I love our community of Arizona Backyard Beekeepers! We share our questions, our solutions, our successes and our failures. It’s how we grow. If nobody ever lets us in on things they are struggling with, we end up thinking we are the only ones having a hard time. What…
Honey, Moringa, and Healthy Skin!
HONEY is amazing …Duh! …and when you combine it with other amazing ingredients you get a synthesis of those combined benefits. Honey is so beneficial when you put it inside your body, but it is just as fantastic when you put it ON your body. Did you know…
A Power Elixir with Turmeric, Moringa, & Honey
Make your own Power Elixir Ok, so we keep bees because they are fascinating, they pollinate our food crops, and they produce HONEY! That sweet, liquid gold that has been cherished for thousands of years for its sweet taste as well as for its healing properties. We all…
Arizona Backyard Beekeepers: Fall and Winter hive care
Get your hives ready for an Arizona Winter Last night’s Arizona Backyard Beekeepers meeting was all about making sure we are ready to get our hives through the winter months. It sounds a little crazy when you say “winter” in central Arizona. We don’t have mounds of snow…
Hive Inspections: A checklist for how to do it and what to look for
The Importance of Hive Inspections One of the considerations before deciding to keep backyard bees in Arizona is the commitment to inspect your hives weekly. Other parts of the country can get away with doing monthly checks, but because of the constant threat of Africanization, we need to visit…
Getting Bees out of Trees
A Tale of Two Trees I love it when I can help remove bees from places where they aren’t wanted. Ceilings, walls, and floors are the usual places, and they require cutting things open and hours of hard, sweaty, sticky work. But when I was called to remove bees…
Can I Keep Bees in Arizona?
A Hive in Every Backyard I know it’s a pipe dream, and not everyone would even want a hive in their backyard, but putting the idea out there increases possibility in people’s minds. We all know that bees are struggling and the majority of honeybees in the United…
Releasing a Queen from a Push-in Cage
Observation is your best friend If you are following the re-queening of the rescue hive (HERE), then here we are at day 5 to release the queen. It is good to give the queen 4-7 days before trying to release her. If the bees show any aggressive behavior toward…
Arizona Backyard Beekeepers
Arizona Backyard Beekeepers is a group of Arizona Beekeepers whose motto is “beekeeping alone isn’t fun.” Beekeeping in Arizona is different than any where else and it is vital for beekeepers here to connect and help one another. Our goal is to make meetings and our Facebook group accessible and…
Requeening a Rescue Hive
Requeening Using a Push-in Cage If you are a backyard beekeeper in Arizona, one of the skills you are going to have to learn is to requeen your hive. Queens don’t last forever, and in our temperate climate the queens are active all year round. Not only that, but…