Finding, Marking and Introducing Queens As any regular reader of my blog will know, I’m obsessed with two things; queens and Varroa mites. Queens are essential to honey bees, as mothers are to all families. Mites are horrible things that cause the death of colonies, so obviously, I need to keep their number down to safe levels. … Read more
I’ve written about swarming quite a bit in the past. I’m not sure how many people who read my stuff are beginners, but I’m going to assume it’s not the majority. You probably all have your ways of dealing with preventing swarms or controlling them once the bees have decided to make queen cells. In … Read more
Sometimes we look at life on our beautiful planet with wonder and awe at the incredible way in which it all fits together so perfectly. Perhaps some people with a religious or spiritual leaning can see a guiding hand at work. Other times, bad things happen; floods or volcanic eruptions, storms, outbreaks of disease – … Read more
Many very experienced beekeepers in the UK advocate using the Demaree Method of swarm prevention for people with a small number of hives. George Demaree (1832–1915) from Kentucky first published his approach in an article in the American Bee Journal in 1892. I love the fact that a method devised thousands of miles away and … Read more
In beekeeping, as in life, everybody makes mistakes. Even bees occasionally make them. The hard part is owning up to them. Douglas Adams said, “a common mistake that people make when trying to design something foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.” I hate the fact that I stray into the realm of … Read more
How to prevent swarming? I previously wrote about some potential factors involved in the swarming of honey bees and why swarm prevention and control are so important for the beekeeper. The idea that we can prevent swarms is probably misguided; it is after all what bees are programmed to do, it is how they reproduce, … Read more