Purebred Russian Bees (Primorsky Bees)
Russian HoneyBees Russian bees (aka Primorsky bees) are a cold-hardy strain originally imported by the USDA in 1997 from Primorsky Krai in Russia’s Far East. Over generations, Primorsky bees have developed many natural resistance behaviors against varroa mites—without any treatments. USDA Russians vs Italians Installing Purebred Russian Bee Packages Russian Bees & Swarm Control in a […]
Installing Purebred Russian Bee Packages
Installing Purebred Russian Honey Bee Packages Installing pure Russian (Primorsky) honey bee packages in a horizontal Layens hive in central Maine. In this video, I show the full process of installing two package colonies on April 23 – I was replacing winter losses in a northern climate (Central Maine). These bees are a cold-hardy strain […]
Top Vents or Not? My Condensing Hive Disaster
Top Vents or Not? My Condensing Hive Disaster I keep no more than 8 hives and in my area there’s plenty of natural foraging for them spring-to-fall, so I don’t do any supplemental sugar-feeding. This winter I ran an experiment that failed – I had a single peaked roof hive set up as a currently trendy […]
Bee Smoker Battle: Apisolis Vaporizer vs Traditional Smoker
Early Spring – Feeding Bees Their Own Honey For the first time, instead of a traditional smoker, I was using the new Apisolis smokeless vaporizer. It heats a solution of essential oils and releases it as a cool vapor to calm the bees without smoke by interfering with their alarm communication. Native Nova is […]
Spring – Feeding Bees their own honey. true 4:28 Now playing Watch later Add to queue 4 Horizontal Hives Survived — 2 Didn’t. Beekeeper Mistake.
Early Spring: Feeding Bees Their Own Honey After a long, brutally cold winter, the first warm spell can’t come soon enough—for my bees and me. The bees are flying. Most of my bees have made it through the winter — without treatments and without supplemental sugar feeding. During this first warm spell there is still […]
How Are the Bees? Non-invasive Remote Monitoring
How Are the Bees? Non-Invasive Remote Temperature Monitoring How are the bees doing — not just in winter, but all year long? At my Forest Beehive Apiary in central Maine? Remote Temperature Monitoring setup discussed in the video: 1. https://amzn.to/4pXjXak YoLink Hub, 1/4 Mile Super Long Range Smart Hub LoRa Enabled 2. https://amzn.to/45cH08L YoLink Smart X3 […]
Honey Bee Winter Survival & Natural Tree Hollows
Here we have very cold winters. The gold standard of wintering in climates with cold winters is what honey bees themselves have relied upon for thousands of years – a well insulated bee nest in a natural tree hollow. A Beehive that closely mimics a natural tree hollow that bees tend to choose for their […]
Honey Lasts Forever?! Pyramids, Bees & a 3,000-Year Myth: What Was REALLY in that Jar? Myth Busted!
Honey Lasts Forever?! Pyramids, Bees & a 3,000-Year Myth: What Was REALLY in that Jar? Myth Busted! You’ve probably heard the claim: Honey never spoils — archaeologists even found jars of honey in Egyptian tombs and it was still edible!’ This story is repeated everywhere… even by the Smithsonian. This claim was even […]
Is your Honey Alive with Enzymes or Dead?
Honey Lasts Forever?! Pyramids, Bees & a 3,000-Year Myth: What Was REALLY in that Jar? Myth Busted! You’ve probably heard the claim: Honey never spoils — archaeologists even found jars of honey in Egyptian tombs and it was still edible!’ This story is repeated everywhere… even by the Smithsonian. This claim was even […]
Beehive Rescue Mission – Dump & Swap Method
Beehive Rescue Mission – Dump & Swap Method When a bee colony fails to raise a queen after a split, laying workers can take over—and that usually means trouble. In this short, I share how I rescued a queen-less hive full of laying workers using the old “dump and switch” method. ✅ This approach saved […]