A young beekeeper called me today and told me he had been out of the country for a while and when he got back, he found all his bees dead. Head in and tails out. They had starved. Why? was his question. The answer is simple: bees need protein and carbohydrates. Pollen is the protein [...]

Instead of telling you what I have done or what I am planning on doing, I have decided to give you some things of what not to expect!
If you want to have bees for honey or pollination or just to watch, don’t expect them to do all the work by themselves. For one thing, the [...]

Sometimes a person can sit and plan out what needs to be done, and then do it. It works for some. Sometimes a person can sit and plan and plan and plan and that is all he does and nothing gets done. I think planning is a good thing, but if you don’t put feet [...]

I was going to really work my 6 hives and one swarm this Spring and really start to expand my bee business and maybe get my bees to make me a little honey. “BEST LAID PLANS OF MEN AND MICE………”.
Other than completing my bee talk obligations to the different school’s kindergarten and first & second [...]

You know, sometimes there are lapses of the memory. I have one now. I am having a hard time remembering what has gone on in my life that needs to be repeated. I know that I have gone places, done things, and actually know what happened, but for the life of me, I am having [...]

The North Escambia Bee Association Chautauqua was held on February 20, 2010 and was a success!! We had, at my count, 80 people. Over half were new beekeepers attending for the first time. I think there would have been more if the road signs had have been put out. I had places for 12 signs, [...]

This is my way to clip & mark queens. Before finding my queen, I get my marker ready. This year it is Blue. I have a marking pin that I got from the bee supplier, Dadant & Sons, Rossman, Brushy Mountain, Walter T. Kelley, etc. Or you can buy them from Office Depot, Office Max, [...]

Do you know the reason for marking your queen  and/or clipping one of her wings? Do you think that mutilating the queen is a sign of Satanism?
You are not mutilating the queen to practice for later using larger animals. You are only branding them, not for identification, but to know when one has been superseded. [...]

I am getting ready to start the splitting process that I talked about two posts ago. My thoughts are to put two 5 frame nuc boxes side by side on top of the brood boxes so the bees can build comb. I am going to take one of them off when the comb is nearly [...]

Monday, my friend Doug, and I met at the Santa Rosa Extension office in Milton to talk about bees with an adult continuing education ladies group. We had a power point presentation and told of the bees coming to America in the 1600’s. Told about the pollination, honey, and the products that can be made [...]