Author Archives: Ron Miksha
Beginners’ Bee Course
Calgary’s bee club does an amazing amount of work for our area’s beekeepers. It’s great fun being involved. The volunteer opportunities are enormous – mentoring, hosting visitors (Saturday at the Hive), catching city swarms, and bunches more. My contributions over … Continue reading
A Metaphysical Life
Today is the anniversary of the birth of one of my beekeeper-heroes, Professor Richard Taylor. He was an early champion of the round comb honey system, a commercial beekeeper with just 300 hives, and he was a philosopher who wrote … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Comb Honey, Commercial Beekeeping, Culture, or lack thereof, History, People
Tagged Comb Honey, famous beekeepers, Richard Taylor
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Teaching Bees and Beekeeping
I like to teach. If I could rewind and whitewash my life’s failings, I’d be standing in front of a chalkboard on some small campus right now. That won’t happen. I’m not a professional teacher, but I seldom pass up … Continue reading
Posted in Outreach
Tagged Benny the Bee, Calgary Bee Club, school outreach, teaching beekeeping
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The Clumsy Beekeeper
When I was much younger, my brother and I visited a world-renowned bee breeder who produced thousands of queens every spring. I don’t remember much about that trip to the north-Florida panhandle where every town had some elegant white clapboard … Continue reading
A Two-minute Pollinator Break
Jonathan sent a link to this little video. It was filmed in northeastern France (in Marne) this summer. He says it took Mukibrain about a month to film, edit, and compose the accompanying music. In this lovely little piece called … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, or lack thereof, Ecology, Pollination
Tagged France, Mukibrain, pollinators, video
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Drawing the Bee – Here’s an Idea for You!
Today, I’m repeating a post I made a few months ago. It’s about the importance of sketching and drawing stuff develops our observation skills. The reason I’m repeat this piece now is because tomorrow (October 26, 2016), the University of … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, or lack thereof, Science
Tagged efficiency, honey bees, Jennifer Landin, MOOC, scientific drawing, The Little Prince
2 Comments
Why Vegans are Wrong
I have a vegan acquaintance. He is a mild, considerate, and generally pleasant young man. He thinks that beekeeping is cruel and inhumane. He tells me that honey-eating encourages theft and the abuse, imprisonment and exploitation of insects. “Tell me … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, or lack thereof, Ecology, History, Honey, Strange, Odd Stuff
Tagged Donald Watson, health, honey and environment, sugar, vegans
104 Comments
Steve Vai, Beekeeper
Steve Vai, guitar wizard extraordinaire, performs in Calgary tomorrow night at the Jack Singer Hall. I won’t be there. I respect his talent immensely and as an ex-guitar guy myself (albeit, three or four orders of magnitude below Mr Vai), … Continue reading
Podcasted
Today, Gary Fawcett, of Kiwimana Podcast spent a grueling hour listening to me drone on and on about bees and beekeeping and beekeeping and bees. It was undoubtedly grueling for him, but I had fun. For those of you who … Continue reading
Bad Beekeeping Blog 