Episodes

Every kind of hive has some kind of bottom board. Typically, Langstroth type hives have a bottom board that is removable. Many are reversible, too. That is one side has a ridge going around three sides that is only 3/8th of an inch tall, leaving an...

If you are comfortable outside on Christmas Day, you probably don’t have to worry about wrapping your colonies for winter protection. Otherwise, this episode is for you! At least put up a windbreak. It’s easy, cheap and it helps. But what other...

Do you remember what it was like when you first started keeping bees? Beekeeping was easier years ago, and most of us wanted more bees, more hives, more skills, more of everything beekeeping. But there’s a next chapter. Beekeepers today are better...

There are, in most places, a mix of native and invasive plants that our bees will visit because they don’t distinguish good from bad, noxious from native. They are looking for food, regardless of the source. This week Kim and Jim touch on a few of...

If you have to feed your bees this fall, something probably went wrong this summer. Spring feeding, or feeding packages or splits is maybe more common, but there are some things to think about if you have to feed your bees in the fall. Is what went...

Think about honey bees overwintering in a tree. There’s 4 to 6 inches of insulation, pretty good ventilation, and it’s lined with propolis. Now think of our bees living in a box with less than an inch of wood for protection. We pretty much don’t...

There’s a saying – Winter Begins in August and it’s already September. It’s time to start thinking about getting ready for winter. What can and what should you be thinking about? Well, if winter is cold where you are, can you move your bees to...

Right now, you have to make some decisions about how to overwinter your colonies. If you live in the deep south, there probably isn’t much to think about. But if you live north of warm winter weather, there’s a lot that has to be done. One of...

Beekeepers are very often asked to help friends or neighbors that have “bee” problems…. honey bees, carpenter bees, yellow jackets, hornets, bumblebees and the like. But most of us aren’t exterminators. We don’t have the tools, the...

When you finish extracting your honey crop, you have frames that have sticky, gooey honey in the cells, and on the frame surfaces. There may be some crystalized honey in some of the cells, too. Maybe even some pollen stored there. So how do you clean...

What do you do about ugly or mean bees? It can be difficult to determine which colony in a beeyard with several colonies is the one, or maybe one of several, that has scouting guard bees meet you at the gate when you go to a beeyard. If you can...

Every spring we beekeepers buy packages and set up nucs. Come summer, we start to look at what is going right and what may be going… well… not so right. Or at least, something is going but we’re not quite certain just what! In this episode, Kim...

Beekeepers talk a lot about not having enough food or enough good food for their bees due to all manner of development, agriculture spread, and agriculture in general. To help fix that problem beekeepers should be looking at doing some planting for...

Kim and Jim ask some interesting questions this week, maybe some you’ve asked yourself, or perhaps you asked a close friend. For instance, should a colony being used for honey production spend time and energy raising drones? Or should a beekeeper be...

Have you ever had European Foulbrood (EFB) in one or more of your hives? How do you know if it was EFB? What does it look like? What does it smell like? Does it smell like American Foulbrood (AFB), or look like AFB? If you’re not sure, how do you...

It’s been hot in Ohio so far this summer (and a lot of other places too) but it’s also been wet.  Hot and wet can make keeping bees a lot harder than normal. Kim and Jim talk about hot summers and their bees. Kick the air conditioner down a...

How many colonies had to be replaced last year? How many in winter, summer, total? How many beekeepers were surveyed? How many commercial operations, how many sideline operations, and how many hobby beekeepers? It used to be called the annual colony...

A question from a book written 107 years ago comes up for discussion. “How do you keep your bees from bothering your neighbors?” Back then, it was mostly cattle and horses beekeepers were worried about Today? It’s the people in the house right...

It’s rare, very rare, but sometimes beekeepers have to kill all the bees in a colony. It can be a tragic, emotional and usually it’s an expensive experience. Or it can be a life saving act to save the lives of friends, neighbors and family. At the...

Let’s face it. Unless you live in an isolated part of the world, if you keep bees, you will need to eventually deal with encounters between your bees and your neighbors. Encounters don’t have to be negative. There are strategies you can use to...

Packages arrive with a queen and together are installed in a hive of some kind. In a few days to a week the queen is released from her travel cage by either the bees or the beekeeper. Then the evaluation of that queen, and the bees, too, begins. How...

Today, Kim & Jim review questions and answers asked in an ancient A. I. Root Co. publication, published in 1910. What’s changed, and what hasn’t? Kim and Jim tackle questions asked 121 years ago. You’ll be surprised at what they find. Do...

What is tanging? Basically, beekeepers use some sort of device, an old cooking pot for instance, to make a loud noise by beating it with a spoon or stick, while chasing an escaping swarm. It is thought this may convince the bees that a storm with...

Honey bees are purchased from commercial operations in business to sell bees to beekeepers. They can be sold as complete eight or ten frame hives with a queen, frames with comb, bees and brood and some stored food. Or, they may be sold as a 5-frame...