Hobby Beekeeping

We launch tomorrow, Monday January 20 at 8:00 a.m. EST. It is your last chance to sign up to be on the wait list and have access tomorrow. Join the close to 100 beekeepers that will be giving our application a ride tomorrow.

How I monitor my beehive survival without leaving the house.

Winter flights can teach us a lot. Here's a strategy for learning about your hive health without a winter opening.

While bees teach us many things about their hives and nature, they also provide many life lessons. Here's is what I'm reflecting on that the bees have taught me.

A look at everything we try to do to help our bees. But are we spoiling them? Are we contributing to their failure?

I'm hearing up to 65% of hives have been lost in North America by October of this year. What are some thoughts and why am I so optimistic for 2025.

My dad fed bees sugar syrup, and I did the same for my first few years of beekeeping. Now, with the new science on how that can harm bees and humans, I'm not sure. Perhaps it's time to stop this practice.

Drones being purged, bees with pollen and much more. I don't really understand this.

It's cold outside and not that warm in the hive so why are these bees fanning? This new strategy to fight mites might be the answer.

We are weeks away from our launch and are opening a wait list for those wishing to use it. At launch it will count bees in pictures or a video you download of up to 15 seconds in length for bees, bees with pollen and drones. It takes a lot of server power to do this, so we need to understand the demand, and it will be on a first-come, first-serve basis. Go to our website, wildflowerbeefarm.com, an...

Got on the tractor a bit today and also continuing to work on the AI platform. Some thoughts as we hunker down for winter.

I discuss why we count bees, bees with pollen, drones, and wasps at the hive's entrance. I also briefly discuss the challenges of using AI to evaluate varroa mites.

Going into the fourth year with this genetics treatment free, here are some of the characteristics starting to make sense.

We are a week or so away from launching and here is the update.

A surprise find turned out to be another lesson in the brutal ways of nature. What happened and how this may be helpful to our other hives.

I have no idea. Perhaps you have an explanation. We expect deep freezes in a few weeks at night so not sure if there is a reason to need more foragers. Here are some ideas.

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.