Harvesting your honey crop isn’t about keeping bees, in fact, it is hard work. It’s when you start questioning your spring decision to expand your number of colonies. On the other hand, it’s a good measure of how well you …
Post-harvest time is a good time to look for wax moth in your colonies. Believe it or not, wax moths are around pretty much all of the time. On today’s episode, Kim and Jim discuss wax moths! Strong colonies keep …
How much honey do you leave for the bees this winter? Like lots of things in beekeeping, it depends. Since “all beekeeping is local”, it is good to start in your own backyard. Do you live in the south? Midwest? …
It’s hot out there and it looks like it isn’t going to cool off for most of us for awhile. Also, since mite treatments should be starting now, getting honey off in the heat is the rule of the day. …
It doesn’t take long after getting into beekeeping and then repeatedly, as long as you have beekeeping equipment laying around or stacked neatly, until you have to deal with small furry pests. Mice, rats and other critters love the shelter, …
Jim’s beeyard is the center of attention this week, because his bees were bothering his wife and a very patient, longtime neighbor. That’s not a good thing. So, exasperated, Jim asks Kim for his ideas about all that was going …
If a pollinator garden is in your future this summer, constructing a raised bed is one way to keep it under control and is a much easier approach to providing food for your bees, beauty for your yard and not …
Package season is about over for 2022. Perhaps thankfully too, depending on where in the country you live. Installing packages does not always go well or as depicted in bee books or Internet videos. Sometimes, the weather just does not …
Have you ever been involved in planning and carrying out a beekeeping meeting? If not, there are a host of things to consider that you may have missed when you simply ‘attend’ a meeting. Kim and Jim have attended probably …
If your colonies make it through the winter, or if you simply purchased more bees as a package or nuc, their next challenge is making it through the changeable spring weather. (Especially this year, it seems.) Your management challenge is …
This time of year, experienced and new beekeepers are receiving their packaged bees and nucs. Only a few of these packages and nucs are going home to new equipment. Many will go home to equipment left over from last year's …
In today’s episode, Kim and Jim continue their exploration of Bee Beards… though this time… they go big… really big bee beards you see in the movies, where they use 20 maybe 30 pounds of bees, and the person is …
Really? You want to do a bee beard? OK, let’s think this through. How much do you know about bees and bee beards, and why do you want to make a bee beard anyway? Some people will think you are …
Jim has finally figured out where he wants his flowers to be next spring, so what’s next is getting those sites ready to plant, so that what he plants does the best it can for Jim, the bees and anybody …
You can buy all of your beekeeping equipment already assembled and if wooden boxes, already painted. They cost more than if you do it yourself, but you don’t invest any time in assembly. Or, you can buy everything unassembled; nail …