Video: You Can Lead a Bee To Water...

In between activities, I was able to film a bit of Beelandia bee activity at their chief watering hole, Lake No-Bee-Gone.

Video: A Trip Through Beelandia

I decided to video Beelandia today. I hope you enjoy watching the bees active outside their hive.

Video: Honeybees On A Plum Tree

I took this video last week and neglected to upload it until this morning.

Video: Beelandia Blizzard

Blizzard in Beelandia
Uploaded by WesBeek. - Explore more family videos.

Video: Hives Wrapped

Hives Wrapped for Winter October 23
Uploaded by WesBeek. - Explore more family videos.

The video above documents my beekeeping activities last Saturday.

Article: Marla Spivak-- MacArthur Fellow

Congratulations to University of Minnesota entomologist, Marla Spivak on being chosen as a 2010 MacArthur Foundation fellow.

Beelandia in August

Video: Nucs Available

Video: A Walking Tour of Beelandia

Beelandia-- 3/13 - 3/14 2010

I was busy all weekend working in Beelandia. Saturday, a cloudy, rainy day of upper 40F degree temperatures, was spent carrying out the hay bales I had placed around each hive last fall. Except for a slip on some ice, everything went well. I was also able to sow some poppy, and bird's foot trefoil seeds as well. I was a muddy, tired mess after this activity but I accomplished much.

Sunday was a beautiful day with full sun, and temperatures in the lower 60s. I took the box quilts off each hive and, on the langstroths, replaced them with feeders filled with 1:1 sugar syrup. The top bar hives still had plenty of honey and so to those I added simply a pollen paddy. As I suspected, Plan Bee... has or had mice, though it doesn't seem to have hurt that hive any.

As the above video of Bee Glad... shows, the bees were very active this afternoon. All hives were doing orientation and cleansing flights, and many workers were bringing in some off-white substance in their pollen baskets.

I think we have a winner in the Name That Nuc Contest. David Hinck, SMU student, suggested I name the hive: Worker Bees of the World Unite. Thank you David!

Videos From Beelandia (3/6/10)

I took some videos this afternoon in the the Beelandia apiary of the 5 hives. All were active on this bright, 40 degree day. The first hive is Lib-BEE-taria .



The next is Bee Glad....



The third is Metpropolis:



Fourth, Nuc To Be Named Later:



And last, Plan Bee From Outer Space.

Videos of Saturday's Winter Flights

I got my cellphone working right and was finally to upload two short videos I filmed yesterday in Beelandia. The first shows some initial activity at the top entrance of Lib-BEE-taria,the langstroth hive inhabited by carniolan bees. The second is activity in front of Metpropolis, the top bar hive containing a colony of italian bees. The board most of the bees have landed on in this video is leaning against the hive in order to keep the entrance from receiving direct exposure to cold winds.

Please pardon the poor quality of this video as it was filmed from my phone. Next time I will out there with our proper video equipment.

Saturday Winter Flights

I went out to Beelandia this bright, sunny morning to discover all the hives are alive and in flight. The most active was Lib-BEE-taria with its carniolan inhabitants, but all hives seemed healthy.

I did take a video of Lib-BEE-taria but have not been able to upload it to youtube yet. I will try again later today.

Building ATop Bar Hive- Video

Are you thinking you might want to manage bees? Are you a "do-it-yourself" type of person? Would you like to see your bees build comb without the use of foundation? Would you like to build a hive from recyclable materials? Are you afraid of the heavy lifting that accompanies the more traditional, Langstroth box hive? Then, you might consider building your own top bar hive, an alternative approach to housing your bees.


Top Bar hives have a long history, dating back to the ancient Greeks. Today, they are used in development projects in Africa where these hives are made from almost any materials at hand. They are gaining popularity in the developed world, perceived as a more sustainable method of apiculture.

Monta has built two hives for us and they are much more pleasurable to work than our Langstroths. The honeybees build out horizontally instead of vertically, meaning there are no heavy, honey filled boxes to move around during late summer. The bees, themselves, seem less defensive since opening up a top bar hive is less intrusive to the bee colony. The bees are allowed to build cells to their own specification, rather than working from a "pattern" provided by the wax or plastic foundation placed in a langstroth frame. Recognize, there are some disadvantages as well. The bees do produce less honey in a top bar, and it cannot be extracted using a honey extractor.


Below is a video that will discuss building these type of hives. For learning how to manage bees in these hives, visit Phil Candler's website and purchase his instruction manual The Barefoot Beekeeper. Enjoy!

Video: Natural Beekeeping Class Preparing for Winter

Video: Monta's Mead A-Brewing

My partner, Monta, uses some of the honey produced in Beelandia to brew mead. This video shows three batches started on Labor Day bubbling away.

Video: Afterswarm

Here is a video of an afterswarm that issued from Plan Bee... No, I did not catch it.

Video: Bee Activity At the Entrance to "Bee Glad..."

A short video of the entrance to one of the hives in Beelandia. Look closely and you will notice a number of interesting behaviors occurring: "wash boarding", ventilation of the hive, the exit and return of foragers.

Video: Top Bar Hive ConstructionSimply

I like top bar hives for a number of reasons, including their ease of construction. Top bar hives can be constructed simply using recycled and reused materials. The following video shows just how simple it is to build one of your own.

A special thanks to Outofabluesky for uploading this video on youtube.

Video: Russian Bees in a Warre

I finally got to read Kim Flottum's column in this month's Bee Culture. He suggests we all move to keeping Russian honey bees because of their resistance to mites. As a northern United States beekeeper, I would expect these bees are also more suited to my colder environment. I would eventually like to maintain some but, as of yet, these bees are not available within a reasonable distance from me. I suppose I could install a queen the hives I have.

Larry, a poster on the Warre email list, posted a short video of his Russian bees. So in honor of my pondering, here it is: