The Bees | Beekeeping Education and Apiary Care | Gypsy Shoals Farm

The Importance of Spring Feeding Honeybee Hives

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The Importance of Spring Feeding Honeybee Hives
Spring feeding is critical to supporting the backyard beekeeper’s honeybee hive. Here are the reasons why feeding sugar water is recommended for both new and established colonies.

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Spring Preparation for Success in the Apiary

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Spring Preparation for Success in the Apiary
As Spring arrives, beekeepers across the United States start getting excited about the upcoming high season. Your honeybees have been tightly consolidated and conserving resources just to survive the Winter. Let’s review a few very important things that the beekeeper needs to do in the Spring in order to set their beehives up for a successful season.

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Planting Clover for Your Honeybees

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Planting Clover for Your Honeybees
Purposeful planting of clover is an inexpensive and effective way for backyard beekeepers and apiaries to maintain land and support their honeybee colony needs in the process. With that being said, there are many varieties of clover so let’s take a look at what your bees want and how you can provide it for them.

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How to Prevent Honey Robbers & Meat Eaters in Beehives

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How to Prevent Honey Robbers & Meat Eaters in Beehives
Resource robbing and the arrival of yellow jackets and other wasps go hand-in-hand as common problems a beekeeper may face in the autumn months. Both are very serious problems and should be addressed immediately by the beekeeper in order to protect the hive’s survival.

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The Components of a Bee Hive & Their Functions for the Colony

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The Components of a Bee Hive & Their Functions for the Colony
Just like the bees themselves, each part of their hive design serves a very specific function to the colony as a whole. They truly are nature’s master architects. As beekeepers, we try to emulate the same ideal conditions of their natural design into a system that we can work inside to manage the hive. The result is the Langstroth hive design. Although there are other designs used, this is the most common colony setup in the United States. 

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