Zach uses a lot of beeswax in his metal work. We had been purchasing our wax from a local supplier, but it can be rather expensive and with good reason!

After extracting honey, we are left to deal with frames with uncapped comb, or frames with comb cut out and a sticky honey mess. This is known as wet frames. How do we clean them up?

Winter is coming. Now is the time to begin preparing your beehives for a successful overwintering. During winter, instead of foraging for and storing food, the focus of the hive is to overwinter the queen. Successfully overwintering the queen ensures the hive’s survival for next spring. Honeybees during this time will cluster around the queen […]

Goldenrod provides the bee yard with a peculiar smell. It is different from the usual pleasant beehive smell. I thought my bees were dead or had some serious issues going on inside the hives!

Beeswax is an amazing product. It lends substance to homemade beauty products like deodorant, lotions and lip balm; it provides a protective layer against chapped skin, can restore and protect wood and makes amazing, long, even burning candles.

Well, NOW is the time to start preparing your bees for late fall and winter. I wanted to share some things that will help you get your bees ready in time so they can ride out the cold weather that will be here before you know it.

About a month and a half ago we split our hive. After an inspection, we noticed that the bees had almost filled the original hive with honey and brood. We decided that it might be a good time to split the hive so that the bees wouldn’t split themselves and take off in a swarm […]

What do you do when your buddy from over in the next county calls and says he has some wild honeybees in a strange location and can you help him? If you are like me, you agree to help and only later consider the consequences.

One of the most important things that you can do to ensure the success of your hives as well as your successes as a beekeeper is to ensure that you place your beehives in the proper location. This is just as important as keeping bees and should be considered prior to installing your bees in […]

If you have multiple hives you want to elevate, you may want to consider a hive stand. You could easily fit four production colonies on just one hive stand, and if you’re using only nucs, you could put even more. Learn how to build the hive stand in this great video tutorial below.

What exactly is Bee Bearding? Is it: A. When a bee collects pollen under its chin resembling a human beard? B. When bees gather outside the hive entrance in a shape resembling a beard? C. Bees who are exceptionally fuzzy? D. Hipsters who keep tiny beehives in their beards? If you answered B then you’re […]

If hive robbing was going on in your bee yard would you know? What can you do if hive robbing happens at your bee yard? First thing? Reduce that entrance!

Below, I show you how my friend and I cut bees out of an invading hive in order to re-home them. Follow along to learn more about the process. By the way: If you or someone you know notices an invasion of bees, the first, second, or third call you make should definitely not be to an […]

If you live in a generally warmer climate, you may run into small hive beetles.  These pests are NOT indigenous to North America or Europe, and the European honey bees have some difficulty managing to keep their numbers under control in the hive.  Hive beetles left unchecked will either cause your colony to abscond, or […]

Recently, Anand Varma was asked to photograph the life of bees for National Geographic. He found a local Berkeley beek named Alice Rosenthal who agreed to let him use her hive for the project in exchange for a warm place for her hive to recover over winter. What resulted is nothing short of spectacular. Learn […]