Musings on Minimalist Beehive Management
Musings on Beekeeping
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3y ago
In their zealousness, some new beekeepers always want to get into their hives to see what is happening. They are overly enthusiastic with this new endeavor and want to do inspections a couple times a week. And then there are other beekeepers who do minimalist management, letting the bees do what they know how to do with infrequent intervention. And sometimes it becomes very infrequent or even nonexistent. So, is more management better? Is less acceptable? My guess is many beekeepers will say there’s a point when the beekeeper will overdo their inspections. But this debate could also be abou ..read more
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Musings About Making a Top Bar Hive—the basics
Musings on Beekeeping
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3y ago
The beauty of a top bar hive is that they can be made easily and economically.  Although the Langstroth system is the hive of choice for most beekeepers, it is not perfect. The top bar hive (tbh) fills the void for those potential beekeepers who are looking for a needed alternative.  These are not only people in a developing country like Honduras, where I live, but also for some people in developed countries like the United States. My wife Sofia and one of our simple top bar hives on a Honduran coffee farm. Their main advantage for me is that they are very economic. I can sta ..read more
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Musings on Bees in the Cemetery
Musings on Beekeeping
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3y ago
I went for a walk the other Sunday to stretch my legs with Scooter, my dog. Of all the possible routes we could have taken, I decided to head for the town cemetery. I wanted to also go looking for some stingless bees. The cemetery is a good place for this.  The older mausoleums begin to deteriorate and crack, so it gives the bees a place to enter the tombs. Most are small native stingless bees but occasionally you might find a colony of Africanized bees. I didn’t even cover half of the cemetery. I found five colonies with four different varieties, including one with Africanized bees ..read more
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Musings on a Survivor Hive
Musings on Beekeeping
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3y ago
There’s this little hive I have behind my house. They came on their own, moving into an empty trap hive I had stored back there. But that was two years ago. I haven’t done anything with them. I haven’t even peeked inside their box. I guess at this point it makes them a survivor hive. I just let them be, coming and going as they maintain their little colony. It gives me something to watch, especially the abundant activity in the morning as they bring in pollen. The afternoon entertainment is the orientation flights of the new field bees. My house always seems to be a magnet for swarms—mai ..read more
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Musings about looking backwards in order to move forward
Musings on Beekeeping
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3y ago
Looking ahead to constantly improve and modernize something isn’t always the answer to the problems we face in today’s world. And this includes beekeeping. Many beekeepers always want to have “a better beehive.” They want something even more modern that has the latest advances. But I think in many instances the answers come from stepping back and seeing how things where done in the past. I recently happened across this old photo from rural Jamaica in the 1880s. What caught my attention was the building technique for the house—wattle and daub. Bamboo is woven and then covered with mud to ma ..read more
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More Musings about Swarms and Trap Hives: Learn from My Mistakes
Musings on Beekeeping
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3y ago
Almost all beekeepers learn from trial and error. I know I have. I’ll admit that I’ve made more than my share of mistakes when dealing with swarm traps. Learn from the messes I’ve made and maybe you can avoid yourself some grief. My preferred method of getting new hives is through catching swarms with trap hives, as I explained in my previous post. Swarms are plentiful in Honduras and easily caught. Bait boxes work very well. However, I prefer to use top bar hives  for my beekeeping and I have to work with ornery Africanized bees. I don’t have all the conveniences in Honduras that I ..read more
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Musings about Swarms and Trap Hives: Getting “Free-bees”
Musings on Beekeeping
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3y ago
Most people don’t mind getting freebies—getting something for nothing. Beekeepers aren’t the exception. They always need to find ways to save a bit of money with their beekeeping.  Whether it is just a hobby or a full business, it can be expensive. Sometimes it’s like that bee vac, except it sucks up your money. So free bees are usually welcomed and one of the ways to get them is through the use of trap hives to catch swarms.  My bee partner Marcos hanging a swarm trap in one of the shade trees used on his coffee farm. We started an apiary together a number of years ago, filling ..read more
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Musings About a Double Colony Hive
Musings on Beekeeping
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3y ago
Seeing anomalies and other oddities is common enough with beekeeping in Honduras, because of both the Africanized bees present here and also the population of different native stingless bees. One these experiences for me involved a hive with two colonies. When you read about bees you often come across information and references to double colony hives. Normally this is where the beekeeper will set up two distinct hives side by side, both with their own queen but who share a common stack of supers. Mine was a bit different—being that it formed naturally and with two distinct types of bees ..read more
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Musings about Beekeeping, Bee Art, and Jicaro Trees
Musings on Beekeeping
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3y ago
I never want to buy a t-shirt or other factory-made trinket as a souvenir when I travel. I want something a bit different, preferably made by a local artisan with local materials. These engraved “calabashes” were what I found during my last Farmer to Farmer mission to Jamaica—and the local artisan customized some for me with bees. A local Jamaican artisan with his engraved calabashes, with fish, flowers, designs and, in my case, bees. I was based out of a small fishing village on the north coast of Jamaica during my time there as a volunteer with this Partners of the Americas training pro ..read more
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Even More Musings about Beekeeping with Africanized Bees
Musings on Beekeeping
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3y ago
A beekeeper needs to learn certain tricks of the trade to work with Africanized bees. Their defensiveness can make them difficult. It’s taken me a good number of years to sort of figure them out (and there is always something new to learn when bees are involved!). In general, there really is not much difference between an Africanized honey bee and a European honey bee. Both raise brood in the same way. They collect nectar and pollen in the same way. They produce wax and build their combs in the same way. The difference is that one is normally more ornery than the other. And this forces t ..read more
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