I just wanted to update you on the Taos Bee Apiary. The bee hives overwintered very well, I now have 16 hives and they are all flourishing and buzzing around my orchard and the local area. They feasted on dandelions, then cherry, apple, pear and apricot blossoms in my orchard. There have been smokey days here in Taos, due to the fires south east of here, the bees don't like to fly on smokey days, but there have been enough clear days for them to gather pollen and nectar to start building up their stores and start making honey. The populations of each hive are generally healthy, though I did notice 2 hives had lower populations then the rest of...
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...
We love the snow, but this week has reminded us that spring is around the corner and now we can’t wait for the warmer and longer and sunnier days ahead.
Why take a trip to the regular pharmacy when you can visit the hive pharmacy? No clean medicine cabinet is complete without bee propolis, nature's all-purpose soother. Propolis is a sticky, antioxidant rich substance with 300+ beneficial compounds. Made from plant and tree resins, bees use it to line their hive walls. There, it acts as an unstoppable barrier against foreign invaders and germs. That's why we like to call it 'the hive immune system'. If you’re a fan of our Propolis Toner you’re probably already aware of how amazing propolis is at soothing a scratchy throat and supporting immune health. (We don't leave home without it these days.) But did you know you can use propolis in...
Every spring beekeepers have to take stock of their bee hives. Which ones are strong and which ones are weak. The strong have amazing build up of population, because the queen is laying like crazy, and the weak have a queen that is really just walking around the combs not doing anything! So that's where re-queening comes in. You have to remove the queen who is not doing anything and introduce a new one. This sounds easy, but does not always go the way you think it should! Yesterday, I opened a few queen cages that had been in their new hives and most f them just walked out and were accepted by the hive. But one decided this was...
