Once upon a time, I thought the cost to start beekeeping was low. A few hundred dollars would get you a decent hive, basic equipment, and a package of bees. But all that has changed. In a recent conversation on Bee-L, people reported three-pound packages of bees with a mated queen averaging from about $130 […] Read more
Update: Included at the end of this post is a statement by Katie Sanchez of Bee Free Honee. Honey is excluded from the vegan diet by definition. Both the definition and the term “vegan” are credited to Donald Watson, who promoted the idea back in 1944. A few months later, the Vegan Society of England […] Read more
It’s is hard to image what you expect them to do. I’ve never seen an industrious-looking egg, even though a lot is happening on the inside. Honey bees remain in the egg stage for about 72-76 hours, assuming nest temperatures are normal. During that time, the fertilized (female) or unfertilized (male) cells begin dividing and […] Read more
You know I try to answer all my e-mail questions, but sometimes I just can’t think of anything to say—they more or less leave me speechless. Here’s a list of mystifying queries from the past week. If you have a good answer, please let me know . . . Rusty HoneyBeeSuite
A beekeeper living on Vancouver Island is worried about the great number of honey bee wings and legs she is seeing on the Varroa drawer. She just finished treating her hive with formic acid pads and wondered if the accumulation of bee parts was a result of the mites or the mite treatment. I too […] Read more
Forget honey bee dysentery, I’m talking about humans here. Today my heart went out to a regular reader who wrote: Earlier in the week I crushed and strained a couple of frames of honey I had stored from the late summer surplus. It was the first time I’ve harvested any honey from the bees I […] Read more
After the fireworks last Wednesday evening, at nearly midnight, one of our friends pointed to the top-bar hive and asked if we keep a fan in there. “No,” I said, confused. “No fan.” “So what’s making all that noise?” he asked. I realized then that he was asking about the hum coming from that very […] Read more