Starting ForestBeehive Apiary
Starting ForestBeehive Apiary. Transfer from a conventional nuc to a horizontal Layens hive. May, 2022. Setting up ForestBeehive natural beekeeping apiary in Central Maine on May 1st 2022. The original idea was to use only local wild survivor bees but with colder Spring season none of the swarm traps caught any swarms yet. Instead of using […]
Honeybees and airplanes?!
Honeybees and airplanes? Like the airplanes in the world’s busiest airports, the forager bees are flying in and out delivering to their hive airports mostly nectar and pollen and sometimes water and propolis.The foragers fly out with the speed of 15-20 mph and return with their heavy loads (carrying up to half of their own […]
Clean Natural Habitat – the most important factor for natural beekeeping
What’s Most Important for Natural Beekeeping In his seminal book “Keeping Bees with a Smile”, its author Lazutin lists 3 main ingredients for successful beekeeping, listed in order of their importance:(1) Nectar & pollen resources(2) Using locally adapted bees(3) The design of the hive and beekeeping system Despite the fact that there’s much debate among bee […]
mad or hallucinogenic honey
‘Mad’ or Hallucinogenic Honey Or How to Select Your Honey Ever heard of hallucinogenic or ‘Mad’ Honey?The 1st recorded report about the ‘Mad’ honey comes from a famous Greek warrior and historian Xenophon of Athens who in 401 B.C.E. was returning home with the Greek army along the shores of the Black Sea (now modern […]
A Beekeeper’s Secret
A Beekeeper’s Secret When I was 12, my grandmother and I happened to be guests of honor at a beekeepers house and I still remember the taste of their absolutely delicious honey. The beekeeper told us a secret why that honey was really exceptional: she said it came from 2 hives that were intended for […]
Maine Wilderness Honey: Fall Honey Harvest
Fall Honey Harvest Maine Wilderness Honey – Bees never Fed Sugar The video shows harvesting honey in mid-October in Central Maine in 2022. We only harvest surplus honey once per year, leaving enough of their own honey for the bees to survive through harsh New England winters. There are a couple of advantages of honey […]
Treating Bees Like Royalty
Treating Bees Like Royalty Dec 15, 2022 In this video we show how we treat our bees like royalty both in summertime & wintertime. Our horizontal hives are build like castles with their insulated double walls and metal roofs. In summertime horizontal hives give plenty of space to the bees and can be managed with […]
Three Pillars of Natural Beekeeping
Three Pillars of Natural Beekeeping There are some self-declared purists of natural beekeeping who claim that the only way to practice natural beekeeping is to keep the bees in real tree logs rather than in man-made beehives. There are also a few of conventional beekeepers who deride the very term “Natural Beekeeping” as oxymoron. Those […]
Honeybee and Airplanes?
Honeybees and Airplanes?! Like the airplanes in the world’s busiest airports, the forager bees are flying in and out delivering to their hive airports mostly nectar and pollen and sometimes water and propolis. In the video, the foragers fly out with the speed of 15-20 mph and return with their heavy loads (carrying up to […]
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 […]