Everything you need to know about raising bees on your homestead or farm.
Bees aren’t just a good source of honey, they also help with pollination, thus improving your garden’s yield. Many plants rely on bees in order to grow, such as squash, apple trees and almonds.
As you may already know, there’s a global problem with bees disappearing, with devastating global consequences. As such, raising bees may be one of the smartest things you can do for your homestead.
Nature furnishes us many examples of excellence in engineering among the members of the animal kingdom. Beavers change entire ecosystems with their dams. Ants excavate extensive underground colonies. But probably no other construction has captured the imagination like the humble beehive. The geometric symmetry, the purpose, the sheer coordination required to make one; it’s amazing! … Read more
If you’ve ever walked through your lawn or a meadow and been stung by a bee, after you recover from the shock and the pain, you probably wonder why bees sting at all… After all, you’re just walking along minding your own business; you weren’t bothering the bees or trying to steal their honey. Why … Read more
The question of whether or not we should use excluders in our beehives is as old as time. Many beekeepers say that using an excluder can cause honey production to come to a grinding halt, they are prone to calling them honey excluders because they believe the bees are not producing as much honey as … Read more
No bee hive can exist for long without its queen. When a queen bee dies, the hive goes into a kind of shock. Vital direction is lost. Replacement numbers dwindle. The bees soon know that they are in trouble when their queen is gone, and they start to take action… In this article, we will … Read more
Keeping crops safe during growing season is a top priority for most homesteaders, and while nature is wonderful, there are bugs and predators out there that can cause some serious damage to our gardens. On any homestead, bees are crucial to our long-term survival, so it’s important to watch out for their sake, as much … Read more
Keeping a caught swarm of honeybees from leaving can seem like a daunting endeavor, but following a few simple steps you should have the wild bees making honey and wax for you in short order. Spring is the typical time that you can most easily spot a swarm of honeybees, although it is possible to … Read more
Searching for the queen inside of a hive is often a daunting challenge – even for seasoned beekeepers. The bulky and shiny nature of a queen bee’s physique makes her discovery an easy one – but only if you get really lucky. Most of the time, the queen is fairly naturally camouflaged amongst her subjects. … Read more
Bees are great to have on your homestead. The term “worker bee” is an apt one, since bees can be an amazing asset to any homesteader, farmer, or even someone with a little bit of space on their urban rooftop. Honeybees are tremendous pollinators, and can ensure larger and healthier yields of the fruits and … Read more
Discovering that you have a queenless hive is quite an upsetting set of circumstances. Not only has all of the money you spend on honeybees just gone down the drain, your fruit grove, or garden just lost its pollinators. While you might think a queenless hive would be both quickly and easily to spot, that … Read more
Mason bees are potent little pollinators. It takes only two or three female mason bees to successfully pollinate a mature fruit tree. Yet, even with all of this pollinating ability, few people keep mason bees. Some folks mistake these beneficial bees for destructive carpenter or masonry boring bees, and run them out of the garden … Read more
Bees are the best pollinators on the planet. Without bees, roughly 70 percent of the crops grown around the world would not flourish. But, there are both good and bad bees when it comes to cohabitating with them and depending upon them for pollinating. In fact, there are even some bee varieties that pollinate well … Read more
Beekeeping is a lot of work with wonderful rewards for your labor. There are two types of people who purchase bees: beekeepers and bee “havers.” If you don’t care for the honey bees and beehive properly, you probably won’t have bees for very long. This begs the question: how often should you inspect a beehive? … Read more
Finding a wild beehive in a backyard tree or hundreds of bees living inside of a wall of your home can be quite an unwelcome discovery. Beekeepers, both of the amateur backyard variety as well as professionals, often accept requests to remove bees from a home or yard – making bee removal necessary. So why … Read more
Bees are one of the most vital creatures on our planet. Without bees one of every two to three morsels of food that we put into our mouths would simply not exist. Because of both the crucial role these tiny pollinators play in the food cycle and their dwindling numbers around the world, teaching children … Read more
Whether or not to feed honeybees is almost always a hotly debated topic among keepers. Some beekeepers opt to feed their colonies year round, others are staunchly against such a practice and only feed as necessary during cold weather months. Regardless of what breed of honeybees you choose to keep, it is really the climate … Read more
Honeybees can be a great addition to any homestead, no matter how small. The bees will not only pollinate the crops you are growing to feed your family or sell, but also provide honey, wax, and propolis to use in natural remedies. There has never been a more important time to start a beekeeping operation. … Read more