Beginner’s Pages and Pollinator Helpers

First year beekeeping

Updated 8 Jan 2023. I continually update this page, so please refer to the current version. For mite treatment options, search “Varroa Mite Management” Beekeeping in a Nutshell I’ve attempted to distill 50 year’s of beekeeping experience into a short set of instructions for starting out with bees in the Sierra Foothills. This page provides […]

Natural Beekeeping: A Reckoning

There is a great deal of argument about how “naturally” we beekeepers should manage our colonies. But the mere act of “keeping” bees implies that it is unnatural. Truly natural “beekeeping” would be to set out empty cavities (hives or other hollows) for swarms to move into (but not more cavities than would “naturally” exist […]

The Evolution of a Beekeeper

I liked this article by Ernie, since it well reflected the typical learning curve of a newbee. The article originally appeared in the Summer 2023 edition of BeesCene, the journal of the BC Honey Producers’ Association, and is here included by permission.

Nuc, package, and queen sales and pick up instructions

Bee Sales by Golden West Bees 2024 Announcement: We are now collaborating with Olivarez Honey Bees to produce queens from our chosen breeders, mated in a dedicated isolated mating yard stocked with our own drone mother colonies. Please contact them for large orders. For nuc sales, please contact Eric at oliverhoneysales@gmail.com We are a small […]

Resources for beginners and those wishing to help pollinators

I Googled the word “beekeeping” today, which came back with 39 million results — far too many for most of us to read! The other issue is that with the advent of the Internet, those with strong opinions are free to upload their thoughts, without anyone first checking them for supportive evidence. And in beekeeping, there […]

Modeling Nuc Buildup

First published in: American Bee Journal, June 2018

Contents The Players and the Numbers. 1 A Simple Model 4 Wrap up. 11 Acknowledgements. 11 References. 12 Modeling Nuc Buildup First Published in ABJ June 2018 Randy Oliver ScientificBeekeeping.com My sons and I sell a lot of nucs each spring. But after a couple of months, not all have built up to […]

Monitoring varroa

The concepts of monitoring pest population levels, and taking action as such pest levels approach seasonally-adjusted treatment thresholds is integral to integrated pest management, no matter whether we are speaking of varroa or any other agricultural pest. When brood is present in a hive, varroa increase is nearly always exponential from Day 1–in non resistant […]

Wheelchair beekeeping

I recently had the pleasure of meeting Idaho beekeeper Randy Geile, who has come up with a clever home-built modification of Langstroth hives that allows those who are wheelchair bound to practice beekeeping. View his video here. Thank you, Randy!

The Rules Redux

My recent article, “The Rules for Successful Beekeeping,” got more response (overwhelmingly favorable) than all my previous articles combined! (I’ve received requests to reprint it in several foreign countries, including a translation into Serbian!). What I also discovered is that there are a few beekeepers suffering from advanced cases of HDD—Humor Deficit Disorder. This is […]

The “Rules” For Successful Beekeeping

Note: I stuck my neck out a bit with this article, and if you’re easily offended perhaps you should skip it. However, the feedback on this article has been overwhelmingly favorable. The few that were offended apparently missed my point—which is that there are no rigid rules as to how you must keep bees! Beekeeping […]

Beginning Beekeeping Class Notes

I’ve taught beginning beekeeping classes for many years. Over those years, I’ve made an outline of notes. I’ve put them into pdf format for your viewing or printout. These are rough notes, but are searchable for subject matter, as well as having a table of contents.