Now that I’ve had a couple of days to recoup, the bee yard is looking better. As a matter of fact, yesterday I was reminded of one of the reasons I really like beekeeping: it gets me outside. And because of where my hives are, I’m forced into the woods where the wild things are. […] Read more
Anyone who knows me knows I love bees. It’s obvious. But I have moments when I wonder if I like beekeeping. Today, for example. I have queen bees living in my underwear drawer. I do this every year because, if new queens cannot be installed immediately, they need to be kept in a warm, dark, […] Read more
It was a winter of starving bees. In the past few weeks I’ve heard countless tales of beekeepers losing all or nearly all their colonies to starvation. Many of their hives contained not a single drop of honey. Others had full frames of honey remaining, but the bees died anyway. During cold weather, the bees […] Read more
While it is natural to sigh with relief when spring finally rolls around, in truth, spring is one of the hardest seasons for both bees and beekeepers. The perils of spring are many. Spring colonies that have overwintered face a particularly daunting set of circumstances. For example: By spring, the number of individuals in a […] Read more
I finally saw my first drone on Wednesday April 20. He made his appearance on the landing board of my busiest hive—just one day shy of a month later than last year. Although I went through the rest of my hives, he was the only fully-formed male I could find. I did, however, find lots […] Read more
In a recent e-mail, one of my readers from Mississippi listed the plants that provide the nectar for his honey. Among the plants in the list was the Chinese tallow tree, a species I knew nothing about. So here is what I found. The Chinese tallow tree, Triadica sebifera (aka Sapium sebiferum) is a member […] Read more
While honey bees have pollen baskets (corbiculae) in which to carry pollen back to the hive, many native bees carry pollen on the underside of the abdomen instead. The abdomens of these bees are covered with a thick tuft of elongated hairs called a scopa. Instead of packing the pollen into a ball, the pollen […] Read more