Bushkill Bee Blog

Reduce the need to even use a bee vac by using swarm traps. Our bee vac is by far the easiest on bees and beekeeper, but you can ease the stress even more by proactively setting out swarm traps....

Here is a video from my good friend JP the beeman that shows the damage that can be done to a dwelling if honeybees are not handled properly. Next time you have a customer who questions your removal...

 Abscond - to depart in a sudden and secret manner, especially to avoid capture. Absconding seems to be a bigger issue in some areas than others. Personally, I can only remember one or two hives...

Special Thanks to Jim Hensel for sharing this idea, photos, and directions. Background: I am making my own hive boxes. I have researched handles and the choices are as follows: Cleat Dado slot Canoe...

It's springtime and a lot of folks are eager to expand their apiary by doing splits. Splits are very popular since they are "almost free". Problem is, a good portion of those doing splits use the...

I don't like to put frame spacers in my supers because I like to start new un-drawn frames 10 to a super to get the comb drawn correctly. Once the frames are drawn, I reduce them to 9 per super to...

There are always discussions as to which feeder is “the best”, but like everything else in beekeeping, there is no one best solution for every situation and location. I have taken the most popular...

There are good reasons to have your queens marked, including: Ease in locating the queen during inspections. Confirm the hive hasn't swarmed. Confirm the queen hasn't been superseded. This can be...

The big craze over at Beemaster is switching to only medium depth boxes. Yes there are some advantages like uniformity and lighter weight, but there are also some things I consider disadvantages, at...

Emergency Feeding When you find the need to feed a weak colony in the midst of winter, there are may things you must be careful of.   The bees need to be able to access the food when clustered....

Queen Rearing using the Nicot System and Cloake Board Podcast of Small-Scale Queen Rearing can be found -> Here. The following is the method I used for raising small quantities of queens. It uses...

Queen Introduction using a Double Screen Board My preferred method of queen introduction is with the use of a double screened board. The advantage of this method is, unlike most other methods, you...

We first shared the barrel top bar hive in 2007.   Since that time there are a few copy cats claiming their original design.  Take note that they never provide pictures with an established colony...