Honey Bee Obscura Podcast

It’s rare, very rare, but sometimes beekeepers have to kill all the bees in a colony. It can be a tragic, emotional and usually it’s an expensive experience. Or it can be a life saving act to save th…

Let’s face it. Unless you live in an isolated part of the world, if you keep bees, you will need to eventually deal with encounters between your bees and your neighbors. Encounters don’t have to be n…

Packages arrive with a queen and together are installed in a hive of some kind. In a few days to a week the queen is released from her travel cage by either the bees or the beekeeper. Then the evalua…

Today, Kim & Jim review questions and answers asked in an ancient A. I. Root Co. publication, published in 1910. What’s changed, and what hasn’t? Kim and Jim tackle questions asked 121 years ago. You…

What is tanging? Basically, beekeepers use some sort of device, an old cooking pot for instance, to make a loud noise by beating it with a spoon or stick, while chasing an escaping swarm. It is thoug…

Honey bees are purchased from commercial operations in business to sell bees to beekeepers. They can be sold as complete eight or ten frame hives with a queen, frames with comb, bees and brood and so…

Old comb. What is old comb? Old comb is that which is darkened through generations of tiny bee's feet (ok, for the technically minded, tarsus and tarsal claws...) running across its surface. Is it go…

Spring inspections, especially early spring, need a balance of not too often, but often enough to avoid problems. The first thing you see is…what’s left from last fall. In the south, these inspection…

Why do you keep a box full of bugs that you just know will sting? It should be an easy answer, but there’s more here that you might think, especially if you’re just getting started. Even if you’ve be…

So, how do you eat comb honey? It isn’t a mystery, but until you have tried eating comb honey, it can be a tad daunting.

At first, it’s a beautiful product. Snow white cappings, beautiful honey, the …

Trapping pollen will give you a source of good food for your bees, and it’s for free. And why more beekeepers don’t do it is interesting, but understandable. There are a host of pollen substitutes on…

If you keep good records every year, you’ll know about when to expect the various nectar flows your areas has almost every year and that your bees need to make a honey crop.

Of course, your bees will…

Imagine this… you walk out to your beeyard. There is a lot of activity. No problem. That’s good right? Probably a nectar flow, you think. But as you get closer, there is something else going on… more…

Have you ever tried to capture a swarm while hanging on to the top of a 10-foot ladder that’s standing in the back of a pickup? No? Well, Jim Tew has and he’ll tell you all about retrieving swarms th…

How much space do bees need inside a beehive? Well, it’s between 3/16” and 5/16”, so you can figure just about a quarter inch should do.  But what happens when bees don’t have bee space in a beehive…

When you have more bees at home than you want, or your family wants, or your neighbors want, it’s time to find an outyard. There’s a lot to consider when choosing an outyard.

There are many things to…

Everybody who has bees at some time will have to requeen a colony. You killed her when moving frames, she quit laying, a colony that swarmed didn’t make a queen, you stepped on her when she fell off …

A smoker is that extra hand you always need when working bees. It’s the right tool for the job. But how smokers get used is mostly influenced by what the beekeeper is doing whether you are working ha…

If you need or want to get some honey bees this spring, the two traditional means are to get a 3-pound package or a (usually) 5 frame nucleus colony. There are advantages and disadvantages to both an…

So, you just built brand new wooden hive boxes, tops and bottoms. It all sure looks nice, doesn’t it? How do you keep it from rotting, falling apart or just wearing out?

For many beekeepers using whi…