Once you decide to light your smoker, how do you keep it lit? Many beekeepers report that before they’ve finished just one hive, their smoker is cold as night and they have to begin again. In truth, everything you need to know about smokers you learned in elementary school. I’m thinking of those “fire triangles” […] 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
The question of the day seems to be “How can I fit deep frames into medium boxes?” This problem occurs most frequently when a beekeeper with all medium equipment buys a nuc containing deep frames. Often the quick and dirty solution is to stack two medium boxes together so the frames hang down into the second […] Read more
When you check your winter hives, what do you look for? How often? Should you open them? Should you use a checklist? What if something is wrong? The answer for me is simple: I get nervous as a cat if I don’t check my hives at least once a week all winter long. But “check” […] Read more
Before next honey season, I intend to drill upper entrances in my honey supers, an idea I got from beekeeper Anthony Planakis. But before I busied myself with the hole saw, I needed a way to plug the holes. I wanted a system that was reliable, fast, reversible, nice-looking, and would allow the boxes to […] Read more
For several years I’ve been looking for a way to combine a moisture quilt with a candy board. I wrote a post about this a while back, but the board in that example contained cooked candy. I wanted a no-cook candy board for several reasons. The first reason is that cooking sugar syrup is both […] Read more
How can you do that? How can you lower the value of your honey? Extract it, of course. If you think I’m kidding, consider this. According to on-line sources, the average price for a pound of extracted honey packaged for retail sale is about $8. Now go and price a pound of comb honey. Depending […] Read more