Re Queening both our hives this spring

Share this post on your Facebook pageAfter reading a glowing article in Bee Culture about Jennifer Berry and her excellent queen rearing program, we have decided to replace the queens in both our hives with queens from Jennifer Berry.
Why requeen? What is most important to me is the bees display what is called hygenic behavior. [...]

Wrapping your beehive with insulation – Beginning Beekeeping

Share this post on your Facebook pageWhere we live in Northwestern Connecticut, it gets quite cold. Not as cold as I remember as a kid in Wisconsin, but its cold. Temperatures for a week in January were around 6 degrees F.
Now that we have our new weather station, provided by AllisonHouse, we will be [...]

Getting started with Bees

Share this post on your Facebook pageBeekeeping isn’t a cheap hobby to get into, but neither is riding a Harley or ham radio or even gardening.  Using the Dadant catalog I’ve scoped out what a new person is going to need to just get started. This doesn’t include the bees, medicine, sugar feeders, [...]

The Screened Bottom Board, leave open or closed in winter?

Share this post on your Facebook pageBoth our hives have a plastic screened bottom board. I think screened bottom boards are a must for controlling varroa mites.

Varroa mites are a big problem for bees, and with a screened bottom board, mites that fall off bees fall thru the screen and out of the hive. You [...]