This is my third year in beekeeping. And every year I'm confronted with something new. The saying goes: A first year queen will never swarm. A second year queen may swarm. A third year queen will most definitely swarm. Yup, that about sums up my experience.  What does it mean when the bees want to swarm? Swarming is the natural way that bees reproduce. The old queen leaves the hive and takes about half of the working bees with her. The bees remaining in the hive build a new queen. Thus, out of one colony, you now have two. The...

Unfortunately, the varroa mite is a very real threat to the honey bee population. And it's a good thing I didn't know too much about this very tiny but evil parasite before I got into beekeeping or it might have made me think twice. But with some work on the part of the beekeeper, you can keep these pests at bay.      The varroa mite exists only in honey bee colonies. It attaches itself to the bodies of the honey bees and sucks off of them. A large infestation of mites will cause the death of the honey bee colony....

All the hard work of my bees culminated in lots of oohs and ahhs as I harvested my first honey at home in the kitchen. From my two hives, I had about 11 full frames of honey. This gave me a total of 12 kg when all was said and done. Woo hoo! But it was an all-day process getting to this liquid gold.   First, how to get the bees out of the honey super?! Don't forget to have an extra beehive box ready. I removed the frames from the honey super one by one, brushing the bees off as...