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Category: Beekeeping
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Installing a Package in the Barn Hive
Here’s our latest video on installing packages–IN THE BARN HIVE! Enjoy! The method is the same in other equipment too.
Bee-Quick
While searching about beelining boxes, we came across this article. Did you ever wonder if there are any SPORTS related to beekeeping? Well, there is! Yes, competitive beelining is an actual sport. Or was in 2004, at least. Like on ESPN at 2:00 in the morning. Crazy! Now Stan wants to do it, of course!…
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…
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…
Queens from MPCAP Program
Our queen and package supplier is part of the Managed Pollinator CAP program, which tests for hygienic bee behavior. We are excited to be part of the bee decline solution by supporting these producers. They test breeder queens for the recessive genetic trait, hygienic bee behavior. Hygienic behavior is when workers bees sense a missing…
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,…
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…
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…
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…