We rely strictly on non-chemical Integrated Pest Management (IPM). Instead of synthetic miticides, we use mechanical controls like drone brood removal, screen bottom boards, and genetic stock selected for strong hygienic behavior. This keeps mite levels under control without leaving chemical residues in our honey or wax.

Treatment-free beekeeping means managing hives without the use of synthetic chemicals, essential oils, or organic acids to kill pests. It works by allowing honeybee colonies to develop their own natural immunities and defenses. While it requires closer monitoring and stricter culling of weak genetics, it results in a much hardier, resilient local bee population.

We monitor our Varroa mite levels using the Powdered Sugar Shake method or Sticky Boards beneath screened bottom boards. The sugar roll gently dislodges mites from a sample of nurse bees without harming the bees, giving us an accurate count of the infestation percentage so we can make informed management decisions.

Yes, honeybee colonies can survive and thrive without treatments if they possess the right genetics. We select for bees with VSH (Varroa Sensitive Hygiene) traits. These bees can naturally detect mite-infested brood cells and remove them from the hive, breaking the reproductive cycle of the Varroa mite naturally.

When you buy honey from a miticide-free apiary, you are getting 100% pure, raw honey exactly as the bees intended. Many commercial treatments can accumulate over time in the hive’s wax combs and leach into the honey. Our chemical-free approach ensures that your honey is completely free of synthetic chemical residues and environmental toxins.

Varroa mites prefer to reproduce inside drone (male bee) brood cells because drones take longer to mature, giving the mites more time to reproduce. We use specialized drone foundation frames to encourage the bees to build drone comb. Once the cells are capped, we temporarily remove and freeze the frame to destroy the trapped mites, naturally removing a massive percentage of the mite population from the hive without chemicals.

A screened bottom board replaces the solid wooden floor of a traditional hive with a fine wire mesh. As bees move around the hive, mites naturally lose their grip and fall off. With a screened bottom, these mites fall completely through the mesh onto the ground or a sticky card below, preventing them from crawling back up onto a bee. This mechanical control constantly reduces mite loads by 10% to 15% entirely on its own.

Yes, creating a intentional brood break is a highly effective organic IPM strategy. By making a hive split or temporarily caging the queen, we stop the production of new bee larvae for a short window. Because Varroa mites absolutely require capped bee brood to lay their eggs, this break completely halts the mites' reproductive cycle, causing their population to drop naturally while giving the hive time to clean out existing pests.

We highly recommend starting with a standard 10-frame Langstroth hive for beginners. It is the most common hive design in the world, which means finding parts, replacement frames, and local mentors who understand the setup is incredibly easy compared to alternative designs like Top Bar or Warre hives.

During the active spring and summer build-up, we recommend inspecting your hives once every 7 to 10 days. This timeline allows you to monitor for swarm cells, check the queen’s laying pattern, and ensure they have enough space. Avoid inspecting more than once a week, as opening the hive too often stresses the bees and disrupts their internal temperature control.

Winter preparation starts in late summer by ensuring hives have heavy honey stores (usually 60–80 pounds) and a tight cluster of young bees. We reduce the hive entrance to keep out mice and cold drafts, ensure proper top ventilation to prevent deadly moisture buildup, and add an insulated inner cover. Because we are miticide-free, ensuring the bees enter winter with strong natural health is our best defense against the cold.

Catching a swarm is easiest when they are clustered in a tight ball on an accessible tree branch. We place a clean hive box or a cardboard nuc box directly beneath the cluster, give the branch a firm shake to drop the bees inside, and ensure the queen enters the box. Once the queen is safe inside, the rest of the flying bees will follow her scent, allowing us to safely move the new colony to our apiary at dusk.

A standard inspection should be quick and focused on a four-point checklist: check for the queen (or fresh, single eggs confirming she is present), assess overall colony health (look for white, pearly larvae), monitor for signs of swarming (look for queen cups or cells on the bottom of frames), and ensure the colony has plenty of open space to expand and store honey.

The ideal location for a beehive faces South or Southeast to catch the early morning sun, which wakes the bees up early to begin foraging. The spot should be level, dry, elevated off the damp ground, and protected from harsh winter winds by a natural tree line or fence. It also needs clean water nearby so the bees don’t end up visiting a neighbor’s swimming pool.

We try to let our bees live on their own honey stores as much as possible, but feeding becomes critical during early spring shortfalls, late summer dearths, or when establishing a new package or colony. Sugar syrup helps them build wax comb rapidly, while pollen patties provide a vital protein boost to stimulate brood rearing if natural pollen isn't available.

To support local honeybee populations, prioritize native trees, wildflowers, and shrubs that bloom at different times of the year. In our region, spring favorites include willows, maples, dandelions, and fruit blossoms. For the summer and fall dearths, planting clover, purple coneflower, bee balm, goldenrod, and aster provides vital nectar and protein-rich pollen when wild resources run low.

A healthy queen bee has a solid, tightly packed brood pattern with very few empty cells, showing she is fertile and active. A failing queen often produces a spotty, scattered “shotgun” pattern, or she may run out of fertilized eggs and begin laying drone brood in worker-sized cells. Seeing young larvae and eggs of the same size is the best sign that your queen is healthy and thriving.

Propolis is a sticky, resinous substance bees collect from tree buds and use as a hive sealant. More importantly, it acts as the colony’s natural immune system. It has incredibly powerful antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral properties that sterilize the hive. Selecting for bees with strong propolis-gathering traits helps the colony naturally fight off diseases without human-made medications.

Honeybees need massive amounts of water to cool the hive and dilute honey for feeding brood. We provide a dedicated water station near the apiary filled with floating corks, gravel, or moss. This gives the bees a secure place to land and drink without the risk of falling into deep water and drowning.

Pollen is the sole source of protein, fats, and vitamins for honeybees. Just like humans, bees need a varied diet to stay healthy. Access to diverse wild flowers allows them to develop robust fat bodies, which are critical for processing nutrients, resisting viruses, and detoxifying their bodies naturally from environmental stressors.

While honeybees don’t bond with humans the way a dog or cat does, evidence suggests they can recognize individual human faces over time! They use complex pattern recognition to identify flowers, which translates well to learning human features. They also get used to your specific scent, movement patterns, and routine.

Yes, honeybees absolutely sleep! Scientists have discovered that bees sleep between 5 to 8 hours a night, usually in short blocks of time. You can tell a bee is sleeping because her antenna stops moving, her body drops slightly, and she rests quietly on a comb. Older foraging bees even get a “deep sleep” to rest their brains after long days of flying.

Honey bees have five eyes, two separate stomachs, and beat their wings 11,400 times every minute to make their famous buzz. They also communicate through a “waggle dance” and produce honey that never spoils. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Body and Senses

• Five eyes: They have two large compound eyes and three tiny simple eyes on top of their head to spot light changes.
• Two stomachs: One is a regular stomach for food, and the second is a special honey stomach used to carry nectar.
• Face recognition: Bees can learn and remember human faces. [1, 2, 3]

Hive Habits and Communication

• Waggle dance: Bees do a special figure-eight dance to show other bees the exact direction and distance to flowers.
• Kicking out males: Male bees (drones) do not work or sting. When winter comes, worker bees kick them out of the hive to save food.
• Bee bread: Bees ferment pollen with spit and bacteria to make a nutrient-rich food called bee bread. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Here is a quick look at some incredible numbers behind a honey bee’s short life:

Bees have three photoreceptors that allow them to see some colors. Their eyes make color combinations based on: ultraviolet light, blue and green. They don’t have a photoreceptor for the color red which means that red looks like black for them. But they can see reddish wavelengths like yellow and orange. There is even a color called “bee’s purple” which is a combination of yellow and ultraviolet light which humans can’t see

The bee’s perception of color is directly linked to pollination. The color of flowers helps bees target the areas of nectar and pollen. Even though bees can’t see red, some red flowers are pollinated by bees. Red flowers that rely on bee-pollination actually have an iridescence on their flower petals that isn’t perceived by humans because it’s often in the UV spectrum. Pollinators, however, see an ultraviolet ‘landing strip’ that attracts them right to the center of the flower. In fact, many flowers have strinìking UV patterns on their petals that allow them to be identified much more quickly by bees.

It turns out that bees are capable of recognizing certain shapes. Several experiments have been conducted that confirm bees can easily recognize radiating forms like these two flower shapes:

Further studies have shown that bees are also capable of distinguishing the difference between simple shapes. Using the shapes in the image below, scientists found that bees couldn’t differentiate between the shapes in the top row, meaning that the circle, square, triangle and slash must have looked the same to them. The same was discovered with the shapes in the bottom row. However, bees could discern between the shapes in the top row and the shapes in the bottom row.

In addition to choosing the right color to paint your hives, you can also assign a symbol to each one to give the bees a hand in finding their way back home.

When a forager bee goes out and finds a really good nectar source they come back to the hive and tell their fellow foragers where to go to get the good stuff before it’s gone. Actually, they ‘show’ the other bees by performing a precise series of turns and shakes to communicate their findings and tell the other bees where to go. And, yes ‘Waggle Dance’ is the technical term.

Here’s how it works: The dancing bee waggles back and forth as she walks forward in a straight line, then circles around to repeat the dance. The length of the middle line, called the waggle run, shows roughly how far it is to the flower. The circle she makes to repeat the waggle run indicates how far the source is. Bees use the position of the sun and the relative direction of the waggle dance to calculate the direction they need to go.

It’s so satisfying to look at freshly built honeycomb, isn’t it? It’s so precise, so exact, so uniform. But, have you ever wondered “Why hexagons”? Why not triangles or squares which would also fit together nicely and not leave gaps requiring extra wax to fill them like circles would?

As it turns out, bee and math enthusiasts have been asking the same question for a long time. In 36 BCE, Roman scholar Marcus Terentius Varro was pondering the hexagon-shaped honeycomb and proposed an answer, which was dubbed “The Honeybee Conjecture”.

The honeybee conjecture states that a hexagonal structure was the most efficient way to divide a surface into regions of equal area with the least total perimeter.  But, Varro was never able to actually prove this theory.

It wasn’t until 1999 when mathematician Thomas Hales produced mathematical proof that Varro was right and the hexagon is simply the most efficient shape to hold the most amount of honey while using the least amount of building material.

People have been gathering honey from bees in the wild for at least 8,000-10,000 years. Based on Egyptian art, beekeeping has likely been happening for at least 4,500 years. Archeologists have found inscriptions in Egyptian tombs that depict pouring honey in jars and removing honey.

Evidence of pottery used as hives found in orderly rows dating from about 900 BCE was discovered at Rehov, a Bronze and Iron Age archaeological site in the Jordan Valley, Israel. In ancient Greece beekeeping was considered a highly valued industry and an ‘agricultural art’. Aspects of the lives of bees and beekeeping were discussed at length by Aristotle. Evidence has also been unearthed in China describing the art of beekeeping.

Bonus fact: Honey was found in King Tut’s tomb and it was still good!

Sorry, but her title is mostly ceremonial. She’s unique because she’s the largest female and the only bee capable of laying fertilized eggs which means the health of the queen can determine the health and survival of the hive. And, it’s true that she does receive special treatment from the worker bees who feed and clean her.

But she does not order the other worker bees around like you think a monarch might. The majority of the hive’s tasks are controlled by pheromones and other chemical signals that occur instinctively. When the queen is in the hive and doing her job she emits a pheromone that lets the bees know she’s present and accounted for which keeps the hive calm. However, if there’s a problem with her performance the worker bees will swiftly decide that it’s time to replace her.

The male bee has a very important job and a very sealed fate. A drone’s purpose in life is to assure the survival of the species by mating with queen bees. And after performing this valiant and essential task, they die.

When the males are hanging out in the hive before flying out to mate with a queen a male bee doesn’t harvest nectar or pollen, doesn’t help feed eggs or larvae, doesn’t build anything, doesn’t clean, and doesn’t even have a stinger so can’t defend anything either. They eat and take up space.

So, a drone who is still in the hive at the end of the season is going to meet a tragic fate in the fall. The worker bees, who are programmed for efficiency, are not going to waste any extra space, honey or energy on drones. So, once the temperature starts to drop; out they go in the name of efficiency. The workers banish the remaining drones from the hive out into the elements never to survive.

Ok, it isn’t exactly quacking like a duck, but it’s kind of similar. When queens are ready to hatch out of their cells they begin making vibrations that resemble a sort of quacking sound. Then she chews her way out of the cell and her vibrations change and she starts making a ‘toot’ sound. Researchers believe that this ‘tooting’ is a sort of battle cry letting the rest of the bees know that she has hatched, she is the first, and that it would be best to not let the other queens hatch to avoid having a sting-battle to the death. As we know, there can be only one queen!

We typically harvest honey in late summer, around August or September, once the main nectar flows have completely finished. Before taking any honey, we check the frames to ensure the bees have fully capped the honeycomb with wax, which means the moisture level is low enough to prevent fermentation. Most importantly, we always leave enough honey for the bees to survive the winter.

Raw honey is extracted straight from the comb, strained gently to remove large wax particles, and bottled immediately—preserving all its natural enzymes, antioxidants, and local pollen grains. Commercial honey is often heavily pasteurized under high heat and ultra-filtered, which destroys its nutritional value, removes the healthy pollen, and kills the distinct floral flavors.

No, pure raw honey will never spoil or expire! Because it has incredibly low moisture levels and high natural acidity, bacteria and microorganisms cannot survive in it. Archaeologists have even found pots of honey in ancient Egyptian tombs that are thousands of years old and still perfectly edible. If your raw honey crystallizes or turns solid over time, simply place the jar in warm water to liquefy it again.

We use a mechanical honey extractor that works via centrifugal force. First, we use a warm knife to gently slice off the thin layer of wax capping that seals the honey. Then, we place the open frames into a spinning drum. As it spins, the honey is slung out against the walls and drains down to a spout, leaving the wax comb perfectly intact so we can give it right back to the bees to reuse.

Bees transform watery flower nectar into thick honey through a process of enzyme addition and moisture evaporation. Forager bees pass the collected nectar to hive bees, who mix it with special enzymes from their honey stomachs. They then spread the liquid across cells and rapidly fan their wings to create airflow, reducing the water content down below 18% before sealing it with a clean wax cap.

Nothing goes to waste in our apiary! We save all the pure wax cappings that are sliced off during extraction. We melt them down in a solar wax melter or double boiler, filter out any leftover hive debris, and turn the clean, aromatic wax into handmade products like block beeswax, natural candles, and skin-safe lip balms.

Reports of queen bees living up to 5 years.

There is only one. At times of requeening, there may be more virgin queen bees in the hive, but ultimately, there is only one.

Her sole job is to lay eggs to keep the colony going. She can lay 2000 eggs per day. She sets the Tone for the Hive: The entire mood of a bee colony depends on the Queen. She controls it with a special pheromone, which unifies the bees in her care. It’s how she communicates her presence and keeps thousands of bees working in harmony.

No, She is supported by Her Workers: The Queen doesn’t forage or care for herself. Worker bees feed her, clean her, and tend to her needs so she can focus on her sole responsibility—reproduction.

Royal Jelly Makes the Difference: Queen bees aren’t born, they’re made. Larvae are fed royal jelly instead of honey or pollen, helping them develop ovaries and the ability to reproduce.

Yes she could, multiple times even but her Sting is Reserved for Rivals: While worker bees and drones can sting only once in their lives, a Queen bee can sting multiple times. They use this ability only against other would-be queens during succession battles.

Mating Happens Once: The queen mates only during her “maiden flight,” storing enough sperm from male drones to fertilize eggs throughout her life. She can mate with 15-24 males during this time. She will lay 2 kinds of eggs. Fertilized vs. Unfertilized: Queen bees lay both fertilized and unfertilized eggs. Fertilized eggs can become worker bees or new Queens, while unfertilized eggs become male drones.

If a hive gets too crowded, the Queen takes a portion of the drones and leaves to find a new home. This group of bees is called a swarm, and a new, younger Queen takes over the hive.