Category Archives: Bee Yards
Good Neighbour Beekeeping
It’s worth repeating. Especially at this time of the year. Be a good neighbour beekeeper. I wrote the following post last March. If you missed it, here’s your chance to miss it again…. 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 … Continue reading
Posted in Bee Yards, Beekeeping, Books, Outreach
Tagged Andony Melathopoulos, bee safety, urban beekeeping
1 Comment
Nuns of honey
I bumped into this photo a few days ago when I was writing an article for Deutches Bienen Journal, Germany’s beekeeping magazine. I was trying to picture sisters at a convent in Quebec, tending their hives in the 1920s. This … Continue reading
Posted in Bee Yards, Beekeeping, Culture, or lack thereof, History, People
Tagged Hungary, monks, nuns, Quebec
Leave a comment
A Year of Backyard Beekeeping
Regular readers of this blog know that I once kept hundreds of hives in Florida and Saskatchewan. That was a long time ago. Now that I’m all grown up, I’ve got just two colonies in my Calgary backyard. Much more … Continue reading
Posted in Bee Yards, Beekeeping, Honey
Tagged Calgary, extracting, package bees, packing honey, queenless hives, Queens, skunks, urban beekeeping, wasps
9 Comments
Expecting the unexpected
For the past two days, I described how we might predict a future honey flow. I mentioned how difficult soothsaying can be yet I went on to say that experience and a tool like a scale hive can help us … Continue reading
Posted in Bee Yards, Beekeeping, Climate, Commercial Beekeeping
Tagged Bee Yards, extreme weather
14 Comments
The Perfect Place for Bees
An easy way to intimidate a new beekeeper is to read the list of requirements for a perfect apiary. Here’s my list. It’s not comprehensive. But even as a starter, it’s menacing: Your bees should be: In partial shade: avoid … Continue reading
Nuisance-free beekeeping
Tired of irritating your neighbours with your pesky bees? Help is on the way. A very bright professor at Oregon State, Andony Melathopoulos, has co-authored a guide which you should read: Residential Beekeeping: Best-practice guidelines for nuisance-free beekeeping in Oregon. … Continue reading
Posted in Bee Yards, Beekeeping, Books, Outreach
Tagged Andony Melathopoulos, bee safety, urban beekeeping
5 Comments
Keeping the Cougars out of your Bee Yard
Ever been chased by a mountain lion? How about a cougar, panther, or puma? Me neither, but I’ve probably passed within metres of all four. (I’m told that they’re all the same species – Puma concolor.) A new study from … Continue reading
Posted in Bee Yards, Beekeeping, Diseases and Pests, Strange, Odd Stuff
Tagged bears, grizzly bears, puma
4 Comments
Urban Beekeeping Mug
Yesterday, Father’s Day, my family surprised me with this homemade mug. They had conspired to co-create this bit of art for the past few days. I heard the hushed tones and I saw people and things quickly disappear when I … Continue reading
Ending the Senseless Roadside Carnage (of bugs)
Bugs impact windshields from time to time. You’ve scraped off the gooey result. A lovely dégustation if there’s ever been one. Placing a bee yard near a busy road makes you an accessory to the beeslaughter of millions. You are … Continue reading
Posted in Bee Yards, Ecology, Humour, Science, Strange, Odd Stuff
Tagged Ontario, roadkill, Vietnam
4 Comments
The Synthetic Apiary
Well, this is weird. The video at the end of this link is great, but the whole concept is weird. It’s an artificial, synthetic apiary. I’ll rank it with the Flow(TM)Hive for a reason that will become apparent in a … Continue reading
