Your Bees are Making Gifts!
As we get closer to the holiday season you might be surprised that your little bees are doing hard work to make your gift giving easier. Rather than running to the store to buy the newest plastic gizmo why not use some of the products from your bees to...
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Brushing the Bees
While the term bee brush may make you think of combing a cat or dog we promise we’re not suggesting that you clean off your bees with a tiny brush. Frankly they’re likely covered in pollen and would prefer to keep it that way and besides, you have better...
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Beekeeping: Electric Uncapping Knife!
There are a number of choices for uncapping honey for extraction. Some will simply use a cappings scratcher. Others choose to use a serrated bread knife and simply “saw” off the cappings. For most who need to process a number of frames the electric uncapping knife is the option...
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Beekeeping: Cappings Scratcher
Most of us at some point will need to use a cappings scratcher. Typically there are two uses for the scratcher: After using a knife to cut off the cappings a scratcher can be used for places the knife missed. This keeps you from having to “dig in” with the knife...
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Bottling Honey On The Cheap
As with any hobby there is an endless list of things you can purchase to make your life easier and your wallet lighter! But if you’re not rolling in the cash you might want to save a bit of money when beekeeping rather than buying every single thing. Here’s...
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Pictures From The Hive Inspection
Well yet another hive inspection and yet more pictures! The bees are bringing in VERY dark knotweed honey which is exciting. They’ve also managed to make a bit of a mess of their combs, pulling them out way too far and sometimes attaching them to other combs. Ah well,...
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It’s Time To Plan For Honey Harvest
Depending on where you live it may well be time to begin planning for your first honey harvest. Of course if you’re in the south and your bees did particularly well this year you might have already harvested even if you started the hive this year. For some in...
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Beginning Beekeeping: Excluding the Queen!
Queen excluders! Ever wondered what these things were and why you’d use one? What are they? Basically these little slotted boards keep the queen (and drones) from getting into any supers above the excluder. Basically it means the queen isn’t able to lay brood in the honey supers because...
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Will I Get Honey This Year?
If you’re a beginning beekeeper who just got a package of bees this year you may be wondering if you’ll get any honey in your first year. The answer isn’t easy to say. Here’s some factors to consider when it comes to a first year honey harvest: What kind...
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Beekeeping Beginner: What Kind of Honey Will I Get?
If you’re a beekeeping beginner one of the questions you might be asking is what kind of honey will I get? Unlike the honey purchased at your local grocery store the honey from your hive will likely not have that standard “honey” flavor. In fact it may taste unlike...
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