Austėja is the goddess of honey and bees in Lithuanian lore. Patron of both bees and honey, her cult flourished from hunter-gatherer days to the 16th century. See Peter Borst’s “Beekeeping in Lithuania” in this issue. Illustration by VIKOBELO. The post ABJ MARCh 2023 Cover appeared first on American Bee Journal ..read more

Q  Commercial Beekeeping With 8-frame Equipment As a sideline beekeeper, I am thinking of taking my business to the next level. This includes providing locally adapted queens, nucs, and pollination services. I live close to the Missouri Bootheel and the watermelon producers of northeastern Arkansas. My question to you is this: Am I making a huge mistake by having a commercial business that utilizes only 8-frame medium woodenware for every situation, including brood boxes, supers etc.? Anonymous December A Congratulations on taking the next step to become a commercial beekeeper. Many peopl ..read more

In the mid 1800s, the apicultural industry began to flourish in America. By the early 1900s numerous small bee supply businesses were scattered across the country. While exceptions did occur, most of these bee businesses seemed to live fairly brief lives, serving local beekeepers, before time consigned them to the forgotten past. Evidence of these bee supply companies comes from their surviving supply catalogs, although mostly they are rare. For this article, I picked two of these obscure bee supply companies, one from the East, the other from the Midwest. From their supply catalogs, we can ge ..read more

I just returned from the annual American Beekeeping Federation conference in Jacksonville, Florida. It was an exceptionally well-run meeting. In my opinion, what stood out the most was the interest that people had in non-synthetic chemical controls against varroa and other parasites and diseases. I was asked about phytochemical therapeutics (i.e., plant-derived medicines against troublesome parasites such as varroa and nosema) after my talk, similar questions were asked after a talk by USDA Beltsville Bee Lab scientist Jay Evans, and numerous people came up to me in the hallways to ask additio ..read more

Everyone is turning to artificial intelligence these days. As a website owner, I receive over fifty emails per week extolling the virtues of AI. I’m told I can save time, money, and frustration by allowing AI to write blog posts for me. For a nominal price, my week’s articles — enhanced for search engines, grammar-checked, and guaranteed plagiarism free — can appear in seconds. No subject is too difficult, no science too obscure. I’ve been ignoring these sales pitches for months, thinking “yeah, right” as I scrub them from my inbox. But then on a dreary, drizzly December day, I fell for it. I ..read more

The spring season begins again – and again Spring management during the winter This is a true story. Just yesterday, it was one of those beautifully warm winter days. Of course, I took a walk to my dormant apiary where some few bees were flying — and robbing. Winter robbing activity is common, but that is a story for another time. I did simple weight tests on all colonies, and I looked at the litter that had accumulated both on the bottom board and on the ground in front of the hives. Happily, I did not find any outright surprises. One colony was long dead, but I was expecting that. It went in ..read more

Building my 2023 Layens Hives During the winter months I enjoy building a few Layens hives to use or sell in the early spring. I thought you and your readers would enjoy seeing these beehives. I start with unassembled standard Layens frames from Horizontalhive.com. I make a slit in the top bar of the frame before I assemble them. Then I can insert a strip of wax foundation to encourage the bees to stay within the frames as they build out the comb. The frames from Horizontal Hive are also pre-drilled to accept wires for those who want to have wired frames if they may have a large honey extracto ..read more

There’s a new way to be a pollinator protector in Oregon: Buy a bee-themed license plate to bring attention to beneficial insects and support Oregon State University Extension research on native bees. Each Pollinator Paradise license plate ordered sends $35 to OSU’s Pollinator Health Lab and Honey Bee Lab programs focused on the state’s 600 species of bees. The post NEW OREGON BEE-THEMED LICENSE PLATE SUPPORTS POLLINATORS appeared first on American Bee Journal ..read more

American Beekeeping Federation Conference Wrap-up Kent Pegorsch – 261 Small Hive Beetle Found in Bangladesh Robert Owen – 263 A Study on Bee Drift and Mite Immigration — Part 2 Randy Oliver – 265 There’s a New AFB Vaccine: What does that mean exactly? Bill Hesbach – 273 A Year as a Commercial Beekeeper — March Charles Linder – 279 Queen Replacement Guide — Information for BeekeepersReplacing or Installing New Queens — Part 2 of 4 Jake Barker – 291 Cutting Out a Career in Bees Breanne Corley – 297 Natural Beekeeping: A Reckoning Fred Jones – 305 Beekeeping in Lithuania Peter L Borst – 309 Chron ..read more

Happy February 2023 everyone! I hope you are enjoying this new year and are excited about the upcoming beekeeping season. I try to answer ten questions for each month’s The Classroom. However, I only had two questions asked of me this month. I have been answering questions for this column just over three years. This allowed me to go back and look at my records regarding when I receive questions. It would appear that I struggle to get questions every year for the February issue. This is because the article is due to the editor by 20 December, meaning that the questions for the article would arr ..read more