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 […]

Is this not the coolest ever?! LEGO Bee Hive. Designed to cover a standard 3 level OATH hive, top layer is the honey box mmmmm! This is a species of Australian Stingless Bee, Tetragonula. . . . Reposting @shane.artisan @lego #tetragonulacarbonaria #stinglessbees #sugarbag #sugarbagbees #tetragonula #habitatsculpture #honey #pollination #pollinating #pollinationstation #beehotel #beeart #bee #savethebees #🐝 […]

Solitary cavity-nesting species such as mason bees are attracted to logs and dead trees, as well as hollow branches such as bamboo or sumac. Elderberry stems also are good because they have a soft pith that’s easily cleaned out. David Green of pollinator.com says don’t place elderberry stems out too late in spring because they […]

  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 […]

The following is an excerpt from Keeping Bees and Making Honey by Alison Benjamin and Brian McCallum (F&W Media, 2008). This spectacular book offers an in-depth profile of nature’s most effective pollinator and covers all aspects of modern beekeeping, including where and when to get your bees, different types of hives, how to harvest and […]

It’s old news that beekeepers are struggling to provide diverse, pesticide-free forage for their colonies, as scientists have been voicing alarm about the decline in pollinator populations for more than a decade. But part of the solution to help today’s stressed bees may be in your own backyard: Consider the incredible quantity of nectar produced […]

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 […]

Experienced beekeepers are keenly aware of which flowers provide bees with nectar, when those flowers are in bloom, and whether the right balance of rain and shine has encouraged them to bloom in abundance. In beekeeping jargon, when there is a bounty of nectar for bees to forage, a honey flow is said to be […]

Prairie Blazing Stars are spectacular spiky, towering flowers that, to my imaginative mind at least, look like fireworks exploding across the prairie. These native flowers attract a plethora of native insects and honeybees for their nectar sources. If you are considering adding additional native flowers to your pollinator garden this year, Prairie Blazing Stars can […]

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 […]

Mason bees, also known as orchard bees, are docile pollinators that are easy to keep and provide a myriad of benefits for the pollinator community. In nature, mason bees build solitary nests with mud in hollow reeds, woodpecker holes, or other small openings. To keep mason bees, all you really have to do is provide […]

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 […]

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 […]

I’ve found that herb gardeners are rarely solitary folks absorbed in pursuing perfect plants. When working in the garden, they often trail a friend or neighbor, sharing volumes of knowledge. They’ll pluck sprigs with abandon, encouraging visitors to “sniff this — taste that — please take this one home. My seeds came up so well […]