Ah, the smoker. I love the sight of a lazy curl of smoke drifting out of a well-lit smoker. But if you’ve been keeping bees long, you’ve also experienced the utter frustration of a poorly lit, poorly working smoker going...
This is largely a question of preference. It doesn’t generally hurt a queen to get her marked, but it does cost extra, since beekeepers have to find a queen, pick her up, and mark her. It is far easier to...
By Chari Elam We made it! This is the last article in the series of Mastering Hive Inspections. In this final segment I’d like to focus on problem identification and subsequent solutions. Problem solving is probably one of the most...
Hive Inspections! By: Chari Elam Depending on where you are in your beekeeping adventure, you may have completely opposing views from other beekeepers concerning hive inspections. New beekeepers inspect hives to learn AND to manage the hives as they learn....
By: Chari Elam Probably one of the most intimidating aspects of beekeeping is a hive inspection! How often is it done? Do I really have to pull all of the frames? What am I looking at? We’ve ALL asked that...