How to Be Inhospitable to Unwanted Hive Guests: Small Hive Beetle Management for Any Time of Year

Posted January 1, 2024

How to Be Inhospitable to Unwanted Hive Guests: Small Hive Beetle Management for Any Time of Year

Why should we talk about small hive beetles in January? Wouldn’t it be more fun to talk about this Super El Niño and parse out the many fun beekeeping tasks we can accomplish on a mild, sunny day? Well, sure, you can keep pretending SHB isn’t a major concern. But your bees can’t — because SHB …

Posted January 1, 2024

Extracted Honey Cratered the Comb Honey Market: Can we Get It Back?

The kitchen of my youth smelled of lye soap, smoked bacon, and peck baskets of walnuts. A throwback to the 40s, the kitchen had a linoleum floor and a table topped with red-and-white checked oilcloth. (Oh, how I miss the lead in my diet!) In the center sat the perennial must-haves of the day: salt, …

Posted January 1, 2024

Fiddle Bump Beekeeping

Staying busy during the cold months of the year Some Plain Talk about beekeeping during cold seasons ABJ readers, here’s some Plain Talk Beekeeping for you — January is a slow month for actively managing bees. Except for those who are in warmer parts of this country, January is a cold, blustery month with few …

Posted January 1, 2024

Letters to the Editor – January 2024

Purple “honey” Dear Mr. Makovec, Approximately five years ago, I posted on a honey bee blog that perhaps the purple honey some beekeepers are surprised to find in their supers is due to bees taking grape jelly from oriole bird feeders (I’ll provide a picture of my jelly feeder covered in honey bees). Expectedly, I …

Posted January 1, 2024

Crop and Market – January 2024

Most of the country reports decent honey production for the year, despite spotty drought conditions and a widespread heat wave in late summer/early fall. Wholesale markets are stronger than before the imposition of duties from the AHPA’s antidumping lawsuit, though abnormally low import prices continue to put some downward pressure on commodity markets. Where retail …

Posted January 1, 2024

HONEY BEE HEALTH COALATION AMONG TEAM OF RESEARCHERS SELECTED TO RECEIVE GRANT TO SUPPORT VARROA MITE MANAGEMENT TO IMPROVE POLLINATION OF SPECIALTY CROPS

November 21, 2023 — The U.S. Department of Agriculture has selected a project led by members of the Varroacide Resistance and Testing Team (VRTT), facilitated by the Honey Bee Health Coalition, to receive funding as part of a new initiative aimed at enhancing the competitiveness of U.S. specialty crops. The project led by the VRTT …

Posted January 1, 2024

Contents – January 2024

Book Reviews: Winter Reads Frédéric Eggers de Villepin, Carol Hrusovszky, Tina Sebestyen – 21 Good News from the EPA! Randy Oliver – 39 Musings of an Old-timer, Part 3 Peter L Borst – 47 And Now, for Something Completely Different Charles Linder – 53 2023 Field Trial of Matrices and Formulations for Extended-release Oxalic Acid …

Posted January 1, 2024

ABJ January 2024 Cover

Morning sun casts a soft lamplight on nature’s nighttime masterpiece. The photographer in her pajamas may shudder from the cold, but the snow provides an insulating blanket to these hives. Some beekeepers rush out to brush snow from landing boards, but warmth from the clusters inside will likely have entrances clear by noon. Cheryl Burkhead …

artwork found at the New Brunswick Botanical Garden in Edmundston, NB.

Posted December 14, 2023

Letters to the Editor – December 2023

Division of Labor Just thought I would share this picture of a cute piece of artwork we found at the New Brunswick Botanical Garden in Edmundston, NB. Very cool depiction of the division of labor in the hive. Enjoy. Clyde Dildine Sisters, Oregon Eugene responds: Very cool, Clyde! Looks like you fit right in …

Posted December 1, 2023

Summer Swarms Abandoning Their Queens

Typically, we consider bees of a swarm to be very sensitive to the presence of their queen, even swarms occurring in the summer. A swarm flying off and abandoning its queen is counterintuitive. With that unsettling notion in mind, consider the three following case studies, along with photographic documentation, never published before. Case 1: …

How to Be Inhospitable to Unwanted Hive Guests: Small Hive Beetle Management for Any Time of Year

Posted January 1, 2024