I have compiled a few notes to help you to be a more successful beekeeper. I also needed this information for myself. Here goes—— 1. Plan: Long Range Goals. Think about what you want to accomplish with your bees. What are your goals? Do you want to keep bees for just the enjoyment of watching [...]

Do you realize that the Bee Spring is here? Just think, the bees are laying frantically to have the full force of bees for the Red Maple and other early bloomers. That is — the queen is laying frantically, if —- she has the pollen and nectar available. Now is the time to check the [...]

The one thing that you really don’t want in your extraction room is bees. They can sting unsuspecting fingers and other exposed parts of the body. The place to get rid of the bees is at the hive location. Now there are several ways to do this, however, keep in mind that there is no [...]

“When do I have to feed the bees and what do I use?” That is a question that is common among the new beekeepers. The answer is simple but the application is somewhat different. When to feed is when there is no honey or pollen left in the hive. Some of the beekeepers take all [...]

When is the time to check the apiaries to see if all is okay? Answer: When the weather turns nasty, when the wind is blowing hard, when your land owner calls saying something is wrong with you hives/bees. I got a call from one of my landowners saying that my hives were tipped over and [...]

I told you that I had received my queens in good shape. What I haven’t told you is that Murphy’s Law struck again! I was going to go to the bee yards the next day or two and remove the old queens and maybe pull honey at the same time. Didn’t happen. I got a [...]

I ordered 25 more queen bees today. They should be here by this weekend and I will try once more to requeen my colonies. I had to purchase 25 to get a price break. $2.00 a head will be worth the extra queens. I only need 14. I will try to sell the ones I [...]

I need to requeen all my hives not because I signed a piece of paper promising that I would implement Best Management Practices (BMP), but because I have never requeened in the Fall. I read that Fall queens will lay eggs longer because they are new queens and they haven’t learned to shut down as [...]

I haven’t tasted all the different honeys, but I have tasted several that are prevalent to this area/state (FL.) and some that were fermented. The latter is because the water content was too high and the honey soured. That is what you make meade out of, but that is another story for another time. The [...]

I attended this past Saturday, a workshop sponsored by the Tupelo Beekeepers Association. It was held at Laurence Cutt’s honey house in Chipley, FL. There were 150 registured participants and I would guess about half of them were new wannabee’s and about 1/4 th of the remaining were new beekeepers with one to three hives. [...]