Hobby Beekeeping

Just like the movie I guess, yesterday October 18 was Drone Purge day. What could have triggered this sudden purging of drones? Here are my thoughts.

After watching our bees bring in pollen yesterday, I took a look at the science to answer this question. You might be surprised what I found.

In two weeks, I'll be beta-testing our new platform to analyze honeybee activity at the entrances to a hive from pictures or video clips. Here's how you can help.

This new project for 2025 is based on our work and others in beekeeping. I will only open the hive twice during the year, making it very much a hands-off approach. Will it work?

We spend a great deal of time watching the entrances to our hives. Here are 3 examples of different activity. What do you think is going on? We will check back in October to see who survived and thrived.

Here is why we believe drones will be very valuable in September. What do You think?

You can smell it, and it's supposed to be good for you. What could this goldenrod surplus mean for the bees?

I take on the mystery of wash boarding and explain why I want my hives to be honey-bound this time of year.

Checkup on the farm and our research findings.

It's been a long battle to balance the need to convert the farm to nature with the constant complaints from Agent Orange farmers. Here's the solution.

I think so and here's why.

In this little experiment did a walk-away split into a 5 frame nuc with a Russian Hive. I have a feeling this just might work.

Here's an update on how the hives are doing.

The 2 frame nuc idea for queen rearing was an initial hit. It is a hybrid walkaway technique I guess, where I placed one frame of eggs and brood in a 2 frame nuc with some food. Seven days later I was able to create 3 hives from these frames. Here's what happened.

If pollen is coming into your hive does that mean your hive is healthy? Maybe yes maybe no. Here is the discussion.

Looking at trying the Queen Castle for the first time and with following boards creating 2 frame nucs. First time trying this, but hoping it will reduce the workload and increase the success rate in doing July splits.

After a few delays I was able to get out and have a look at the hives. Here is the report for July 6.

Can the 2 frame Nuc help our bees create better queen cells? I discuss upcoming research on trying to see if there is a way to use the 2 frame nucs to improve the quality of the walkaway split.

I didn't think these two hives would survive with just a handful of bees coming out of winter. What a pleasant surprise and perhaps some traits we need to see in our survivor hives.

This was a surprise.

This topic has caused a great deal of conflict between beekeepers and the general public. How do I define it, how do you?

A look at preparations for the new strain of bees and a farm update.

In this second podcast on this topic, I discuss how queens lay different eggs based on environmental situations and what that means to our usual practice of splitting hives. I also briefly discuss an experiment inspired by these new findings.

It appears that queens change the type and size of their eggs based on environmental conditions. It also appears to be true that queens lay different eggs into queen cups than the regular eggs she would lay in a worker cell. I explore how this could be a game changer to beekeeping and understanding what may help bees survive.

It's a busy time as we organize the research projects for the year. Survivor hives are still hanging on but not sure they will make it.