Extracted honey can never hold a candle to honey in the comb. Imagine harvesting the choicest Zinfandel, Chianti, Syrah, and Merlot, then swirling them all together in a cavernous vat. The result is anemic red wine. The high notes and the low, the color, and the bouquet are all confused into an insipid muddle not […] Read more
Bee space is a passageway 1/4- to 3/8-inches wide (6-10 mm) that bees use for moving throughout the hive. In 1851 the Reverend L. L. Langstroth realized that spaces narrower than this were treated like cracks and filled with propolis. Spaces wider than this were treated like construction zones–bees donned their hardhats and filled the […] 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
Burr comb, bridge comb, and brace comb are all terms used to describe comb that is built in places that are reasonable to the bees but annoying to the beekeeper. Wherever honey bees find excess space in the hive—a space greater than about 3/8” (1 cm) wide—they will attempt to build comb. It is a […] Read more