Will my hive make it through winter?

It’s wasn’t December yet when I made this discovery, but I think one of my nucs from this spring is going to have a hard time getting through winter. When I checked the hive by looking up through the wire-screen on the bottom, I saw hundreds of dead bees. All my other hives clean the…

Multiplying hives and growing new colonies

Since May, the three beehives I got as nucs last year have been giving me opportunities to make new colonies. Making new colonies is a normal part of the development in a production hive, as it mimics the natural way bees reproduce. In nature, honeybees would swarm. This would mean growing their original hive to…

An introduction to honeybee varieties

Across the globe, people harvest honey from various sorts of bee-types. In Asia apis cerana, Koschevnikov and Dorsata are used. Not all of these can be kept in hives, but humans have gone looking for colonies to harvest from for centuries. It has been a popular subject for photographers and documentary makers, to show people…