You stroll past your hive for a quick peek and are dismayed to find five dead bees on the landing board. What does that mean? Is your hive in trouble? What should you do? I can’t stress this enough: five dead bees is nothing. Nothing. The only difference between those five and a thousand of […] Read more
Mason bees, leafcutting bees, and other cavity nesters are incredibly easy to please. The hype you hear about their tubes needing to be a specific diameter, or a special length, or placed in a particular location is mostly nonsense. Left alone in the wild (as they were for millennia) the bees find all types of […] Read more
A friend who lives near Mount Shasta recently told me about a “swarm seducer” he uses to attract swarms that issue from his own hives. While bait hives and swarm traps are often used to woo swarms that are looking for a permanent home, a swarm seducer is meant to provide a temporary resting place […] Read more
Beekeepers have been trying to weigh their colonies since the invention of the movable hive, and those who keep records are endlessly fascinated by the fluctuations in hive weight during the year, especially the rapid increases during a nectar flow. Stories abound of hives gaining hundreds of pounds per week in some areas, something we […] Read more
Never before have I been interested in collecting pollen, but suddenly I’m obsessed with it. Beekeepers often say that the worse part of pollen collection is having to empty the traps every day, and I suppose that duty could get old after a time. But right now, I can hardly wait to see what my […] Read more
Considering they have only stubby little legs—and no wings, fins, or driver licenses—Varroa mites have no trouble getting around. In fact, they have an entire public transport system built and maintained by the very host they parasitize. Seems unfair, doesn’t it? While many routes of migration from colony to colony have been documented, some are […] Read more