs are really hard to see on new drawn comb. What works for me is to take a bunch of digital photos of a few frames and then I can study these in more detail without having to keep the hive open...

Sorry to say but package queens are sometimes duds, no fault of the supplier just random nature. I had this same thing happen last year, two packages in side-by-side hives, one good strong queen and...

I agree with Luterra, I think you were queenless before the split. The hive with the supercedure cells will soon have a queen. I think you should add a new queen to the old "original" colony.

My best locations have full sun first thing in the morning and then shade in the afternoon.

Honey bees propagate by swarming, which means the colony basically splits in two. A swarm of just a couple hundred bees will not survive, however. You will be an excellent beekeeper, keep asking...

Carld-

I am a firm believer that "less is more" in beekeeping. There is an old adage that there are "bee-havers" (beekeepers who don't do enough), "bee-keepers", and "bee-meddlers" (beekeepers...

This colony needs some action on your part for any chance of preventing a swarm (and a huge set-back for this hive). A split is a man-made swarm, or at least the best we can manage. At the very...

Doesn't sound like it to me. How long did you have the hive open? What was the weather like? My "actively defensive" bees try to sting me through my shirt and bump my veil continuously. They...

I have had very good success with walk-away splits, but have also learned that the bees will do things on their own schedule and not necessarily follow the book (maybe they are poor readers, maybe...