Beekeeping Basics – April 2024: Fail-safe Splits

Side by side photos of splits. Both splits show queen cups, which are a clear signal of the swarm impulse. As soon as you see these protrusions, dropw what you are doing and make splits, weather permitting.

Posted April 1, 2024

Beekeeping Basics – April 2024: Fail-safe Splits

Around this time of year, I have the most glorious recurring dreams about swarms. Usually, the dream starts out like any run-of-the-mill dream about working for hire on Taylor Swift’s rainforest unicorn farm. I’m usually crawling around on the soft fragrant ground, trimming iridescent fringed aphids from a coral reef tree, when my knees begin …

Lined paper with writing on it reading: Sultry afternoon. Windless. Melty. my hens bury themselves in silken soil beneath hop vines. On toasted concrete. Minikin stretches to twice her feline length. My hives smell like ground beef and honey suckle. Proteinaceous and sweet

Posted April 1, 2024

The Curious Beekeeper – April 2024: A Peek Inside a Beekeeper’s Journal

Many of us keep some type of beekeeping log. A log contains data — facts and figures that describe what we found, what we did, and what comes next. It may also contain colony maintenance reminders, to-do lists, and inspection notes. Some of us record these reminders in a notebook or digital device, while others …

Multiple hive boxes in a backyard setting against a fence. Good neighbor relationships are necessary to keep everyone happy.

Posted April 1, 2024

Apiaries Come and Apiaries Go – Keys to finding a good location

A bee yard is for the moment While I have no way of counting for sure, I estimate that during all my bee years, I have dealt with 70 to 90 apiary locations. At this very moment, I have one — just one — apiary location, here at my home (and it needs help). Clearly, …

Posted April 1, 2024

Letters to the Editor – April 2024

Plastic Beehives Plastic beehives, particularly polystyrene beehives, are, and should be, anathema. Polystyrene, especially expanded polystyrene, is subject to fragmentation into breakdown products that include microparticles and nanoparticles that, in turn, absorb microorganisms and toxins thus increasing their impact when ingested. Scientific Reports (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-64464-9), “Potential toxicity of polystyrene microplastic particles”: “Direct contact with microplastic particles …

Wisconsin 2024 Honey Queen: Queen Sadie Goettl

Posted April 1, 2024

WISCONSIN HONEY QUEEN

The Wisconsin Honey Producers Association is proud to announce that of Berlin, Wisconsin was selected as the 2024 Wisconsin Honey Queen. Sadie is the daughter of Tammy and Tony Goettl. A graduate of Berlin High School, Sadie is a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, studying Agricultural Business Management and Communications Arts, with certificates in …

Posted April 1, 2024

BEES FOR DEVELOPMENT HELPS BEEKEEPERS NURTURE TREES

The Bees for Development Green Match campaign emerges as a beacon of hope in the face of the devastating consequences of deforestation that lead to soil erosion, land degradation, and severe hardships for local communities in Zimbabwe. Bees for Development proposes the powerful solution of beekeeping. Inextricably linked, bees and trees create a relationship that …

Posted April 1, 2024

EUROPEAN BEEKEEPING ASSOCIATION ESTABLISHED, TO BE HEADQUARTERED IN SLOVENIA

Submitted by Mihaly Hevesi The European Beekeeping Association was established on February 10 in Belgrade during the XV State Beekeeping Fair. Twenty-six European beekeeping associations joined the association, with 18 of them represented at the founding assembly. Additionally, two observers attended from Germany and Ukraine. Biljana Tomić, the Technical Secretary of EBA, led the founding …

Posted April 1, 2024

Contents-April 2024

Book Reviews: Spring Reads Dewey M. Caron, Tina Sebestyen, David Shimo – 353 Division of Labor in a Colony: Who does What? Part 2: Adulthood and old age Kayla deJong – 373 The Elephant and the EPA Randy Oliver – 379 Research Lab Spotlight: The University of Minnesota Bee Lab Alison McAfee – 385 What …

ABJ April Cover 2024 - Honey comb with bee larava

Posted April 1, 2024

ABJ APRIL 2024 COVER

A candle to spring: Here is a typical early-spring scene. A young Caucasian queen (reared last summer) has been laying in every empty cell she can find – and one not-quite-empty one, where an egg stands like a candle wick on a vivid base of henbit pollen. Timothy Williams took this photo February 25 at …

Posted March 1, 2024

Bees & Beekeeping: Past & Present – March 2024 The Dangerous Lives of Foraging Bees: Part 1

Away from the protection of the hive, foraging bees suffer a dreadfully high death rate. The various fates of the bees are not often photographed in a collection and shown to the beekeeping public. From photographs saved in various dedicated folders since 1998 (on a succession of hard drives), we will see how bees died …

Beekeeping Basics – April 2024: Fail-safe Splits

Posted April 1, 2024