Honey Princess 2012 On a hot and muggy afternoon recently, I worked at the MD State Fair in Timonium at the honey booth selling honey products. As a MD beekeeper, you are encouraged to work the fair for a shift to help our group, the Central MD Beekeepers Association, sell members honey. While there, I got to meet …
Continue reading "Honey Bee Royalty at the Maryland State Fair"
It happens every August - honey extraction! After babying the bees, feeding, monitoring, re-queening, splitting, and just plain worrying about them, now is the moment of truth. How much honey did they deposit in the combs for me to rob from them? I won't leave you in suspense - I extracted 55 pounds from my one …
Continue reading "Robbing the Bees- A Honey of a Day"
Sustainable is the new catch word for gardening. I hear it everywhere and I think it is overused without anyone really understanding exactly what it means. By definition it means -  Conserving an ecological balance by avoiding depletion of natural resources. And by working gardens, keeping chickens for meat and eggs, preserving food, adding solar panels, …
Continue reading "Suburban Homesteading – Raising and Preserving Sustainable Food"
A Honey of a Good Book I don't know how I missed the publication of this book in April of 2011 but picked it up at a local plant nursery to look at and was enthralled. As a practicing beekeepr, I get a lot of information off the web and have several beekeeping books on my shelf …
Continue reading "The Handbook for Beekeepers – The Beekeeper’s Bible"
The Great Bee Count Within the past couple of years, you might have heard that bees are in trouble, growing scarcer, and suffering from a mysterious ailment called Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD. A variety of culprits have been fingered in causing this syndrome, including pesticide use, parasites, and diseases. To study bees, scientists decided …
Continue reading "The Great Sunflower Project – The Backyard Bee Count"
I was introduced to beekeeping in Virginia while visiting my brother-in-law Bruce. He had several beehives and I wanted to try my hand at working the bees before I made the plunge on my own. Since then, Bruce has moved to Vermont with his hives - prime bear country. In Vermont, he set up a remote …
Continue reading "Beehives and Bears: An Accident Waiting to Happen!"
Honey Flow With the coming of spring a couple of weeks early this spring, I am getting a little nervous about my bees. The honey flow which is the frantic bee activity of bees collecting nectar from spring flowers will be here very soon. I have a strong hive that made it through the winter and I am on …
Continue reading "Swarming of the Bees – It is That Time of Year Again!"
