I want to apologize to you who have been following my experiences. I have been detained, derailed, and just plain procrastinating. Since my last posting, I have been to two workshops and have been bottling honey for sale. One of my outlets called me and said he had only two pints left and wanted to [...]

Yesterday, I collected an open air hive from the Pensacola Navy Hospital parking lot. It was in a Crape Myrtle tree about 12′ in the air. I backed the pickup under the colony  and placed a 7′ ladder in the bed. The contact person helped me spread some of the lower limbs and tie them [...]

My state bee inspector called to see if we could look at my bees last week. I wasn’t prepared for him, but this is the best way to go. We inspected my active yards and found no diseases and didn’t visually see any Varroa mites. That isn’t to say I don’t have any, just that [...]

I had a call from a new beekeeper who said he had a swarm of bees in a bird house in his back yard. Being August, I thought that it would be a little swarm not worth fooling with. I told him that I would be over the next day to check them. He called [...]

Please refer to the previous post titled “Hmmmmm!!”. I received the queens on Friday and sold one on Saturday. That left me 5. Today, I opened both of the remaining nucs with bees, one is a 5 framer and the other is a full deep with a honey super on top. The third one had [...]

Since my wife was in the hospital for 5 days with E. Coli in her blood, I was at a standstill. I was able to attend a 4H camp and talk to about 200 students and adults one evening. But since then, my wife just got out of the hospital Thursday. I could not let [...]

I have been keeping an observation hive for the circle of bee speakers (three of us) that go to schools , 4H assemblies, and Garden clubs for Show and Tell about bees. It was used today, without me as I had another commitment, and when it was brought back, we, my friend Doug and I, [...]

I had a short conversation on the phone with a new beekeeper. He had bought a nuc from me and was calling to ask questions about it. He also mentioned that a friend was buying a nuc from a bee supplier in Marianna, FL. My young beekeeper said that he had asked his friend to [...]

I have had some situations to appear in my way to keep me out of the apiary. As my wife has been home from the hospital about two months now and she is getting self sufficient, I am able to go to the grocery store, run errands, and help some beekeepers that I am mentoring.  [...]

Now that you have your bees busy gathering nectar and pollen and you have your boxes cleaned and painted, are you thinking about the extraction process? You’re not?!! Well, let me share some thoughts with you. Is your extractor clean? You did clean it when you finished last year, didn’t you? Whew! For a moment [...]