There are two ways to acquire mason bees for your bee house. You can supply an alluring environment and draw native species to your yard. Or you can purchase mason bees from a supplier. Attracting mason bees to your yard As I’ve mentioned in previous posts you can attract mason bees by providing the following: […]

There are generally two ways in which you can raise mason bees. You can go at it with a hands-off approach and let nature take its course or you can take some quick and easy additional steps to ensure a healthier mason bee population. Any help really that you’re willing to provide will be appreciated […]

Mason bees look for tiny holes in the wild to lay their brood. Bee-friendly places might be holes bored into trees by other insects or the stems of dried reeds and other plants. Ideally, the hole should be around 8mm (around the width of a pencil) and 3-4 inches deep. The female bee will collect […]

Honeybees tend to get all the attention when it comes to beneficial insects that help to pollinate our world. The sweet honey that they produce goes a long way in moving them up in the popularity contest. But did you know that there are over 4,000 bee species in North America? Many of these bee […]

Every beekeeper longs for the romanticized version of beekeeping. We like to imagine we have an understanding with our bees. A magical connection that keeps us from getting stung. Unfortunately, this isn’t the reality. Bees have good days and bad, just like us and they aren’t always in the mood for visitors! So, what do […]

Get your keeper a gift that lets them know you get their passion and support their hobby! We’ve put together this list to help you get off to help you earn your gift giving stripes! From practical to fashionable, from high-dollar to low-cost, we have something for everyone! Bee Equipment Get your honey off to a successful […]

I’ve raised chickens since 1993 and in those 24 years I’ve encountered many-a broody chicken. But never have I ever heard of a broody bee…until now. I’ve been fascinated with bumblebees lately. I’ve always found them adorable —like little yellow Teddy Bears buzzing around the garden. But recently I’ve been doing some research to learn […]

It’s the end of November in Michigan, we’ve already had several snow falls, the temperature today is 29 degrees outside, and I just killed a mosquito in our bathroom. It always amazes me how resilient insects are. In the winter, I often look across our field covered in white drifts of snow, sometimes several feet […]

There is conventional beekeeping in Langstroth hives. And then, there is beekeeping a wholly “other way.”

Bee stings can be deadly if a person is allergic to the venom. If you or a family member is allergic to bee stings and gets stung, remove the stinger and seek emergency medical attention right away. Do not rely on a natural bee sting treatment alone. Use an EpiPen (epinephrine auto-injector) if you have one. Any […]

Markus Imhoof outlines many of the problems facing beekeepers today in his book More Than Honey: The Survival of Bees and the Future of Our World, which Imhoof had originally produced as a documentary. His slant is strongly pro-bees and anti-pesticides and, in conjunction, anti-commercial agriculture. In particular, I found his interviews with a large […]

We have decided what to do with the top bar hive for winter. We last examined it in mid-October to check out how much food it had. There are 14 or 15 full-size combs drawn out. The four in front had each had brood, but were mostly empty when we examined them. There was honey […]

For Northern beekeepers, it is way past the time to prepare for winter, but in the southeast, we still have 90° F days and the goldenrod is finally in full bloom! The weather this year has been a complete downer with it raining almost every day from 03 June until 09 September and then Hurricane […]

We recently checked back on our hive after installing the new beetle jails to replace the beetle blasters. As I wrote about earlier, I haven’t been entirely satisfied with the beetle blasters and was looking for alternatives. In the comments to my post, many other beekeepers have shared their own strategies there for trapping small hive […]

Peponapis: Squash Bees (pep-on-AY-pus) FAMILY: Apidae SUBFAMILY: Apinae These bees get their common name from their very close association with squash flowers. Peponapis is a small genus of 13 species limited to the Americas. They are most abundant and diverse in the deserts of Mexico and the southwestern United States, but one species, Peponapis pruinosa, is transcontinental and has spread […]