How To Episodes

May 19, 2022

How To Plan Raised Pollinator Beds (074)

If a pollinator garden is in your future this summer, constructing a raised bed is one way to keep it under control and is a much easier approach to providing food for your bees, beauty for your yard and not …

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May 5, 2022

Installing Package Bees in Inclement Weather (072)

Package season is about over for 2022. Perhaps thankfully too, depending on where in the country you live. Installing packages does not always go well or as depicted in bee books or Internet videos. Sometimes, the weather just does not …

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April 28, 2022

Planning A Successful Bee Association Meeting (071)

Have you ever been involved in planning and carrying out a beekeeping meeting? If not, there are a host of things to consider that you may have missed when you simply ‘attend’ a meeting. Kim and Jim have attended probably …

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April 14, 2022

Supplemental Spring Feeding of Honey Bees (069)

If your colonies make it through the winter, or if you simply purchased more bees as a package or nuc, their next challenge is making it through the changeable spring weather. (Especially this year, it seems.) Your management challenge is …

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April 7, 2022

Adding Package Bees to Deadout Equipment (068)

This time of year, experienced and new beekeepers are receiving their packaged bees and nucs. Only a few of these packages and nucs are going home to new equipment. Many will go home to equipment left over from last year's …

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Jan. 20, 2022

Bee Beards - Part 2 (057)

In today’s episode, Kim and Jim continue their exploration of Bee Beards… though this time… they go big… really big bee beards you see in the movies, where they use 20 maybe 30 pounds of bees, and the person is …

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Jan. 13, 2022

Bee Beards - Part 1 (056)

Really? You want to do a bee beard? OK, let’s think this through. How much do you know about bees and bee beards, and why do you want to make a bee beard anyway? Some people will think you are …

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Jan. 6, 2022

Flower Garden Site Prep (055)

Jim has finally figured out where he wants his flowers to be next spring, so what’s next is getting those sites ready to plant, so that what he plants does the best it can for Jim, the bees and anybody …

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Dec. 30, 2021

New Year - New Equipment... Assembly Required? (054)

You can buy all of your beekeeping equipment already assembled and if wooden boxes, already painted. They cost more than if you do it yourself, but you don’t invest any time in assembly. Or, you can buy everything unassembled; nail …

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Dec. 23, 2021

Planning your Gardens for Bees (053)

Jim has finally taken to heart the old saying, “Plant a flower - Feed a bee” and wants to add some plants to his yard that will not only feed bees, but add beauty to his landscape. But Jim’s a …

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Dec. 9, 2021

Considering Packages or Nucs for the Spring (051)

Will it be packages of nucs next spring? It’s only December, how do I know what I’ll want, and, if any, how many I’ll want? Getting nucs or packages in the spring has changed a lot in the last several …

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July 15, 2021

Hot Summers and Bees (030)

It’s been hot in Ohio so far this summer (and a lot of other places too) but it’s also been wet. Hot and wet can make keeping bees a lot harder than normal. Kim and Jim talk about hot summers …

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