Category Archives: Commercial Beekeeping
Bee Rustlers on the Rise
In the old days, cowboys occasionally stole cows. Horse thieves were sometimes hanged. Not always, though. Back in Val Marie, Saskatchewan, a cattle town that I lived in for ten years, there was a fellow named Joseph Ernest Nephtali Dufault … Continue reading
Posted in Commercial Beekeeping, Movies, People, Strange, Odd Stuff
Tagged bee theft, Drurer, Quebec, Val Marie, Will James
2 Comments
Honey Times in Oz
I’ve not yet travelled to Australia – Oz, as some here in Canada call it. We who have never seen Oz can only picture the place with the same sense of awe that the scarecrow had for the Emerald City. … Continue reading
Posted in Beekeeping, Commercial Beekeeping, History
Tagged Australia, eucalyptus, record honey crop, Rob Smith
10 Comments
Location, Location, Vocation
My last two blog posts (Alberta is Beekeeping and Canada’s Hive Beetles) were unseemly braggadocious pitches. I wrote about how great beekeeping is on Canada’s western prairies. Alberta, Canada, has not had CCD, but instead has increasing numbers of kept … Continue reading
Posted in Beekeeping, Commercial Beekeeping, Honey, Honey Plants
Tagged Alberta, Bad Beekeeping, bee locations
5 Comments
Almonds, Water, and Bees
February is almond pollination month in California. A couple of nights ago, the CBC aired a story about almonds, water, and bees. They try to cover everyone involved – the consumer who loves the heart-friendly food, the almond grower who … Continue reading
Posted in Bee Yards, Beekeeping, Commercial Beekeeping, Ecology, Honey Plants, Pollination
Tagged almond pollination, almonds, California, migratory beekeeping
2 Comments
Cuba’s Organic Honey
Long before the embargo and before the Castro brothers, Cuba was a beekeeper’s paradise North American gringos operating Cuban honey farms. Spain ruled Cuba for almost 400 years, but the United States took it as a trophy after the Spanish-American … Continue reading
Posted in Commercial Beekeeping, Ecology, History, Honey, Pesticides, Save the Bees
Tagged Cuba, organic honey, Pesticides
12 Comments
The Honey Threshers
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 mobile extracting, pulling honey, robbing bees
9 Comments
Every Day is Labour Day
In Canada and the USA, a lot of people get a day off from work today. Unless your job is in a store, hospital, police station, prison, theatre, restaurant, hotel, airport, the military, or nuclear power plant. Or if you … Continue reading
Posted in Commercial Beekeeping, Culture, or lack thereof, History, Honey, Strange, Odd Stuff
Tagged Labor Day, Labour Day, value of honey
1 Comment
Foulbrood – Still Smelling Foul
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 American Foulbrood, evolution, South Africa
5 Comments
Mount Everest’s Beekeeper
Today is the 60th Anniversary of The Conquest of Everest. It was 1953, Queen Elizabeth was just about to begin her first day on the job as queen of the world’s imperial empire. In 1953, a typical TV was a … Continue reading
Posted in Beekeeping, Commercial Beekeeping, History, People, Strange, Odd Stuff
Tagged Mount Everest, New Zealand, Sir Edmund Hillary, Tenzing Norgay
1 Comment
Turning it over
This year’s blog didn’t describe my own beekeeping very much. I wrote a little about other beekeepers. And I wrote a lot on thoughts and ideas I’ve had with bees in mind. But not much on the wholesome good fun … Continue reading
Posted in Beekeeping, Commercial Beekeeping
Tagged Alberta, Pennsylvania, Saskatchewan, Summit Gardens
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