About 9 years ago, my car didn't start and I wanted to go skiing, so I walked out to the end of my driveway in full ski gear and stuck my thumb out. A lovely young woman picked me up in her ramshackle jeep, and we drove up to Taos ski valley. On the way up we began talking and getting to know each other, and I mentioned my bees and she said she had been cleansing her face with honey for many years. I was amazed that she had used honey for cleansing, she raved about it. So, thank you young woman, for opening my eyes to the healing and cleansing properties of honey once again. We cream our...
I caught a swarm! I came home the other day and was walking around my property and into my orchard and noticed all the bees swirling around in the air and the hives. I realized that the bees had just left their hive and were about to settle somewhere and that was when I could catch them and rehive the whole cluster of bees. When the queen decides to move, she lays some eggs in queen cells and when they are capped, she takes about half the bees and leaves the hive. They settle somewhere usually close by, and some bees go in search of a new home. I have found that when they settle I have about an hour...
This past winter was low snow and warmer than normal. I was not happy, as I love to ski, but my bees are happy. The bees are so happy with the warm weather, and they came out of their hibernation and are buzzing with gay abandon!
I'm beyond happy that I didn't lose any hives this winter, which is really amazing as most bee keepers do lose some hives every winter. I left my hives with lots of honeycomb so that they wouldn't run out of food stores, and would come out of the winter with vigor and a growing population.
Polar bears aren’t the only ones getting screwed by our rapidly shifting climate. Bees are seriously struggling with climate change—as if they didn’t have enough problems already. Because they're tiny insects, bees aren't widely addressed as one of the potentially devastating casualties of climate change, but we should all be paying closer attention. It’s well known that without bees, humans would be in big trouble. Just imagine your local grocery store—even a produce palace like Whole Foods—with a virtually barren produce section. That’s what's at risk if we lose the bees—a whopping percentage of our global food supply. And let's be honest, bees already have a loaded plate. As they continue dealing...
