Welcome to our blog!
The latest buzz from our apiaries.
Wanna be a beekeeper?
Have you been itching to start a few bee hives of your own in your backyard? If so, spring time is when you want to begin. We will be selling five frame starter nucleus hives (nucs) through June (or until sold out) this spring for pickup at our site in Nunica, MI. If...
Wintering Bees in Michigan (Revisited)
Back eight years ago or so I published a short article on wintering bees in Michigan that to this day is one of the most visited pages on our website. This is not surprising, in that for many cold climate beekeepers, bringing bees through the winter remains one of...
Honey in the comb!
A while back we wrote an article in which we tried to clear up some of the confusion around the term "raw honey". If you want to get really technical, perhaps the only correct definition of the term is honey still in the comb, or simply "comb honey". Every year, we...
What beekeepers do in the winter
Sometime ago, we posted an article about what bees do in the winter. It occurred to us, that our readers might be wondering what the keepers of bees do in the winter as well. The answer to that of course depends on what kind of beekeeper you're talking about. Large...
Why Bees Swarm
Here in the West Michigan area where we live, honey bee swarming season begins in May and runs well into June. Residents are often startled to find a large cluster of bees (can be as small as a softball or larger than a basketball!) hanging on a shrub or tree in...
What Is Raw Honey?
One of the most frequent questions we get asked by honey customers is: is your honey raw? Interestingly enough, almost nobody asks us: what is raw honey? Just for fun, for a while whenever somebody would ask if our honey was raw, I would answer by asking them what...
Small Scale Queen Rearing
Every beekeeper these days seems to be at least thinking about raising his or her own queens. That's a good thing, and really not an option if you intend to keep bees for the long haul. While mated queens can be readily purchased the entire beekeeping season from...
What Bees and Their Keepers Do in the Spring
Springtime is arguably the busiest time of the year for both the honey bee and the beekeeper. From the bees' perspective, the activity begins before Spring actually arrives. In late winter, as the days increase in length, the queen will resume laying eggs. Slowly at...
Hive Scales
Electronics enclosure of the SolutionBee Smart Hive Monitor. Jonathan and his graduate students at Grand Valley State University have been working with the Bee Informed Partnership to automate the monitoring of live honeybee colonies via electronic sensor platforms....
What Bees Do in the Winter
We often get asked “what do your bees do in the winter?”. Given the rather brutal winters we experience here in the West Michigan area, these questions are often prompted by concern for the bees’ welfare. The quick answer to the question is that bees eat lots of...
Tutorial (4) – Buying Bees
Our previous article provided some guidance on the essential equipment you will need to keep bees. Now it’s time to talk about the bees themselves. As a new beekeeper you have a number of options available to you when it comes to getting honeybees for your new hive....
Tutorial (3): Beekeeping Equipment
There is no end to the various types of beekeeping you can purchase for your beekeeping hobby. Beekeepers are constantly inventing new gadgets to simplify beekeeping, and the bee supply companies are more than happy to peddle them. In this article we will take a...
Tutorial (2): Scaling the Beekeeping Learning Curve
Honeybees are complex creatures. To keep them successfully you’re going to need to spend a fair amount of time learning about their biology as well as the equipment and techniques you’ll need to master in order to successfully be a beekeeper. The good news is that...
Tutorial (1): So you want to be a beekeeper?
You’ve probably been hearing a lot about disappearing honey bees through the media. All of this media attention given to the plight of the honeybee is causing a lot of people to become interested in beekeeping. Some of them are jumping in and becoming hobby...
Honey For Your Holidays!
Whether you are looking for stocking stuffers or putting together your own homemade gift baskets, we have a variety of all natural hive products that your more discerning loved ones will be sure to appreciate during this Christmas season. Do your favorite holiday...
Super Crazy Bees!
Beekeepers, like bees, tend to have a language of their own. To the non-beekeeper, or newbee, the technical jargon beekeepers use can become rather confusing. The other day when speaking to a non-beekeeper, I casually mentioned we were out the day before "supering"...
Wrong Hive!
This past Saturday I was reminded once again on how fragile the world we live in is, and in particular, how quickly things can go wrong in the apiary. I had just cracked open the cover on the last hive I intended to split in our home apiary. It was a robust Italian...
Spring = Busy Bees
Spring time is the busiest time of the year for beekeepers here in Michigan. Beginning in March we go through our apiaries and cleanup any dead outs (e.g. hives that didn't make it through the winter.) Once again, we were fortunate this year in that we only lost...