Honey Bee Obscura Podcast

Towards the end of the season, it’s a good idea to take a look at the equipment and other management tricks you’ve been using all summer while it’s still fresh in your mind. Today, Jim and Kim talk a…

Have you ever thought much about the hive stands you use? On today’s episode, Jim and Kim take a long look at the hive stands they use and why they favor them. They also look at a lot of other choice…

How much honey do you leave for the bees this winter? Like lots of things in beekeeping, it depends. Since “all beekeeping is local”, it is good to start in your own backyard. Do you live in the sout…

It’s hot out there and it looks like it isn’t going to cool off for most of us for awhile. Also, since mite treatments should be starting now, getting honey off in the heat is the rule of the day. So…

If you have a colony of honey bees, chances are, at some point, some year, that colony will become queenless. If you do not realize it and the bees are unsuccessful at re-queening themselves, there i…

Swarm season is fun and exhilarating. Much has been written about swarms. They’ve been studied, photographed, pursued and just… watched. But what does the beekeeper do with the parent colony the next…

On today’s episode, Kim and Jim talks about what it takes to be a mentor to another beekeeper, and therefore what you can look for in a good mentor.

As a mentor, you have to develop good communicatio…

On today’s episode, Jim and Jeff Ott (from Beekeeping Today Podcast), discuss the value and use of the ‘love it or hate it” piece of equipment, the Queen Excluder. Queen excluders are included in alm…

After you get through the winter, spring buildup, swarming season and the ever present varroa, you can sit back and smell the flowers, right? You’re a beekeeper! There is no time to rest! Jim has a q…

Pretty much every beekeeper, at one time or another, ends up with a queen that’s not doing what they think she should be doing or - not doing what all the rest of your queens are doing. So, what is h…

It doesn’t take long after getting into beekeeping and then repeatedly, as long as you have beekeeping equipment laying around or stacked neatly, until you have to deal with small furry pests. Mice, …

During a recent trip to a big-name US drug store, Kim saw honey on the shelf for $4.99 per pound. It was a blend of honeys from Argentina and India. A US commercial beekeeper shoots for a price of ho…

Jim’s beeyard is the center of attention this week, because his bees were bothering his wife and a very patient, longtime neighbor. That’s not a good thing. So, exasperated, Jim asks Kim for his idea…

If a pollinator garden is in your future this summer, constructing a raised bed is one way to keep it under control and is a much easier approach to providing food for your bees, beauty for your yard…

So you have already put in your two packages (you did get two, right?) and a few days, or maybe a week later you checked them and…..something’s wrong!

What can go wrong with a new package? Kim and J…

Package season is about over for 2022. Perhaps thankfully too, depending on where in the country you live. Installing packages does not always go well or as depicted in bee books or Internet videos. …

Have you ever been involved in planning and carrying out a beekeeping meeting? If not, there are a host of things to consider that you may have missed when you simply ‘attend’ a meeting.

Kim and Jim …

What are the important considerations for finding a new bee yard? There are a whole lot of right answers to this question and Kim and Jim explore almost all of them. For starters, year-round access, …

If your colonies make it through the winter, or if you simply purchased more bees as a package or nuc, their next challenge is making it through the changeable spring weather. (Especially this year, …

This time of year, experienced and new beekeepers are receiving their packaged bees and nucs. Only a few of these packages and nucs are going home to new equipment. Many will go home to equipment lef…