Beekeeping at FiveApple

 Did you know honey bees are able to detect lung cancer by smell? Today I share that amazing study as well as more about the scents our bees use to communicate vital info: food! danger! home! here it is! Plus updates on the bee yards, black jar honey contest, new requeening presentation, Bee Expo 2027 and more. Links mentioned in this episode: MSU researchers discover honeybees can detect lung can...

The light and the leaves are both saying Autumn has started. Our winter bees are already emerging and there are things we can do to give them their best chance. In today's episode I'm talking about the things I'm getting done to get ready for the bees journey through Winter. kind regards to you all in every kind of weather, Leigh   Also: for my past episode on Condensing Hives vs Ventilating Hives...

Found a research article that was food for thought on how warmer autumns may be having effects on our bees that aren't so good: creating smaller late-winter clusters by increased wear and tear on the precious winter bees who should not be as active as the temps drive them to be. But also, it goes into novel solutions (well, not novel in Canada but novel in more Southern climes) to help. Do backyar...

Ep165: Bee Radio Reader "Reflections on the Past Seasons" by Richard Wahl (Off the Wahl Beekeeping Column, Nov 2025. Read by permission of Bee Culture magazine. ) Today it's a radio reader episode on learning to reflect on the past in a way that makes it useful for the future. As well as a bit of clarification on the last episode. Link to the article: https://beeculture.com/off-the-wahl-beekeeping...

[Last Thursday Apple podcasts had an outage and the episode didn't show up as a new one in your feed. Here it is again for the Apple folks -- just a duplicate of last weeks episode that was missing for many! --Leigh] Listeners, This has been a test year in my bee yards, to see if my old treatment-free methods that worked so well for 16 years in an isolated bee yard would hold up in areas with more...

This has been a test year in my bee yards, to see if my old treatment-free methods that worked so well for 16 years in an isolated bee yard would hold up in areas with more beekeepers. Answer: Nope. [Deep sigh and regroup. ] I now feel so lucky to have learned a hybrid system that still allows me to work on my long term project of stock selection towards mite resistance–while also utilizing organi...

Today it's about the bee's most awful behavior: ROBBING. I found a tip on reducing robbing while doing inspections and it works great!! The PerfectBee.com website I mentioned. The article was from their email newsletter but here's a link to an article on robbing on their blog. BetterBee's article on robbing and prevention Rusty of HoneyBeeSuite.com on robbing and another post on preventing it . Ma...

Today Episode: July bee yard update William's tips on honey harvest ( see Williams letter here ) Tip on making bee boxes last longer "painting with glue" — this whole presentation is well worth watching! ( YouTube Link ) Invitation to see Julia Mahood present on drones (see below for info) Reminder to take care in the heat with electrolytes Thoughts on "Chasing Sourwood" and the impacts on station...

UBO, PKB, FKB, mite washes, Harbo assays... It's an alphabet soup out there of ways to test your bees for hygienic traits and resistance to varroa. You may be testing to find out when to apply mite treatments or a brood break to a colony and in that case a simple mite wash is usually enough. But you may be testing to find out your very best genetics you have to raise next years queens for your yar...

In this episode I share my own process for getting honey from the hives to the jars. It's quirky but it works for me and I'm hoping you might find ideas for your own process or just enjoy hearing how someone else does it. That's what I did when researching this episode! For supporting patrons, I've also collected a few videos (with video summaries included)  you might enjoy and for newer beekeeper...

So you have a caged mated queen and a colony that needs requeening, how to make that happen (so that your special queen actually survives the process!) is what we cover today! As a thank-you, Patrons got this episode a day early and also get a bonus portion covering the vertical requeening methods that Ryan mentioned last episode plus tips and resources on introducing virgin queens. Supporting pat...

Something special today! This interview with Ryan Williamson of Sourwood Farm of Virginia has been the one where I learned the most. He is a full time beekeeper selling local nucs and honey, but who also specializes in offering VSH queens from tested breeders he raises himself. We start off with how he got into the bee biz and just got to talking between beekeepers and ended up in full geek mode o...

Ep157  More Springtime Tips: Keeping bees in the boxes, avoid the honey dome, get more comb drawn, know if your hive is queenright or queenless.  In case you missed it: Ep156 Spring in the Bees!  Ep 155 Interview with Colorado beekeeper and writer Tina Sebestyen Ep 153 Interview with James Lee of SBGMI ⬆️ available wherever you listen to podcasts Patron Exclusives: Patron exclusive show notes on E...

Today it's a ramble through things going on in the bee yard as Spring has taken over and the bees won't wait! Doing some quick splits to save the day, still aiming for more data-driven stock selection and whose swarm is this in my equipment? In case you missed it: Ep 155 Interview with Colorado beekeeper and writer Tina Sebestyen Ep 153 Interview with James Lee of SBGMI ⬆️ both of these also avail...

I ask Tina about the Miller (graftless) method of Queen rearing and her recent articles in ABJ, then we wander into chat between bee friends of goings on in our apiaries, things we want to try this year and more. Enjoy! -Leigh Supporting Patrons, view your exclusive show notes here .  Patron exclusive detailed show notes include: What is the Miller Method?  More info and how-to from Tina’s on the...

Today I share some great tips shared by Greg Rogers of Haw Creek Honey when he presented to our local club. Then we work through swarm prevention strategies (starts at 16:25) that are especially important when it's too early in the season to make splits due to drone availability. Patrons, you will find your exclusive detailed show notes here . Today's notes include: Greg's favorite YouTube channel...

Today I interview James Lee, president of the Sustainable Beekeepers Guild of Michigan about the goals and offerings of this important virtual education hub for beekeepers interested in increasing the genetic work towards reducing the need for treatments in hives. We talk about his work in creating the Northern Queen Initiative to provide locally raised Northern adapted queens as well as his own a...

This is a hefty episode that reviews some of the many, many ways knowing bee biology will directly affect the decisions you have to make as a beekeeper in every season of beekeeping. It's long because it affects nearly everything and this is just a sampling! Beginners: take the details you need and just roll with the stuff that you haven't learned yet, but please note how important learning all th...

It's that time of year as beekeepers that we find out how we did — how we did all the way back to the summer before. Some years it can be a tough report-card to get! As all things in bees there are many ways to understand what happened. The good news even if it was a bad year is this: we can do better in the coming season. In this episode I encourage you to do just that, while also acknowledging i...

Ep 150: Lifecycle of the Bees (and the beekeeper) for Newbees So this is a version of the talk I'm giving at my local club's bee school this year, telling the story of the bees' yearly cycle. There's nothing else more important to learn as a basis for beekeeping imo. Because whenever we enter the hive, it only makes sense if we understand what the bees are already doing in that season of their cyc...

A full overview for beginners of starting with your first nucleus colony. Things to know, things to learn, things to watch out for. Experienced beekeepers: I've asked for your help in creating a TIP SHEET to share with the patrons of this show on starting with nucs. Send me your best tips and I'll include them on the pdf I'm creating for new beekeepers. It will be available *next week* on the patr...

But of course there's beekeeping stuff you can do in winter! :-) Listen in to get ideas about what tasks need doing (check in on your bees food stores!) as well as thought on how to get ahead for the upcoming bee season. Along the way: an idea for setting up a 'learning nuc' and thoughts on record keeping, bee school and more. This is the video I mention: https://youtu.be/BEqikrm9PRY?si=ag51ZJt2fV...

The gifts we get from spending time with the bees, learning about the bees and learning from other beekeepers are so amazing. This episode is a reflection on just some of the beauties and realizations that come with beekeeping in good years and even in not so good beekeeping years. I'd love to hear what gifts you got from your bees this year. It's the last episode of 2025 and already I look forwar...

What makes a perfect winter home for 60,000 bees? This episode explores Dr. James Tew's look at the architecture of the winter bee nest. You'll discover what scout bees look for when house hunting, what propolis really does, and why the entire colony functions as a single super-organism. A Radio-reader edition of The Honey Bee's Winter Nest" by Dr. James E. Tew, Bee Culture magazine, October 2023....

Ep145 Organic? Treatment-Free? Chemical-Free? Natural Beekeeping Terms Explained in this ABJ article Ever get confused by all the "natural beekeeping" terms floating around? In this episode I'm discussing an article (Oct 2023 ABJ) that breaks down three approaches that sound similar but are actually pretty different: organic beekeeping, treatment-free beekeeping, and chemical-free beekeeping. They...