For the backyard beekeeper/hobbyist, particularly for novices, one of the things that may seem counterintuitive is the idea of rearing a new queen for your colonies. I remember when I first started beekeeping, I was terribly protective of my queen – which is not a bad thing. But there are some really good reasons why […]
Honeybees (and other pollinators) are facing new, manmade threats. In the past year, commercial beekeepers in California – personal friends of mine – lost more than 50 percent of their overwintered hives because of exposure to pesticides IN THE GROVES AND ORCHARDS THEY WERE CONTRACTED TO POLLINATE! In other words, farmers would contract with commercial […]
There has been quite a bit of bee news in the last day or so, and I thought I would give you a set of links to some articles I read yesterday: Quest for a Superbee – This article from National Geographic discusses the efforts to create strains of bees that are able to fend […]
Thought I would share this learning experience. I had a hived package that was not inspected for a couple of weeks. Shoddy beekeeping on my part, since the colony was likely queenless for most (all?) of that time. Everything seemed fine on first approaching the hive for the late first inspection; bees were active and […]
I found this video online where Michael Bush talks about raising queens. It is a very nice tutorial for the beginner who wants to raise queens, and talks about the advantages of making your own. Michael doesn’t really address the situation we have here. We don’t have feral, acclimated bees. In order to improve the […]