Beekeepers Blog

1. As spring enters full swing, your hive should continue to grow rapidly. Feed syrup as needed. Work to maintain at least a 10-15lb surplus of stored honey or syrup. There should be no need to feed any form of...

In this video, we discuss:

-Maintaining bees through the summer

-August management

-Finding queens

-Requeening

1. In most areas the honey flow will continue into early June, then begin tapering off in mid June, fully ending by late June. The first half of June continue adding honey supers when the existing super becomes 75% full...

July Beekeeping Tips

Harvesting Honey

Post Harvest Hive Care

Treating Varroa

Robbing & More!

Thousands or tens of thousands of bees are soon to be on the move as SPRING IS ON ITS WAY! These swarms will temporarily land on a limb, branch, fence post or other objects, forming what appears to be a...

1/1 (Most like Nectar for feeding larvae and drawing out honeycomb) Spring/Summer - 1 Part Sugar with 1 Part Water 4 pound bag of sugar formula: 8 cups of water per bag of sugar. Makes approximately 3 ½ quart jars...

The IPM approach is simply this – utilizing a series of methods for the long-term control and prevention of Varroa mites. The combination of these different methods gives the beekeeper and the bees a much broader chance of winning the...

By: Mary Reed I grew up in a rural part of Florida with parents who allowed their children to roam the great outdoors on their own. I have many memories of trekking through the woods with my siblings, our pack of...

If you have to worry about this, that's a great problem! Keep in mind, when your top box becomes 80% full of bees, brood or honey, it’s time to take action! There are 3 primary options to prevent a swarm...

Roughly 10% of the brood in a hive is typically drone brood. Since drones require a larger cell to develop in than workers, the bees must build special cells that are larger in diameter than worker cells. They typically do...

Drones are a normal and healthy part of every hive. Hives will usually remove drones from the hive in the late fall and begin raising them again in early spring. From early spring through late fall, about 10% of the...

I don’t recommend buying queens with clipped wings, nor do I recommend clipping the wings of a queen.    The theory is that it will prevent a hive from swarming, since the queen cannot fly away with the swarm. However,...

This is largely a question of preference. It doesn’t generally hurt a queen to get her marked, but it does cost extra, since beekeepers have to find a queen, pick her up, and mark her. It is far easier to...

Requeening a hive is only half of the battle when it comes to getting a hive to accept a new queen! Ensuring she is accepted is critical. Remember to wait at least 5-7 days before checking back after installing a...

This is frustrating, but fairly common. You introduced a queen to your hive properly, following all the steps in “How to requeen”, but she wasn’t accepted. If this happens to you, here is what to do:  Read “How to tell...

Also read:  How often should I requeen my hive?  How to tell if my hive is queenless  Requeening a hive with an existing hive is relatively simple. Deciding if they need to be requeened and finding the queen is a bit more...

Queens are readily available for purchase April-September. Thus, it is best to plan to requeen during those months. Hives most readily accept new queens when there is a natural honey and pollen flow, or you are feeding the hive. So,...

 There are a variety of ways to tell if your hive has lost its queen, and at some point, all hives do eventually lose their queen. At times they requeen themselves and we never know it, (which isn’t ideal, see...

The Bees' Miracle Mud! Have you ever wondered what that gunky stuff is that glues our bee boxes together making it “pop” when we break the seal? That's propolis! Not really high-tech stuff – basically just the “ooze” that drips...

Winter is finally here...so now what? After months of activity caring for your bees, it's finally time to take a deep breath and wait for spring. If you are like me, waiting is the hardest part! Every cold rainy night,...