Category Archives: Questions Answered

Dealing With Varroa Mites In Warre Beehives

Marika left this comment on “Thoughts On Varroa Mites”

Hi Nick,

1 question I have re: dealing with varroa mites- with Langs you have a sticky board so you can check on mites – I am wondering how you keep tabs of varroa mite with a Warre hive, and from what I am reading it seems as though one leaves it to nature and are not doing anything to get the mites to drop off the bees, onto a sticky board, etc. Is this correct? and how do you look out for mites and what do you suggest beekeeper w/Warre hive do to keep an eye on those pesky mites?

Many thanks!
Marika

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Introducing the Quick Start Guide to Natural Beekeeping (download your copy here)

Ever since this blog was started, many of you have been asking a lot of great questions. Questions about backyard beekeeping, the Warre Top Bar Hive, how to keep bees naturally…the list goes on!

(By the way, if you have a beekeeping question, checkout the Beekeeping Forums. Those guy’s are awesome!)

After a while, I realized that I was being asked a lot of the same questions over and over. Which is good! It means that you are thinking about how to keep bees in a sustainable manner. I like that! The bees like it too!

So, in order to answer your questions in a better fashion, I packaged a lot of the most common questions in a free Quick Start Guide to Natural Beekeeping.

I need your help to make this Quick Start Guide better. Go grab a copy at http://diybeehive.com and read it. Then, post your thoughts about it in the comment area below.

How did you like it? Did it answer some of your questions? Do I need to expand it in certain areas? Do you think it is helpful?

The more feedback you leave, the more often I can update the Quick Start Guide according to your wishes…and as a thank you I will send you a fresh copy of the Guide every time it is updated.

So, download your copy right now, then come back and tell me what you think!

Thank you!

How to Keep Baby Bees Out of Your Honey Without Even Trying

Honey Bee Brood and LarvaNot much is worse than checking on a beehive…and seeing a lot of baby bee cells in with your honey.

You can’t get the honey out without killing the baby bees. And you can’t get the baby bees out without ruining the honey.

Not a good situation.

So how do you keep the baby bees out of the honey?
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Hive Robbers

Hive robbers are bad for your beehive. I am not talking about the two legged kind.  I am referring to honeybees which will rob other beehives.  Not too long ago I received the following sad message from Fred:

We’re pretty much beginners, our third try at keeping bees.  We have learned from our mistakes, but our latest hive has just succumbed to raiders after being so promising. We had a healthy hive as far as we could tell and had added two honey supers and were looking forward to harvesting one after opening the top one and finding it almost completely full.
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