The Buzz on Bees Episode 4: Interview with Jan Smit

July 18, 2013

While traveling in Holland last month I had the good fortune to visit fellow bee enthusiast, Jan Smit.  Jan, a co-author on the Netherland’s definitive guide to native bees, De Nederlandse Bijen, refers to himself as a hobbyist.  After spending some time talking with him about his work with bees and touring his collection, I […]

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Checking in With Hive #8

August 30, 2012

The latest hive I’ve checked is number 8. It is one of my three weak hives that didn’t have any worker brood during my mid-August inspections. I was checking to see if the frames of brood I’d taken from hive 10 had resulted in any queen cells – I’m not sure. There was a deformed-looking […]

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Hive Inspections – August 25

August 26, 2012

Today I inspected hives five and six. Five is strong and had about five frames of capped honey in their super, which I pulled for Sunday’s workshop at Farmstock. I didn’t see the queen but there was plenty of capped brood and a couple frames of eggs in the bottom box. I decided not to […]

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Checking In with Hives 1 – 4

August 23, 2012

In today’s hive inspection I checked colonies 1 through 4.  My back is really aching today after a long bike ride yesterday, so I wasn’t able to get through all ten in the home apiary.  I haven’t been in these four since early this month, so it was nice to catch up. Hive 1 had […]

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The Buzz on Bees Episode 3: Interview with Les Crowder

July 30, 2012

Les Crowder is a top-bar beekeeper, co-owner of For the Love of Bees, and co-author of Top Bar Beekeeping:  Organic Practices for Honeybee Health (due to be released at the end of August, 2012).  In this interview you’ll get an inside look at the life experiences that led Les to switch from Langstroth to top […]

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The Broken Bumble Bee

July 6, 2012

I picked up the Bombus vosnesenski in the parking lot of the postie. Perhaps she’d been hit by a car, caught by air-pressure in the grill until the vehicle came to a stop. She was walking in an erratic, drunken circle. There’s often an initial distrust when I first pick up a bee bare-handed, a […]

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