Bearproofing your beehives with a bear proof electric fence

We are going to start a second beeyard at another farm. We wanted to have a second beeyard as a hedge against the chance that a bear will destroy our existing hives.

Our hives in their current location are surrounded by a traditional electric fence, three strands, and is part of a larger electric fence to keep beef cattle in their pasture. Bill, who owns the farm where our hives are, thinks the local bears are already aware of his electric fence, and have not tried to get to our beehives.

Honeybees seal the inner cover with propopolis

We pulled the inner cover on our biggest hive, and it was not easy this time. The honeybees had sealed it pretty tight with propopolis, a waxy resin that bees collect from trees.

Honeybees are going great today. Photo

Essential Oil Recipe for Honeybees

There are several commercial essential oil concentrates for sale for honeybees. These essential oil mixtures have several benefits. They improve the disease resistance of the honeybees, they calm the bees when you are working them, and they can help introduce a new queen to a beehive.

A Hive Prepares to Swarm, photos show how

I was watching our hives last week, and thought Hive #1 was looking less busy at the entrance. I was thinking it had swarmed. So we opened up the hive, and found our marked queen, which means the hive had not swarmed.

Queen has been released in our newest beehive

The worker bees have released the queen bee from her queen cage which you can see in the lower right of the photo

Beehive lost to nosema?

I went over to a friend’s house yesterday to find he had lost a hive recently. There were few dead bees in the hive, but here was a ton of what I think is nosema in the hive, evidenced by the amount of bee droppings in the hive. Nosema is an intestinal ailment in honeybees, [...]

How to move a Beehive : GardenFork.TV Beginning Beekeeping

We decided to move one of our beehives, and learned how to move a beehive, and now we’ll show you how we moved the beehive.  ( that’s a lot of Beehives ) BUT, moving a beehive is not hard,  watch this Beginning Beekeping Series video and learn how.
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What honeybee starvation looks like in a beehive

A neighbor lost a hive, and as we took it apart, I saw for the first time what honeybee starvation looks like.
Bee Starvation can happen for a different reasons, here are a few:
• There just isn’t enough food to get them thru the winter. This can happen if the beekeeper has taken too much honey [...]

Late Winter Check and Feeding of the Honey Bees

We’ve had a cold winter here, and we’ve had few opportunities to open up our hives to check on the bees.
It depends on which expert you are asking, but you should only open up a hive if its above about 45F. The rule I’ve read is if you have to wear a heavy jacket, you [...]