Just the thought of honey bees and zinc toxicity makes you all squirmy and anxious, right? Such a nail-biter of a topic is hard to resist, but here’s the spoiler: I don’t have an answer. Still, it’s a good question and I will explain why. How is zinc toxic? But first, a few words about […] Read more
Vince Poulin, a beekeeper in Vancouver, British Columbia, sent me an idea he had for feeding nucs that were stacked one atop another during the winter. This is a problem I’ve wondered about but never actually solved. It’s nice to be able to stack nucs or small colonies with a double-screen board (Snelgrove board) so […] Read more
Rotating brood boxes, also called reversing, is a time-honored rite of spring. Beekeepers parade into their apiaries on the first warmish day and switch the position of their two brood boxes. They pry the boxes apart with a sharp crack and put the upper one where the lower one used to be, then place the […] Read more
Here is a quick reminder about the amount of food a winter colony can burn through. Contrary to logic, your colony will eat more during a warm, balmy winter than it will during a colder one. On warm days, honey bees will leave the hive and fly around looking for food, but flying is extremely […] Read more
Every few years we raise a new crop of beekeepers who want to feed bananas to their bees as a winter supplement. The forums are filled with anecdotal stories of bees thriving on ripe bananas while overcoming every imaginable pathogen and parasite. A recent Instagram posting explained that the potassium in bananas will help the […] Read more
Honey bees are much more logical than humans. And humans, in general, are much more logical than beekeepers. Which means that honey bees and their keepers are often at odds, especially when it comes to building comb. New beekeepers want honey immediately. They expect a new package of bees to drop everything and build new […] Read more
It all began last fall when my husband announced that the hive in the backyard had to go. Truth is, I too was tired of it. Although the bees had a sweet disposition most of the time, there were moments when they lacked restraint. The hive was close to the house, tucked under the eave, […] Read more