Category Archives: Hives and Combs

Podcast: A Beekeeper’s Journey – Cameroon to Calgary

Posted on September 18, 2024 by Ron Miksha

Season 1 Episode 7: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – Cameroon to Canada – Patrick’s Bee Journey In this episode of About Bees, we are joined by Patrick Tefouet Tonlio, who was an agriculture community organizer and teacher in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Beekeeping, Commercial Beekeeping, Ecology, Friends, History, Hives and Combs, Honey Plants, Podcasts | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Stack ’em High

Posted on February 13, 2024 by Ron Miksha

Long ago (about 1975), there was an amazing beekeeper, now a legend, in northeast Saskatchewan. He consistently had 300-pound/hive crops. This was Dr. Don Peer (PhD, 1955, U Wisconsin). Peer once told us “If I were king of the world, … Continue reading →

Posted in Beekeeping, Commercial Beekeeping, Culture, or lack thereof, Hives and Combs, Honey | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

A Langstroth Christmas Story

Posted on December 25, 2023 by Ron Miksha

I’ve been posting this piece nearly every Christmas for a while. If you’ve read it before, read it again. Or not. Christmas Day is L.L. Langstroth’s birthday. He’d be 214 years old, if he hadn’t been struck down in his … Continue reading →

Posted in Beekeeping, Books, Culture, or lack thereof, History, Hives and Combs, People, Tools and Gadgets | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Langstroth’s Christmas Present

Posted on December 25, 2021 by Ron Miksha

I’ve been posting this piece every Christmas for a while. If you’ve read it before, read it again. Or not. Christmas Day is L.L. Langstroth’s birthday. He’d be 211 years old, if he hadn’t been struck down in his 85th … Continue reading →

Posted in Beekeeping, Books, History, Hives and Combs, People, Tools and Gadgets | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Better Hives: Dzierzon’s Boxes

Posted on January 16, 2021 by Ron Miksha

Here in North America, we believe that modern beekeeping began with Langstroth, who discovered bee-space and movable frames. But Europeans are celebrating the Polish beekeeper, Johannes Dzierzon, for the same accomplishments. On the continent, it’s Dzierzon, Dzierzon, Dzierzon, everywhere you … Continue reading →

Posted in Beekeeping, History, Hives and Combs, People | Tagged , | 8 Comments

Langstroth’s Christmas Present

Posted on December 25, 2019 by Ron Miksha

I’ve been posting this piece every Christmas for a while. If you’ve read it before, read it again. Or not. Christmas Day is L.L. Langstroth’s birthday. He’d be 219 years old, if he hadn’t been struck down in his 85th … Continue reading →

Posted in Beekeeping, Books, History, Hives and Combs, People, Tools and Gadgets | Tagged , | 8 Comments

Winter’s coming – are you insulated?

Posted on September 23, 2019 by Ron Miksha

When I kept bees in Florida, I didn’t wrap my hives for winter. In Pennsylvania, where I grew up, we sometimes wrapped hives with thin black building paper. That was supposed to keep wind out of the cracks and heat … Continue reading →

Posted in Beekeeping, Hives and Combs, Tools and Gadgets | Tagged , , | 34 Comments

Comb on demand

Posted on April 9, 2019 by Ron Miksha

Here’s something that I never thought anyone would manufacture. It’s fully-drawn comb, just the way bees would make it, if bees were machines. I’m impressed with the technology, but I’m not sure how marketable these manufactured combs will be. Perhaps … Continue reading →

Posted in Beekeeping, Hives and Combs, Strange, Odd Stuff, Tools and Gadgets | Tagged | 14 Comments

Century-old beekeeping equipment

Posted on February 14, 2019 by Ron Miksha

Image courtesy of: The Photography of Coley Ogg circa. 1919, Beekeeping Demonstration at Berea College, Kentucky. This picture is from 100 years ago. It was late winter, 1919. An agriculture agent came to this Kentucky Appalachian farm to teach modern … Continue reading →

Posted in Beekeeping, History, Hives and Combs | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments

Bee A Valentine

Posted on February 14, 2019 by Ron Miksha

Beekeepers are not sentimental. For most of us, Saint Valentine’s Day is a day of intense panic when male beekeepers rush out to buy something special for some darling or pigsney. (It’s not like we didn’t know February 14 was … Continue reading →

Posted in Comb Honey, Culture, or lack thereof, History, Hives and Combs | Tagged | 3 Comments