No Manicured Lawns for Honeybees!
No Manicured Lawns for Honeybees! At ForestBeehive apiary in Central Maine we are right next to a large wildlife sanctuary and we have no pesticides for miles. Instead of a standard manicured lawn, we have here quite a bit of wild clover. Maintaining standard lawns requires considerable time, money, extensive watering, and the use of […]
Sneaky soybeans, honeybees and mislabeled honey
Sneaky Soybeans, Honeybees & Mislabeled Honey Sneaky Soybeans, Honeybees & Mislabeled Honey Since 1960s Soybean production worldwide has increased 13 times over, and now in the US alone over 90 million acres are dedicated just to soybeans. Honeybees are not commonly spotted foraging on flowering soybeans. However, during a 4-weeks’-long blooming season, under a thick […]
Pandemic in managed bee colonies. Honey factories & what’s in the honey.
Pandemic in managed bee colonies and honey factories Honeybee pandemic, honey factories, what’s in the honey? Typical conventional high honey-yield apiaries are mostly located on the edge of conventional farm fields where the bees would forage and where the crops are grown with the help of the following human-engineered argo-chemicals: Herbicides (to kill weeds), Insecticides […]
Working with Horizontal Layens Hives
Working with Horizontal Layens Hives Feral Hive in a Natural Tree Hollow Layens horizontal hives were designed to imitate how the feral bee colonies live in natural tree hollows. Layens horizontal hives with deep 16″ frames have been in continuous use since the 19th century, as they are easy to manage with minimal disturbances to […]
Vertical and Horizontal Beehives & Math of Overwintering. Honey Bee Clusters, Shapes & Frame Design
Vertical & Horizontal Beehives and Math for Overwintering. Cluster Shapes & Frame Designs The above video discusses the following: The shape of a bee cluster varies depending on the depth of the frame. In conventional Langstroth vertical hives, due to a relatively shallow (just 9″ deep individual frame) the bee cluster tends to take a […]
Natural Beekeeping vs. Organic Beekeeping vs. Treatment-free Beekeeping
Natural Beekeeping vs Organic Beekeeping vs Treatment-Free Beekeeping Natural Beekeeping IS NOT a carbon copy of how bees live in the wild. While nature can be randomly unforgiving (e.g. 75% of all feral swarms will not survive) , natural beekeepers can mitigate many risks and assure much better survival odds. Natural Beekeeping IS, in short, just […]
Pandemic-inspired Beekeeping
Pandemic-inspired Beekeeping Beekeeping styles differ greatly. Paul Sheppard, an admin of Facebook’s Natural and Regenerative Beekeeping group with well over 2K members observed that different beekeeping styles exist between 2 extremes: Wild bees/feral colonies are on one end of the pendulum swing and conventional commercial-style beekeeping is on the opposite end. Video shows a slightly […]
Honey & Bee bread – Natural beekeeping vs Conventional industrial-style beekeeping
Honey and Bee Bread Natural Beekeeping vs Conventional Industrial-style Beekeeping In the video, I am reporting from our ForestBeehive apiary located in the woodlands of Central Maine next to a secluded forest lake and a 3,000 acre state-owned land – a wildlife sanctuary. By the way, beekeeping in the US is treated as farming by […]