Category Archives: beekeeping

First Swarm of the Season Captured

Got a call yesterday via the Maine State Beekeepers Association Swarm Team Hotline:  (207) 619-4BEE for a local swarm and went to grab it at dusk with my friend JCF. Thank goodness the homeowners gave us a shout as they … Continue reading

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Taylor’s Aerosol Hive Bomb

How about this for a wacky beekeeping product idea: Taylor’s Aerosol Hive Bomb ”The Push-Button Bee Smoker”?  An aerosol can with fake smoke to calm your hives down before inspecting. Well, it is real.  It was manufactured for Dadant & Sons … Continue reading

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Finson Farm Honey at Ten Apple Farm

Finson Farm Honey has made an appearance on the Ten Apple Farm blog. http://livingwithgoats.com/wordpress/?p=1129 We hope to try their apples one of these days (their goat cheese is divine).

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Removing bee stings – speed matters, method doesn’t

from: http://bees.ucr.edu/stings.html (expanded from an article published 1996 in The Lancet 348:301-302) Summary Background Conventional advice on immediate treatment of honey bee stings has emphasized that the sting should be scraped off, never pinched. The morphology of the sting suggested no … Continue reading

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Removing Bees from a House

Some very nice folks in Brunswick had some bees in their house (see previous post).   So the  Cumberland County Beekeepers came to the rescue by turning it into a learning opportunity and holding a Bee Removal Workshop. Master Beekeeper … Continue reading

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Deceptive Swarm of Bees

Went to snag a swarm of bees at lunchtime today.  Climbed up a ladder, sprayed the huge ball of bees with sugar water and deftly scraped them into a box that had ventilation screens duct-taped over the hand holes. Thought … Continue reading

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The QR Code for this website

A QR Code is a matrix code (or two-dimensional bar code) created by Japanese corporation Denso-Wave in 1994. The “QR” is derived from “Quick Response”, as the creator intended the code to allow its contents to be decoded at high … Continue reading

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The Bees are Back in Town

It was the first time looking at the bees since November. Good news and bad news. The good news is that 4 of the colonies are doing great.  Below is an image of one of the Nucs that wintered on … Continue reading

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Be good to your bees; they can recognize you!

Bees Can Recognize Human Faces http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=bees-can-recognize-human-faces-10-02-01

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Apiary Update – Up to 6 Hives

Lots of activity in the bee yard this weekend… Found some queen cups and cells in Macintosh – here you can see a new queen is chewing her way out of the bottom of the circled cell. The bees have … Continue reading

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Is that a honey bee in a buoy?

My friend Juli thought she might have a swarm of honey bees in a lobster buoy on her front porch (this is, after all, Maine). So, I  went over to look at lunchtime, as the prospect of a swarm to … Continue reading

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How to get rid of ants in a honey bee hive

Damn ants took advantage of my two weak nuc (nucleus) hives and crawled up and infested the place.  They were there to steal the 1:1 sugar:water syrup that I had left to feed weak bees, as it was going to … Continue reading

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Two More Hives Installed

We got two more hives installed over the weekend (Mac & Rodger) and it is starting to look like a proper artisanal apiary. While looking through Mac (the stronger of the two hives) we were able to spot the queen. … Continue reading

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Stencil Painting a Bee Hive

Shown below are the stencils steps used in painting up a hive for the honeybees at The Finson Farm in Southern Maine. I used spray interior/exterior Rustoleum Ultra Color gloss spraypaint.  I’ll let you know how it hold up to … Continue reading

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inside out there @ SALT

“inside out there” >> 05.04.09 >>  May 21st from 5 to 8 for Salt’s Spring 2009 Graduate Exhibit, inside out there. Maine stories in radio, writing, and photography… The show features images of my beekeeping friend Erin.    The have a … Continue reading

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Putting Together My First Bee Hive

Last weekend, I had my second “Bee School” class with Rick Cooper up at BEES-N-ME in Bowdoinham, Maine. Afterward, realizing all the stuff that I will need to put together for my first season with bees, I was feeling pressed … Continue reading

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Sausalito Team Wins Häagen-Dazs-UC Davis Honey Bee Haven Design Competition

Sausalito Team Wins Häagen-Dazs-UC Davis Honey Bee Haven Design Competition http://entomology.ucdavis.edu/news/honeybeehavenwinner.html The Sausalito-based Sibbett Group created a series of interconnected gardens with such names as “Honeycomb Hideout,” “Nectar Nook” and “Pollinator Patch” to win the international bee-friendly garden design competition, … Continue reading

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What honeybees want to “eat” and when they want to eat it, in Maine

In October I went to an interesting talk at the Cumberland County Beekeepers Association.  It featured a  retired Biologist (and beekeeper named Matt Scott) who spoke about “Bee Pasturage” and had a slide show that showed a number of the … Continue reading

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