Category Archives: Beekeeping

Clipped and Marked? Part 1

Posted on February 19, 2016 by Ron Miksha

If you live north of the equator, you’ve noticed the days getting longer. Your bees have noticed, too. Maybe you’ve already had your first late-winter inspection.  Hopefully, you are not peering into hollow tombs, but instead you’re seeing bustling little … Continue reading →

Posted in Beekeeping, Queens | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Bumper Crop

Posted on February 12, 2016 by Ron Miksha

The numbers are in and the prize goes to Alberta. Alberta, a province in western Canada, has once again won the prestigious honey production award. For those of us who learnt beekeeping where 50-pound crops are the norm (in my case, … Continue reading →

Posted in Beekeeping, Honey | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

The Honey Threshers

Posted on January 14, 2016 by Ron Miksha

A century ago, threshing crews worked their away across the American and Canadian prairies, harvesting farmers’ grains. When I was rather young (not quite a century ago) one of my Saskatchewan buddies signed up for a threshing crew job. Maurice … Continue reading →

Posted in Bee Yards, Beekeeping, Commercial Beekeeping, Honey, Strange, Odd Stuff | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

Winter Wonderland

Posted on January 7, 2016 by Ron Miksha

Every month I try to meet friends in a village called Bragg Creek. It’s just a half hour drive from my home in Calgary. It gets me out of town and up close to the mountains. When I get there, … Continue reading →

Posted in Beekeeping, Friends | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Beekeeping Promo Flashback

Posted on December 11, 2015 by Ron Miksha

This video goes back about 15 years, but a friend asked me about the 6 minutes of local fame I experienced on the Dave Kelly morning show, so I looked up the film. The quality of the tape (and my … Continue reading →

Posted in Beekeeping, Comb Honey, Culture, or lack thereof, Honey, Movies, Outreach | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Bees Do the Darndest Things

Posted on November 8, 2015 by Ron Miksha

Janne, a bee-club friend, called one afternoon and described something weird that was going on in one of her hives. She told me that her queen and all the brood had somehow ended up in the tiny space below the … Continue reading →

Posted in Beekeeping, Friends, Hives and Combs | 1 Comment

The Kentucky Bee Man

Posted on September 28, 2015 by Ron Miksha

When you are the 8-year-old child of beekeepers and you’re helping stick foundation into frames, your pay is the soft translucent paper that keeps the wax sheets from sticking together. It was the closest thing to tracing paper that I’d … Continue reading →

Posted in Beekeeping, Culture, or lack thereof, History, People | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Foulbrood – Still Smelling Foul

Posted on September 2, 2015 by Ron Miksha

With so much attention on varroa destructors and nicotine-flavoured pesticides, we sometimes forget some of the other scourges of modern beekeeping.  Not long ago,  American Foulbrood (AFB) was the worst thing that could happen to your bees. If you were … Continue reading →

Posted in Beekeeping, Commercial Beekeeping, Diseases and Pests, Genetics | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Smoky Bees

Posted on August 26, 2015 by Ron Miksha

My home town – Calgary – is under a smoke advisory. The sky is hazy with smelly gray smoke from the trees, grass, and homes that are on fire down in Washington state. Those fires are about 700 kilometres (500 … Continue reading →

Posted in Beekeeping, Honey | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

A Bee Won’t Hurt You If . . .

Posted on July 16, 2015 by Ron Miksha

The city of Edmonton, Alberta, is telling its citizens that bees are good. People sometimes forget. Not long ago, Obama was trying to calm screaming kids on the White House lawn when one child spotted a bee and dozens panicked. … Continue reading →

Posted in Beekeeping, Ecology, Outreach, Stings | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment