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Author: thehoneycompany
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How to make beeswax lip balm
I love beeswax lip balm! For me, the following recipe is the perfect texture, and I love how it lingers and moisturizes long after applying. It’s soft, but not too soft. It’s not too oily, either. It’s just right. I use it on my cracked, winter hands and Stan used it today to lubricate a…
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How to Make Chili Powder from the Homestead Garden
This warm spice mix will add a flavorful punch to your kitchen.
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How to Make Onion Soup Mix from the Homestead Garden
One of my favorite ways to use herbs from our homestead garden is by making spice mixes. I love to use onion soup mix to make a veggie dip that my kids love. And it’s super easy. Just mix ¼ cup of the spice blend with 1 cup of sour cream. It is a hit…
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Attract Honeybees with this Expert Garden Plan
We are very excited to share this bee-friendly garden design that Margot from Quiet Poppy Designs created for us! You can find her on Instagram @quietpoppydesigns. She is a talented landscape designer out of Provo, Utah and recently stayed in our guest cabin with her boys. We had a fabulous weekend, sharing bees, horses, farm…
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Tylan Measurements for Honeybees
We have had many questions over the years about medicating bees, most recently today. In the spirit of helpfulness, we’d like to post about using Tylan for American Foulbrood (according to the label) for those who decide to use it. Remember that the label is the law and using Tylan outside of the labeled uses is…
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Pysanky
I have been meaning to write a blog post about Pysanky for years! This post is quite out of season, but I hope to use it for future years and future events. Before we got married, Stan hosted an annual Pysanky art workshop. We continued this tradition together with friends and with our own children. This…
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What You Need To Know About Nuc Pickups
We want to set you up for success. Before taking the nuc home, we want you to see inside the hive and make sure the colony is thriving, the queen is laying eggs, and see the temperament your bees. It can also give new beekeepers confidence to inspect their colony for the first time with…
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Nuc Transfer Instructions
This post is geared to those who will be picking up nucs and want to read up ahead of time. Click Here for a post about what to bring to the pickup. Nuc Transfer Instructions Start your smoker. Find and mark the nuc you would like. Move the nuc box over a few feet and…
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All About Bees for Kids
In January, we hosted a unit study about honeybees at our home. It was really fun! There were about 50 people here, swarming around the stations. I’ve been working on a honeybee curriculum called “All About Bees for Kids” and thought this blog is a good venue to share it! At the bottom of the…
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Beelining
Stan has been tinkering with his Beelining box again today. It’s pretty cool. For those who don’t know, Beelining is a method to find feral honeybee colonies. You catch some bees in a specialized “beelining box,” then fill their tummy (honey sac) with sugar water. This makes them want to fly back to their colony…
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Pysanka 2014
We had a homeschool group come over to do Pysanka eggs with beeswax candles. We were learning about Russia and the Ukraine in a geography club. We use a hot stylus to apply beeswax designs to a hollowed egg. The stylus has a little cup that holds a reservoir of melted wax and a hole…
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Moving Bees at the turn of the Century
We’ve been studying C.C. Miller’s book Fifty Years Among the Bees and came across some photos of how people moved bees by hand or with horses. If there ever is some sort of apocalypse and we need to live without electricity and gasoline, beekeeping is still doable! The prepper in me thinks this awesome! I wonder…
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Beehives in Slovenia
A while back, I visited Slovenia. I was in the Carniolan region, actually, and didn’t know about the connection to honey bees. (Ignorant American that I am, I cannot read Russian or Slovene.) When I came home and realized a major breed of honey bees originated in this region, I dug out the old photos…
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The case for a ‘local first’ mentality
The case for a ‘local first’ mentality. The article below was copied and pasted from KSL.com. Here is the URL link. http://www.ksl.com/?sid=21721728. Who needs more reasons to buy local? I guess we all do. This article talks about purchasing at a local store 1 out of 10 shopping trips. If you are considering buying bees,…
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Should I get a 2- or 3-pound package?
First of all, if you are a brand new beekeeper, please consider purchasing a nuc. See Lesson 1: Nucs and Packages. You will have more success with a nuc. Promise. Then next year, when you are addicted to bees, get some packages. If you have decided on packages (find our more about packages here), you…
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What’s happening to our honey bees?
This article is from my days working for USU Extension. Thought it was appropriate to share here. What’s happening to our honey bees? By Alicia Moulton Honey bees are on the decline throughout the world. Here’s why. Honey bee Colony Collapse Disorder is a complex matter with many contributing factors that have compounded over…
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Bees vs Wasps
We often get calls for swarm removal. Before heading out, we like to make sure the colony we are dealing with is honey bees and not wasps. Here are some of the major similarities and differences between bees and wasps. In this photo, you can see bees and wasps drinking from the same sugar syrup,…
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Why we use deep boxes exclusively
We only use and sell deep boxes. This is a management preference. All beekeepers do things a bit differently and this is our favorite way. We think our way is more efficient because we don’t have to store several sizes of boxes and frames. (And we’ve had 25 years plus 4 generations of experimentation. Trust…
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Bees on the front entrance of the hive
Often in hot summer weather, bees gather around the entrance porch of their hive to cool off. This is normal. It would also be normal to see 2-3 times as many bees as this. When this photo was taken, it was more than 90 degrees Fahrenheit in early evening. Bees pictured are calm and walking…