Often as beekeepers, we ask the question: When to add supers to beehives? Adding supers to beehives is not as straightforward as it may seem. A beehive super is best added when conditions are right. When adding a honey super to a new hive we have to be careful not to do it too soon. … Read more
How much do beehives cost? This is like asking how much cars cost! In this article we look at the cost of beekeeping, the beehive price options – from a Rolls Royce beehive all the way down to the scrapyard spares model you can make yourself. The price of your hives influences the overall cost … Read more
In this article, we explore using beehive frames without foundation. Foundationless beekeeping refers to the method of using foundationless frames to keep bees. Bees build their own combs, to their own specifications in the frames. There are pros and cons to both foundation and foundationless beekeeping. We will explore these. What Is Beeswax Foundation Beeswax … Read more
In this article, we look at what happens to a hive when it is queenless and how long can a hive be queenless. You will see that a hive can be queenless for a short period of time before changes occur in the hive. If these changes reach a specific threshold, your hive becomes hopelessly … Read more
In this article, we look at how to protect beehives from bears. This starts with the simplest of steps – methods to keep bears away from the bees. Should these methods fail, we look at the second line of defense, protecting your bees from the bears. Who Contributes To This Problem? A beehive represents a … Read more
In this article, we look at how bees initiate queen cell development and how the stages of queen cell development progress. The queen cell timeline starts with a freshly fertilized egg and ends with the emergence of a young virgin queen. This is a process that is crucial to the renewal and development of the … Read more
In this article, we look at how to raise honey bees for profit and how many bee hives to make a living. Beekeeping for profit is a complex subject because it involves an actual definition of what profit is. We will go into that. With new technological advances, beekeeping is becoming more mechanized and we … Read more
I am a beekeeper and in my twenty-five years of beekeeping, I have removed wild honeybee hives from some amazing places and learnt what a wild honeybee hive looks like and how it fits together. In this article, we will look at what a honey bee hive looks like, where do honey bees nest. And … Read more
In this article, we will look at how to make bumblebees go away without killing them. If we cannot make them go away, then we will look at how to remove them, and finally, once we have got rid of them, we need to look at how to stop them from coming back. What is … Read more
In this article, we look at how to ventilate a beehive. Beehive hive ventilation is important to reduce humidity in the hive. Beehive ventilation is particularly important in summer when the bees can develop heat and humidity stress. Why It Is Important To Ventilate A Beehive Bees, just like us, breathe oxygen. It is important … Read more
