Maybe you’ve heard people talk about siting your yard for bees. If you’ve looked into beekeeping online for any amount of time, there’s a good chance you’ve come across this topic. Let’s cut to the chase – siting your yard means picking where you’re going to set up your hive. It’s an important first step […]

Uncapping our honey harvest is probably the most satisfying job on our farm. Watching that luxurious curl of wax that slices off the frame and rolls away revealing the smooth golden honey is one of life’s great pleasures. There are several ways to uncap your honey frame. Whichever you choose, the end goal is to […]

In the winter months, just thinking of my beehives bursting with loads of bees and honey puts me in the mood to go through and inspect all my honeybee equipment and replace and renovate. I want to have all my equipment ready to go at a moment’s notice when the spring rush happens. All of […]

Once again, I find myself gloriously behind the times. In this particular case, a few thousand years behind the times. I built and maintain a wall beehive — a colony housed in the wall of my bedroom. I have been calling it my Observation Hive because it has a plexiglas cover on the inside wall, […]

If you live in an area with the invasive Argentine ants, chances are you have issues with them getting into your hives. These non-native pests have colonized most of California and the southern parts of the U.S. Their massive super-colonies make them difficult to control, especially in the bee yard. These ants can easily overwhelm […]

Before we work with a new package of bees, we spray them with a 1:1 ratio of water and dissolved sugar. Spraying helps calm the bees and allows you to more easily maneuver them into the hive. It’s not a good idea to use a smoker with a new package because you want to encourage […]

When my husband told me he wanted to keep bees I was NOT on board with the idea. When I was 11 years old my dad was stung by a bald face hornet, had a terrible reaction, and went into cardiac arrest. He made it through, but it was one of the most terrifying experiences […]

The smoker makes the beekeeper’s relationship with honey bees civil. Without the smoker, beekeepers would suffer many more stings during a hive inspection. More stings equate to more bee deaths, so all around the smoker is a good thing. What is a bee smoker? A smoker is a tool used by beekeepers to calm bees while […]

Welcome to summer and all it entails: barbecues, hiking, evening walks — and bee stings and bug bites. Take heart: You don’t have to spend the entire season scratching. Many of the best anti-itch remedies are as close as your backyard, kitchen, or local health food store. No single remedy will work for everyone, so […]

  Beehive art is becoming more and more popular in the bee yard. Painting hive bodies a boring white was the norm when I started beekeeping 20 years ago. Fast forward to the present and everyone is trying to outdo themselves with wild and beautiful designs decorating the bee yard. Art and beekeeping? Great combination […]

When colony collapse disorder (CCD) hits a colony, the bees literally disappear. You open the hive, and no one is home. No dead bees. No signs of disease. Just nothingness. And its scale is shocking. Some commercial beekeepers have lost thousands of hives in the blink of an eye. The losses have been dramatic enough […]

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 […]

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 […]

Tired of buying compressed smoker fuel, I looked for alternative fuels that would work better and were available around me. I have used pine needles before, but after some research I found oodles of natural materials ripe for the picking in my backyard. The variety of materials that you can use is only limited by […]

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 […]