Beekeeping at FiveApple

The light and the leaves are both saying Autumn has started. Our winter bees are already emerging and there are things we can do to give them their best chance. In today's episode I'm talking about the things I'm getting done to get ready for the bees journey through Winter.kind regards to you all in every kind of weather,Leigh Also: for my past episode on Condensing Hives vs Ventilating Hives...

Found a research article that was food for thought on how warmer autumns may be having effects on our bees that aren't so good: creating smaller late-winter clusters by increased wear and tear on the precious winter bees who should not be as active as the temps drive them to be. But also, it goes into novel solutions (well, not novel in Canada but novel in more Southern climes) to help. Do...

Ep165: Bee Radio Reader "Reflections on the Past Seasons" by Richard Wahl (Off the Wahl Beekeeping Column, Nov 2025. Read by permission of Bee Culture magazine. )Today it's a radio reader episode on learning to reflect on the past in a way that makes it useful for the future. As well as a bit of clarification on the last episode.Link to the article:...

[Last Thursday Apple podcasts had an outage and the episode didn't show up as a new one in your feed. Here it is again for the Apple folks -- just a duplicate of last weeks episode that was missing for many! --Leigh]Listeners,This has been a test year in my bee yards, to see if my old treatment-free methods that worked so well for 16 years in an isolated bee yard would hold up in areas with more...

This has been a test year in my bee yards, to see if my old treatment-free methods that worked so well for 16 years in an isolated bee yard would hold up in areas with more beekeepers. Answer: Nope.[Deep sigh and regroup. ]I now feel so lucky to have learned a hybrid system that still allows me to work on my long term project of stock selection towards mite resistance–while also utilizing organic...

Today it's about the bee's most awful behavior: ROBBING. I found a tip on reducing robbing while doing inspections and it works great!!The PerfectBee.com website I mentioned. The article was from their email newsletter but here's a link to an article on robbing on their blog. BetterBee's article on robbing and preventionRusty of HoneyBeeSuite.com on robbing and another post on preventing it.May...

Today Episode:July bee yard updateWilliam's tips on honey harvest (see Williams letter here) Tip on making bee boxes last longer "painting with glue" — this whole presentation is well worth watching! ( YouTube Link)Invitation to see Julia Mahood present on drones (see below for info) Reminder to take care in the heat with electrolytesThoughts on "Chasing Sourwood" and the impacts on stationary...

UBO, PKB, FKB, mite washes, Harbo assays... It's an alphabet soup out there of ways to test your bees for hygienic traits and resistance to varroa. You may be testing to find out when to apply mite treatments or a brood break to a colony and in that case a simple mite wash is usually enough. But you may be testing to find out your very best genetics you have to raise next years queens for your...

In this episode I share my own process for getting honey from the hives to the jars. It's quirky but it works for me and I'm hoping you might find ideas for your own process or just enjoy hearing how someone else does it. That's what I did when researching this episode!For supporting patrons, I've also collected a few videos (with video summaries included) you might enjoy and for newer...

So you have a caged mated queen and a colony that needs requeening, how to make that happen (so that your special queen actually survives the process!) is what we cover today!As a thank-you, Patrons got this episode a day early and also get a bonus portion covering the vertical requeening methods that Ryan mentioned last episode plus tips and resources on introducing virgin queens. Supporting...