The first warm, sunny day in early spring when the temperature reaches 45° to 50°F (7° to 10°C) is a great time to pay a visit to your apiary. This first visit of the year involves primarily a quick check of the hives, simply to make sure they are still alive. A trip to see […]

The Polar Vortex landed a blow to the Midwest where Five Feline Farm is located. Many of the beekeepers in this area report a significant loss of colonies over the harsh winter. One beekeeper described opening a hive to find bees appearing frozen in place. The entire colony dead. Our losses are not confirmed at […]

My beehive died again this year. The death of this hive marks the third year (and the fourth hive) that I’ve failed to shepherd one through the winter. I have attended multiple beekeeping classes and workshops, a mentoring session, and read several books on beekeeping. I am by no means a novice. For the last […]

Sometimes it is necessary to feed honeybees through the winter, which can be accomplished by using one of several methods. That is the position we find ourselves in here on Five Feline Farm after two colonies have struggled through the fall with apparent robber bees. A colony of honeybees needs anywhere from 30 to 60 […]

When people ask me how they can help bees, I used to say, “Plant a pollinator garden!” I would then rattle off a list of bee-friendly flowers and shrubs to get them started. Then I had an epiphany. A tree provides much more forage than any patch of flowers ever could. It’s so obvious, but […]

Honeybees work. They work all spring and summer to store up enough pollen and honey for their colony to survive the winter. However, sometimes, their best efforts are not enough and they can end up starving to death if their supplies run out. As you have read, in the early spring and late fall when […]

There are generally two ways in which you can raise mason bees. You can go at it with a hands-off approach and let nature take its course or you can take some quick and easy additional steps to ensure a healthier mason bee population. Any help really that you’re willing to provide will be appreciated […]

For Northern beekeepers, it is way past the time to prepare for winter, but in the southeast, we still have 90° F days and the goldenrod is finally in full bloom! The weather this year has been a complete downer with it raining almost every day from 03 June until 09 September and then Hurricane […]

We recently checked back on our hive after installing the new beetle jails to replace the beetle blasters. As I wrote about earlier, I haven’t been entirely satisfied with the beetle blasters and was looking for alternatives. In the comments to my post, many other beekeepers have shared their own strategies there for trapping small hive […]

A walk away split is exactly what it sounds like. Split the hive in half and walk away. Let the bees do what bees naturally do. Honeybees are predisposed to maintain the species by swarming. A beekeeper can take advantage of this instinct and control the swarming action by creating a split. This keeps the […]

In my experience, most new beekeepers are worry worts. They spend a lot of energy fretting over their bees, but mostly they focus on the wrong things. Read on to find out what you can stop stressing out about! 1. Cooling the Hive  Honey bees like to keep their brood nests between 90-97F (32-25C) degrees. […]

Moving from Beetle Blasters to Beetle Jails: Small Hive Beetle Management Small hive beetles are a pest and a terrible nuisance, but as we learned oh so painfully, they can destroy a weakened hive if they become established and do as they are wont to do:  reproduce prolifically.  I’ve never had a sadder (or more disgusting) […]

The fact is that beekeepers who treat their bees with chemicals are still losing colonies in a similar ratio to those of treatment-free beekeepers. What I believe is that, over time, raising bees without treatments produces hardier bees. Treating bees with chemicals helps the bees that have weaker “genetics” to continue to propagate and allows […]

If you’ve kept bees for any length of time, you’ve probably come to realize that doing so effectively requires a lot of work. In particular, bees are often vulnerable to disease as well as mites and other pests. Controlling these threats may be quite difficult, and many beekeepers opt to enlist the help of chemical […]

Please enjoy July’s Video to Buzz About!   Please enjoy this video of a lecture given by Jamie Ellis at the 2014 National Honey Show entitled “Addressing the Sustainability of Beekeeping in the 21st Century”.