Ask 10 beekeepers the best way to remove bees from honey supers and you’ll get eleven answers. As with anything else, every beekeeper has their preferred method for accomplishing any task. In this post, I’ll examine how to remove bees from the super so the honey can be harvested. When a hive is opened, bees […]

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 […]

Attracting bees with the right plants is important, but what about inviting them to make a home nearby with attractive ready-to-move-in housing? A custom condo became my project in the winter for solitary mason bees and other native bees of all kinds who come knocking on my door for a place to lay their eggs. […]

Particularly useful in orchards, mason bees (also called blue orchard bees) can visit hundreds of flowers per day. They don’t make honey, but they collect pollen for nest holes where they lay eggs, and then plug the holes with mud. They look like small blue-black flies, and they rarely sting. The bee larvae and cocoons […]

If you’re like me, when it comes to adding livestock — or any animal for that matter — to your home, you relish the research. It’s fun to flip through literature and find the breed, species, or whatever the subspecies (also called ecotypes) may be called that jumps out at you and finds its way […]

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 […]

Bees are one of the most important insects to us. Not only are they great garden pollinators, they maintain biological balance and recycle soil nutrients. Learn all about bees — from their appearance to the many unknown North American Species in Bees, Wasps, and Ants (Timber Press, 2010) by Eric Grissell. The following excerpt was taken from […]

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 […]

If you’ve been dreaming about beekeeping for awhile and want to make a go of it this year, early February is the time to get started. It’s easy to place an order for bees from your local beekeeping supplier, but March is the last month to do it. There are so many great reasons to […]

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 […]

Two years ago we added bees to the Chiot’s Run Family. We picked up 10,000 ladies from Dave, a local guy who sells them. He knows what he’s talking about — these were the hives in his front yard. On our way home, Mr. Chiot looked at me and said, “This has the makings of a horrible […]

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 […]

Israel Bravo has been on a quest for the past decade to help bees and beekeepers. He has been keeping bees professionally for over 17 years and, while working as a team foreman for a large-scale beekeeping operation in Idaho, he was inspired to help his fellow pollinator stewards. Over the years, Mr. Bravo became […]

Winter survival of honeybees is one of the most common topics of discussion I have with people curious about bees. With extremely cold temperatures hitting most of the East Coast, this issue has come up again and again. A healthy full-size colony with an adequate supply of honey and a healthy queen can survive extreme […]