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Author: thehoneycompany
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…
How to Make Chili Powder from the Homestead Garden
This warm spice mix will add a flavorful punch to your kitchen.
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…
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…
Recycled Building Materials
Question: Due to wholesalers having large minimum orders, I’m struggling to find a cheap source of timber. I’m considering driving to all the local salvage yards, to see what scrap wood I can find to make supers out of. I however struggle to identify which woods are suitable to build hives out of. Are there…
Plum Bloom on Beeswax
We received a great question and beautiful photos from Rachelle (below) and Valerie (above). The comb in Rachelle’s hive has dark wax with a thin layer of white on top. She was wondering what the white layer is and if it is cause for concern. Answer: This white coating is called “Plum Bloom.” The bloom is…
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…
Up-Cycled Bee Box End Tables
We are super excited about these little beauties! These up-cycled, one-of-a-kind bee boxes make beautiful furniture! They are fitted to be fully functional bee boxes too, holding deep or medium frames. Here’s a little insight into the process of making and photographing them. Legs We found many of the legs at the Habitat for Humanity’s…
Featured Queen Bee: Queen Windy
The queen featured is a daughter of Queen Windy, a Cordovan Italian. On the way back from California package pickup, Queen Windy’s cage was on the cold, windy side of the truck coming through Wyoming. The workers clustered on the other side of the package cage, behind the can of syrup, leaving her exposed. We…
Featured Queen Bee: Junie Bee
Junie Bee is a 3-year old New World Carniolan. We purchased her from Strachan Apiaries, which is part of Sue Coby’s project to collect genetics from all over the world. Junie Bee is survivor stock from 2012, a major drought year. Carniolans are known for reducing their numbers (cluster size) when there is a shortage of…
Sourdough Bread
A few months ago, Martha Levie from Abigail’s Oven demonstrated how to make sourdough bread at a workshop here at our home. I fell in love with this bread and have been making it ever since. It is kind of a long process, but not too intrusive. If you’re up for it, read on! Or you…
Bean Museum Kids
Today we had the opportunity to host the BYU Bean Museum kids field trip. Including our family, there were 15 kids and 5 adults. Here are a few things we did together! First, we suited up. We have a classroom set of adult-sized bee suits. They were a bit big on the kids, but protective.…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Sales Tax and Bees
Yesterday we talked to the Utah Tax Commission and asked about sales tax for honeybees and equipment. It turns out that we need to be charging in-state sales tax for our products, especially now that we are selling beekeeping equipment. However, they told us about an exemption for those purchasing beekeeping equipment for production agriculture. Like,…
Wing Veination of Bees, Wasps, and Fly
Lately, we’ve been looking at wing veination, or the shape of the veins on the wings, of bees, wasps, and flies. It’s been neat to see the differences and we thought we’d share. Some scientists (not us) can tell the race of a honeybee by its wing veination. This tricky fly looks like a bee…
Honeybee Wax Scales
To make wax, honeybee workers consume nectar or honey and digest the sugars. The sugars recombine to make the complex carbohydrate known as “Beeswax.” Scientists have not fully analyzed the components of beeswax, as it is intensely complex. Bees excrete wax between scale layers on their abdomen. Colored photo of wax being excreted from abdomen…
Honeybee Photography Contest via Facebook
Here are the beautiful entries for our honeybee photography contest. WOW! There are so many beautiful entries! The photo credit is below each photo. By Jennifer McNamara By Hannah Stoehr By Cris Voss By Jennifer Andrews Begay By Derek Haynie By RaKell Montgomery Sutch By Margot J. Hakanson By Julie Peterson Riley By Angela Kennedy…