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It May Finally Be Time for American Honey to Go Organic

If you have ever shopped for organic honey in the United States, you may have noticed something strange. You can easily find a jar bearing the USDA Organic seal, but chances are very good that the honey inside was not produced by a beekeeper in the continental United States.

That is not because American beekeepers cannot manage bees organically. It is largely because our organic certification system has struggled for decades with one inconvenient fact:

Bees do not respect property lines.

A new study from researchers at Cornell University, Penn State and Auburn University may finally give the USDA the scientific evidence needed to rethink how organic honey is certified in the United States.

And I think it is time we have that conversation.

Why Is American Organic Honey So Rare?

USDA organic certification normally works very well with agriculture where a farmer controls the land being certified.

If you grow organic tomatoes, for example, you know where your tomatoes are growing. You control what fertilizer is applied, what pesticides are used and how the crop is managed.

Honeybees are considerably less cooperative.

A worker bee leaves her hive and chooses where she wants to forage. She may visit flowers a few hundred yards away or travel miles if necessary. The beekeeper cannot put up a fence and tell her:

"Sorry, ladies. That soybean field isn't certified organic."

Historically, this has created an enormous obstacle for American beekeepers seeking organic certification.

USDA's National Organic Standards Board developed proposed apiculture standards requiring beekeepers to demonstrate suitable organic or uncontaminated forage surrounding their apiaries. An earlier USDA recommendation prohibited locating colonies where prohibited materials or contamination sources existed within four miles, or 6.4 kilometers, of the apiary.

A later 2010 National Organic Standards Board recommendation attempted to refine the concept, establishing a 3-kilometer forage zone and recognizing that some bees would inevitably travel beyond it. The recommendation required producers to demonstrate sufficient organic forage and minimal contamination risk around their colonies.

The USDA even began working toward a specific National Organic Program standard for apiculture. Federal regulatory documents show that the proposed rule was intended to address forage areas, supplemental feeding, hive construction, pest management, replacement bees and an organic apiculture system plan.

But a comprehensive federal organic apiculture standard was never finalized.

Today, USDA says honey can be certified under existing organic production and handling standards, with certification handled through USDA-accredited certifiers.

Technically possible?

Yes.

Practically achievable for most continental U.S. beekeepers?

That is another story.

Imagine Trying to Find Four Miles of Organic Land

Consider what a four-mile radius actually means.

A four-mile radius around an apiary covers roughly 50 square miles, or more than 32,000 acres.

The beekeeper would need extraordinary control or knowledge of that landscape.

Think about everything that could fall inside it:

Farm fields.

Lawns.

Golf courses.

Roadsides.

Power-line rights-of-way.

Municipal properties.

Businesses.

Gardens.

Mosquito-control areas.

Neighboring farms.

Any one of those properties could potentially use herbicides, insecticides or other materials that are prohibited under organic production.

That requirement might be achievable in a remote forest or enormous protected area.

For an ordinary beekeeper in Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio or much of the rest of the continental United States, it is a regulatory mountain.

Cornell researchers put the consequence rather starkly: current requirements have effectively prevented continental U.S. beekeepers from participating in the organic honey market. Cornell reported that only three producers in Hawaii were producing certified organic U.S. honey under these constraints, leaving the United States dependent largely on imported organic honey.

That creates an odd situation.

An American consumer can buy USDA-certified organic honey.

An American beekeeper just has an extraordinarily difficult time producing it.

But What If Bees Aren't Flying That Far Most of the Time?

This is where the new research gets particularly interesting.

Researchers tracked honeybee foraging behavior and found that the median foraging distance was approximately 750 meters, significantly shorter than the distances upon which some organic certification assumptions have been based.

Bees certainly can fly several miles.

That does not mean most bees do.

There is an important difference between asking:

"How far is a honeybee physically capable of flying?"

and:

"Where are the bees from this colony actually collecting most of their nectar?"

Organic standards should arguably be concerned with the second question.

Researchers established 72 organically managed colonies on six organic farms in the northeastern United States. The landscapes within three kilometers of the colonies consisted of between 56% and 93% natural or semi-natural habitat, including forests, wetlands and fallow fields.

The researchers then tested the honey.

And this is the part that should get the USDA's attention.

The Honey Was as Clean as Imported Organic Honey

The research team screened honey produced by those colonies for 96 pesticide residues and compared the results with commercially available organic and conventional honey.

The honey produced by the organically managed northeastern colonies had pesticide residue levels that were low and comparable to certified organic imported honey and certified organic Hawaiian honey.

Only one northeastern sample exceeded the applicable maximum residue limits.

Conventional honey contained substantially higher residue levels.

Penn State researcher Margarita López-Uribe summarized the significance of the findings clearly: the study demonstrated that clean honey capable of meeting organic expectations could be produced in the continental United States even when hives were located on relatively small organic farms.

That is a pretty big deal.

Instead of assuming that every flower within several miles of a hive must be controlled by the beekeeper, we could begin developing organic honey standards around actual risk, bee behavior, landscape composition and measurable residues.

That sounds much more like science.

Organic Beekeeping Is About More Than Where Bees Fly

Changing the forage requirement should not mean turning the USDA Organic label into a participation trophy.

Organic hive management itself is demanding.

Varroa destructor mites remain one of the greatest threats to honeybee colonies. Conventional beekeepers commonly have access to synthetic miticides, including amitraz. Under organic management, beekeepers instead rely on permitted approaches and naturally occurring compounds such as organic acids and other approved treatments.

That matters because some chemical residues can accumulate in beeswax.

Comb is reused by colonies year after year, which means contamination can persist long after a treatment was initially applied.

In the Cornell-led study, researchers therefore began with empty hive equipment and allowed bees to build new comb under organic management before honey was collected.

The 2010 National Organic Standards Board recommendations similarly envisioned organic apiculture standards addressing hive materials, new foundation, feeding records, permitted treatments, forage, traceability and recordkeeping.

Those are meaningful standards.

We should keep them.

Organic Should Mean Something

I understand why USDA organic certification has been cautious about honey.

Consumers pay more for products carrying that green-and-white seal. USDA says certified operations must follow federal organic regulations and undergo oversight from accredited certifying agents. Certification involves an application, review, onsite inspection and continuing annual review.

Consumers deserve confidence that "organic" means something.

The answer therefore should not be:

Make organic honey easier to certify.

The answer should be:

Make organic honey certification scientifically defensible.

There is a difference.

A modern organic apiculture standard could combine several forms of evidence:

• Organic management of the colony and permitted Varroa treatments.
• Clean wax or comb transitioned under organic management.
• Documented forage conditions surrounding the apiary.
• Reasonable buffers based on actual honeybee foraging behavior rather than extreme maximum flight distances.
• Restrictions on obvious nearby contamination sources.
• Good hive and treatment records.
• Periodic pesticide-residue testing of honey or wax.

Such a system might actually provide consumers with more useful information than drawing an enormous circle on a map and hoping no bee crosses it.

There Is an Economic Argument Too

According to Cornell's Scott McArt, consumers are willing to pay approximately 20% to 30% more for certified organic honey than for non-organic certified honey.

American beekeepers are currently largely locked out of that premium market.

That matters at a time when beekeeping has become increasingly difficult and expensive. Colony losses remain high, Varroa management continues to demand significant attention and equipment and labor costs continue whether a colony survives the winter or not.

Cornell's researchers estimated that roughly one in five beekeepers already manages colonies using organic methods.

Those beekeepers may already be doing much of the difficult work.

They simply cannot control thousands or tens of thousands of acres surrounding their bees.

Meanwhile, American retailers can sell USDA Organic honey produced elsewhere.

Something about that system deserves another look.

This Could Also Encourage Better Beekeeping

I think there is another potential benefit.

Give American beekeepers a realistic route toward organic certification and some will pursue it.

That creates an economic incentive for more beekeepers to transition away from persistent synthetic hive treatments, rotate old comb, document management practices, carefully select apiary locations and pay greater attention to pesticide exposure in the surrounding landscape.

It could also encourage partnerships between beekeepers and organic farmers.

Instead of organic certification being effectively unreachable, it could become a management goal.

That is how standards can change behavior.

Bees Will Never Read the USDA Rulebook

No regulation is ever going to completely control where a honeybee flies.

She is going to leave the hive, decide where the best nectar is and get to work.

That is precisely why our organic standards need to reflect bee biology.

The latest research does not prove that every backyard hive in America should suddenly qualify as organic. Far from it. The researchers themselves say additional studies should examine other regions of the country.

But it does provide strong evidence that continental U.S. beekeepers can produce honey with pesticide residues comparable to certified organic honey without controlling every acre for miles around their colonies.

That deserves serious consideration from USDA.

Organic certification should protect consumers.

It should encourage responsible agricultural practices.

It should be rigorous.

But it should also be achievable when a producer can scientifically demonstrate that the product meets the goal the regulation was designed to accomplish.

Nearly twenty-five years after USDA first wrestled with how to define organic apiculture, we now have much better tools for understanding bee movement, landscape exposure and chemical residues.

Maybe it is finally time for the rules to catch up with the bees.

Sources

Cornell University, Cornell Chronicle. “Insights into bee biology could ease US rules for organic honey.” July 30, 2026. The article summarizes the new Cornell, Penn State and Auburn research into bee foraging distance and pesticide residues in organically managed U.S. colonies.

USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, National Organic Standards Board. “Organic Apiculture Recommendation,” October 2010. The recommendation proposed specific requirements for forage zones, feeding, hive construction, health care, treatments and recordkeeping for organic apiaries.

USDA Agricultural Marketing Service. Earlier Recommended Organic Apiculture Standards. These proposed standards included a restriction involving prohibited materials or contamination sources within four miles (6.4 km) of an apiary.

USDA Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs / Agricultural Marketing Service. “National Organic Program, Organic Apiculture Practice Standard,” RIN 0581-AD31. Federal regulatory records document USDA's effort to create dedicated organic apiculture standards covering forage, hive construction, feeding, pest control and other production practices.

USDA Agricultural Marketing Service. “Labeling Organic Products.” USDA confirms that honey may currently be certified under existing organic production and handling standards through an authorized certifying agent.

USDA Agricultural Marketing Service. “Becoming a Certified Operation.” USDA describes the organic certification process, including application, review, onsite inspection, certification and annual renewal.

We Split That Hive Three Times... and It Swarmed Anyway

Sometimes bees remind us that they didn't read the beekeeping books.

Our Strongest Hive: Local PA Raised Bees

This spring, we had one colony that was absolutely booming. The hive was packed with bees, producing swarm cells, and showing all the classic signs that it was preparing to divide. To stay ahead of them, we performed not one, not two, but three splits from that colony.

And yet... they swarmed anyway.

At first, that feels a little frustrating. Beekeepers spend a lot of time trying to prevent swarms because when half your workforce flies away, so does a good portion of your honey crop. So there they are, up 40 feet in a tree...

Further Thoughts

But after thinking about it, I'm not entirely convinced the bees were wrong.

The original queen was at least three years old. For a honey bee queen, that's getting up there in age. While queens can live several years, their egg-laying ability and pheromone production naturally decline over time. Many colonies will replace a queen after two or three years through a process called supersedure, where the workers decide it's time for new leadership.

In other words, the workers hold elections.

The fascinating part is that scientists are still uncovering how bees decide who gets the crown.

A new study from researchers at the University of California, Riverside challenged the long-standing idea that royal jelly alone creates a queen. Scientists found that worker bees actively engineer queen development through a combination of special queen cells, intensive nursing care, and social interactions. The researchers describe it as a coordinated colony effort rather than simply feeding a larva a magical food. Queens aren't just fed differently. They're raised differently from the very beginning.

That's a remarkable thought.

A colony doesn't simply grow a queen. Thousands of workers collectively decide that one larva is worth investing in and then create the conditions that allow her to become royalty.

Maybe that's what was happening in our hive.

Perhaps the weather played a role. Pennsylvania spring weather this year has been about as predictable as a squirrel on espresso. Long stretches of rain can delay mating flights, disrupt nectar flows, and throw colony timing out of sync. Or perhaps the bees simply decided that after three years it was time for fresh genetics and a young queen.

Sometimes bees swarm because they're crowded.

Sometimes they swarm because conditions are perfect.

And sometimes they swarm because they have plans that don't include asking the beekeeper first.

The more time I spend around honey bees, the more I realize that every hive is running an experiment. We can provide space, monitor health, make splits, and do our best to guide them, but the colony still has a vote. Often a very strong one.

So despite three splits, the old queen left with a swarm.

The remaining bees raised new queens.

The cycle continues.

And honestly? That's one of the reasons bees are so cool.

For creatures with brains smaller than a sesame seed, they somehow manage succession planning, construction projects, food storage, climate control, security operations, childcare, and occasionally ignoring their beekeeper's advice.

Not bad for a bunch of insects.

What Now?

Not wanting to miss the opportunity, we put a nuc box on a ladder about 10 feet high near the tree where the swarm settled. The scouts are undoubtedly busy evaluating potential homes and presenting their findings back to the cluster. Maybe they'll decide our nuc box is perfect. Maybe they'll choose a hollow tree half a mile away that wasn't even on our radar. At this point, we're basically waiting to see whether the swarm accepts our real estate listing or continues house hunting elsewhere. The bees, as usual, have the final vote. 🐝🏡

----
References:
University of California, Riverside: "How Honeybees Really Crown Their Queens" (June 2026)
Penn State Extension: "Queen productivity and replacement timelines"
Bee Culture Magazine: "Research on supersedure and queen replacement behavior"

Swarms, Ground Bees, and Why We Don’t Go Full Demolition Derby on a Hive

Yes, we absolutely do pick up swarms. If you spot a cluster of honeybees hanging from a tree branch, fence post, mailbox, or some other oddly chosen piece of real estate, give us a call at (724-822-3854) and we’ll gladly come scoop them up anywhere in the Butler County, PA area. Before everyone hits full panic mode and declares a backyard bee emergency, though, let’s take a quick stroll through Bee Identification 101. Not every buzzing crowd is a honeybee swarm, and knowing the difference between a true swarm and our native ground-dwelling pollinators can save a whole lot of unnecessary worry, phone calls, and dramatic pointing at the lawn. 🐝

Every spring and early summer, the bee panic hotline starts buzzing:

“There’s a giant ball of bees hanging from my tree!”
“Bees are flying in and out of the ground by my shed!”
“Can you come remove them?”

This is usually where we play detective and sort out two very different situations: a swarm of honeybees and ground-nesting bees. They may both involve fuzzy little aviators, but they are about as similar as a school bus and a motorcycle. Both get you somewhere, but the ride is very different.

The Great Bee Mix-Up

When most people see “a lot of bees,” they assume one thing: honeybees have moved in and must be relocated immediately.

Not so fast.

A huge number of the bees people spot in spring are actually native ground bees, not honeybees at all. These solitary bees are often mistaken for an aggressive infestation when they are really just tiny homeowners minding their own business.

Honeybees, on the other hand, tend to be the ones making dramatic public appearances with their “let’s move the whole neighborhood at once” swarm behavior.

Think of it this way:

Ground bees are the quiet neighbors who keep to themselves and wave politely from across the yard.

Swarming honeybees are the family moving cross-country with three U-Hauls and all their cousins.

What Is a Swarm?

A swarm happens when a honeybee colony gets crowded and decides it is time to split.

The old queen leaves with thousands of worker bees to search for a new home, while a new queen takes over the original hive.

For a short time, that traveling cluster may land on a tree branch, fence post, mailbox, or some other wildly inconvenient place. They gather into that familiar football-shaped clump while scout bees search for permanent housing.

Here is the surprising part: Swarms are usually very gentle.

They are not defending honey, brood, or a hive. They are basically road-tripping with packed suitcases and nowhere to unpack yet. Their focus is finding real estate, not causing trouble.

This is why beekeepers are often happy to collect swarms. It is like free bee delivery, nature’s version of curbside pickup.

What About Ground Bees?

Ground bees are a completely different story.

These are often solitary native bees that nest in small burrows in sandy or loose soil. You might notice little volcano-shaped mounds of dirt with bees darting in and out.

This can look alarming, but most ground bees are incredibly docile. Many females can sting, but rarely do. Males cannot sting at all, though they may hover around trying to look intimidating. It is all showmanship. Tiny bee theater.

They are also excellent pollinators and usually only stay active for a few weeks before moving on.

Translation: if you leave them alone, they will often solve the “problem” themselves.

Why We Don’t Do Structural Bee Removal

This is the question that surprises people most.

“Can’t you just cut open the wall and take the bees?”

Technically? Sometimes.

Realistically? We do not.

Structural removals involve opening walls, soffits, roofs, floors, or other parts of a building to access a colony that has built comb inside.

That is not a simple “grab the bees and go” situation.

It often means:

• Cutting into finished structures
• Locating the full extent of comb and honey stores
• Removing every bit of wax, brood, and honey
• Preventing melted honey from causing future damage
• Repairing access points so another colony does not move in

That is major work requiring construction knowledge, liability coverage, and often specialized removal equipment.

For small hobby beekeepers like us, structural removal crosses the line from “bee rescue” into “unexpected home renovation project.”

And trust me, no one wants a surprise sentence that starts with: “Well, we had to open your dining room wall…”

Instead, if bees are established inside a structure, we recommend contacting a professional bee removal specialist or licensed pest and wildlife expert who handles cut-outs properly.

When to Call a Beekeeper

Give a beekeeper a call if:

🐝 You have a visible hanging cluster of honeybees
🐝 The bees have only recently appeared
🐝 They are exposed and accessible

If the bees are entering a wall, chimney, soffit, or other enclosed structure, that is usually beyond a standard swarm pickup.

If they are in the ground and seem calm, chances are they are native ground bees and best left alone.

A Little Bee Patience Goes a Long Way

Not every buzzing visitor is a crisis.

Sometimes it is a honeybee swarm looking for a fresh start.
Sometimes it is native ground bees doing their pollinator thing.
And sometimes the best course of action is simply to pause, observe, and let nature do what it has been doing for millions of years.

The bees generally know what they are doing.

Even if they occasionally choose the world’s least convenient mailbox. 🐝📬

Honeybees, Tiny Goggles, and the Great Flower Blur Mystery 🐝

There’s a question buzzing around the scientific world that honestly sounds like it was dreamed up during a late-night beekeeping session beside a smoker and a half-empty mug of coffee:

Can honeybees see moving objects better than still ones?

As it turns out… yes. And that changes how we think about flowers, flight, and the tiny airborne math wizards we call bees.

A recent study published in the journals.biologists.com explored how motion affects visual acuity in honeybees. In plain English: researchers wanted to know whether moving things are easier for bees to see than stationary ones.

Spoiler alert: bees apparently love a little razzle-dazzle.

The Bee Eye View

Honeybees do not see the world the way we do. Their compound eyes are made up of thousands of tiny visual units called ommatidia. Imagine trying to watch television through a disco ball made of microscopic kaleidoscopes. That’s roughly the neighborhood.

Because of this, bees are not famous for razor-sharp detail. They can’t sit twenty yards away and admire the fine print on your fancy garden sign. But they are astonishingly good at detecting movement, patterns, contrast, and optic flow while flying at what feels like irresponsible speeds directly into your face.

The researchers used a Y-maze setup where bees had to choose between visual patterns. Some patterns stayed still. Others moved. The scientists then measured how well the bees could distinguish details under those different conditions.

The result?

Motion helped the bees detect visual information more effectively.

Basically, a moving object grabs a bee’s attention like someone dramatically waving a pie at a county fair.

Why This Matters to Flowers

This is where things get delightfully weird.

Flowers are not exactly famous for sprinting around meadows. But many flowers do sway, bob, wobble, and shimmy in the wind. Previous research connected to this team suggested bees may actually prefer oscillating flowers.

So imagine a breezy spring afternoon in the apiary.

One flower stands perfectly still like it’s posing for a Victorian portrait.

Another dances around in the wind like it just heard banjo music.

The bee may spot the dancing flower more easily because movement enhances visual detection.

In other words, flowers might accidentally be running tiny roadside attraction campaigns.

“Fresh nectar here! Now featuring interpretive dance!”

Tiny Pilots with Furious Processing Power

One of my favorite things about bee research is realizing over and over again that bees are not merely fuzzy honey tubes with wings.

These insects are aerial navigation experts:

• They calculate speed using optic flow.
• They avoid collisions in cluttered spaces.
• They recognize patterns and landmarks.
• They adapt flight based on gaps and obstacles.

And now we know motion itself may sharpen what they can perceive.

Meanwhile, I still walk into the cedar chest in daylight.

What This Means for Beekeepers

For backyard beekeepers, this study adds another little layer to understanding forage behavior.

It may help explain why bees sometimes seem more interested in certain patches during breezy weather. It also reinforces how visually tuned bees are to movement in the environment. A waving patch of blooms might essentially glow brighter in "BeeVision" than something perfectly still.

Honestly, the more scientists study bees, the more they sound like tiny biological drones designed by an intelligent designer.

Final Thoughts from the Hive

The world of a honeybee is not static. It’s alive with motion, vibration, shifting light, and moving color. This study reminds us that bees are not just seeing flowers. They are tracking a constantly moving symphony of visual information while flying at high speed on wings thinner than potato chips.

And somehow, despite all of this complexity, they still manage to return home carrying pollen pants and the attitude of someone who absolutely pays the mortgage around here.

Nature is ridiculous.

And I mean that in the most admiring way possible.

World Bee Day

Today we celebrate World Bee Day, a reminder that creatures small enough to fit on your fingertip are very important to our Earth. 🐝🌼

World Bee Day is held each year on May 20 to raise awareness about the essential role bees and other pollinators play in our ecosystems and food supply. The date honors Anton Janša, a pioneer of modern beekeeping from Slovenia, who recognized centuries ago just how remarkable honey bees truly are.

Bees are responsible for pollinating many of the foods we enjoy every day, including apples, blueberries, cucumbers, almonds, pumpkins, and countless wildflowers that support wildlife and healthy ecosystems. In fact, a huge portion of the world’s food production depends on pollinators. Without them, grocery store shelves and backyard gardens would look very different.

But bees face growing challenges from habitat loss, pesticides, disease, parasites like varroa mites, and changing weather patterns. Supporting pollinators can be as simple as planting native flowers, reducing pesticide use, leaving a little patch of “wild” in your yard, or supporting local beekeepers.

For us as beekeepers, bees become more than insects pretty quickly. They’re teachers of patience, resilience, teamwork, and respect for nature. A hive is equal parts engineering marvel, bustling city, and organized chaos. One moment they’re gently working clover blooms in the sunshine, and the next they’re staging airport-level security because you opened the hive one frame too fast.

So today, take a moment to appreciate the tiny fuzzy workers helping keep the world blooming. Long live the queens, the workers, the drones, and every pollen-covered little nectar pirate out there making life sweeter. 🍯

Weekend and Almost Swarm

There are peaceful country drives… and then there are bee runs. 🐝🚙💨

Visit to Steve's Bees ~ Lucinda, PA

This week’s adventure took us up to Steve's Bees to pick up our newest ladies. Packages loaded, excitement high, weather questionable. The kind of spring day where the clouds look personally offended.

Now, most sensible people might wear their bee hoods for the ride home.

We are apparently not most sensible people.

To be fair, the bees were packaged. Mostly contained. “Mostly” doing some very ambitious heavy lifting here.

By the time we hit the road in the Bronco Sport, we noticed a few escape artists buzzing around the vehicle. Then a few more. Then roughly sixty tiny airborne felons circling the interior like they were planning a hostile takeover of the vehicle. Eventually, nearly all of them gathered on my driver’s side window while I was driving, creating what can only be described as the world’s least reassuring blind spot.

A couple decided I looked trustworthy enough to land on. One settled on my chest. Another parked itself on my arm. At this point, there’s a very specific kind of calm you enter. It’s somewhere between “nature documentary narrator” and “this is how the local newspaper writes about me.”

Surprisingly, nobody got stung.

The bees honestly had every reason to be cranky. Saturday’s weather was absolutely miserable. Cold, wet, muddy, and windy. Honey bees hate cold rain about as much as cats hate bathtubs. Then after settling in, they got moved again Monday, which bees also do not appreciate. Imagine someone shaking your entire house, relocating it, and then expecting you to immediately go back to work collecting groceries.

Still, they made the trip like champs. They are now settled in a hive that isn't a cardboard bee mover.

Tuesday ~ Almost Swarm at Getz Yard

Then came Tuesday.

While mowing, Dad noticed one of the hives had bees hanging in a giant cluster on the front entrance. This behavior is called bearding. In the middle of summer, bearding is pretty common. Bees gather outside the hive in warm weather to help regulate temperature and airflow inside. Think of it as thousands of tiny HVAC technicians working overtime.

But in early spring? ...that gets our attention.

Especially because if you’ve been following along, you know we already split this hive once earlier this season.

A split is basically controlled bee math. Beekeepers intentionally divide a strong colony into two colonies to reduce overcrowding and help prevent swarming. Swarming is when the old queen leaves with about half the hive population to start a new colony somewhere else. From the bees’ perspective, it’s reproduction and survival. From the beekeeper’s perspective, it’s watching your workforce fly into a tree and disappear into the sunset like a tiny winged Western movie.

So Chris and Liz dug into the hive to investigate. And wow.

The colony was absolutely bursting with bees. Wall to wall fuzz. They also found multiple swarm cells, which are special queen cells the bees build when they’re preparing to swarm. They look like little peanut-shaped capsules hanging from the frames. Once you see several of them, the bees are basically announcing, “We have plans, and you are not included.”

No queen was found during the inspection, but honestly, that isn’t shocking in a hive exploding with bees. Finding one queen among tens of thousands of moving insects can feel like trying to spot a single grain of rice in a shag carpet.

The good news is they were able to separate the swarm cells into two hives and add empty drawn comb to give the colonies more room. Empty comb is valuable because it gives bees instant space for brood or honey storage without having to spend energy building wax first. More room often helps calm the colony’s urge to swarm.

At least that’s the plan. With bees, sometimes you feel like a seasoned beekeeper. Other times you’re just a confused landlord standing in a cloud of insects asking everyone politely to stop making queens.

So now we wait, watch, and hope the girls decide to stay home instead of launching Operation Airborne Relocation.

 

Beekeeping season has officially begun. Chaos included. 🐝

Spring 2026!

Dearest gentle readers, the social season is fully underway in the apiary, and a new group of ladies has officially arrived at the estate. Fresh from Mann Lake, these Buckfast bees have already caused quite the stir among the local residents with their pleasant temperaments, lighter coloring, and suspiciously charming behavior.

Thankfully, unlike Bridgerton, the only drama in our bee yard so far has involved a smoker that wouldn’t stay lit and someone forgetting where they set the hive tool down for the fifteenth time.

May Activities

As May progresses, we are feeding our little colonies due to the cold and wet weather. But they are all very happy still. We are also keeping a close eye to make sure no one swarms!

Got a swarm? Call us!

This weekend (May 9th), we will travel up to Lucinda, PA. After lunch with our Aunt, we'll stop and pickup a couple nucs from Steve. We met Steve at a festival at one of the local farms in Clarion. Steve's Bees Honey can be found all over Clarion County. It also just happens that he is a distant cousin of mine!

Apimaye Insulated Hive

There’s a new resident in our apiary this season: an Apimaye insulated hive system. We recently picked up one of their 10-frame hive sets and decided it was too interesting not to put through a real-world test. Most of us are used to the classic wooden Langstroth setup: pine boxes, propolis-glued lids, warped covers after a few wet Pennsylvania seasons, and the annual game of “how much ventilation is enough but not too much?” The Apimaye hives take a very different approach. These hives are built from insulated, double-walled food-grade plastic with built-in ventilation controls, feeders, entrance reducers, and locking components all integrated into the design.

What really caught our attention was the focus on temperature stability and moisture control. Traditional wooden hives do a decent job, but bees spend an enormous amount of energy heating and cooling the colony through the seasons. Apimaye’s insulated design aims to reduce that workload so colonies can conserve resources during winter and build up faster in spring. The system is still compatible with standard 10-frame Langstroth equipment, which means we can experiment without rebuilding our entire operation around proprietary gear. We can even stack wooden honey supers on top during the summer months.

Over the coming months, we’ll be treating this hive like a little bee-side science project. We want to compare brood development, honey stores, overwintering success, moisture levels, and overall colony temperament against our more traditional wooden setups. Will the insulation help the bees thrive during our unpredictable Pennsylvania weather swings? Will ventilation management actually be easier, or just more complicated with extra moving parts? And perhaps most importantly: will the bees seem happier working inside what looks suspiciously like the luxury cabin version of a hive? 🐝

At the very least, the Apimaye setup already wins points for thoughtful engineering. Everything snaps together with a satisfying “this was designed by someone who actually keeps bees” kind of feel. Whether it becomes our future standard or just an interesting experiment remains to be seen, but that’s half the fun of beekeeping anyway. Every hive teaches you something new.

April Activities

We ordered a 3-pound package of Buckfast bees from Mann Lake, and right away these girls stood out. Not only are they adorable, but compared to some of our other bees, they seem lighter in color and somehow just... cuter. Yes, apparently bee aesthetics are now part of our beekeeping criteria.

So why Buckfasts? These bees were originally developed by combining different honey bee lines to create a calmer, hardier hybrid with improved disease resistance and productivity. One of the first things we noticed after installing them was how relaxed they were. Chris even commented that “the ladies are happy,” which, in beekeeper language, is basically a five-star review.

From everything I’ve read, Buckfast bees are known for being excellent foragers, even during cooler or cloudy weather when other colonies might stay home and complain about the forecast. They also have a reputation for strong honey production while being conservative with their winter stores, which feels like a pretty good combination for Pennsylvania beekeeping. Between their temperament, resilience, and work ethic, they seemed like a great colony to experiment with this season.

Of course, our Saskatraz girls are still out there doing their thing too, and we’ve been really happy with them. If anything, adding Buckfast genetics into the apiary should make for an interesting comparison and maybe even strengthen the overall diversity of our colonies moving forward.

Here’s a video from right after the install:

Fun Activity

What kind of bees are you seeing around your place? Check out what Healthy Recipes posted in July 2025. Chris found this picture the other day and it really is a nice overview of some of the types of bees out there. There you can see how the Buckfast Bee compares to others.

Buckfast Bees - ChatGPT Opinion

Buckfast bee are kind of the “Swiss Army knife” of the beekeeping world 🐝⚙️

They were developed in the early 1900s by a monk named Brother Adam at Buckfast Abbey after disease wiped out much of the local bee population. He spent decades selectively breeding bees from all over Europe and the Middle East to create a colony that was productive, gentle, and hardy.

Buckfast bees are known for:

• Calm temperament. Many beekeepers say they’re easier to work without turning the hive into a tiny airborne riot.
• Strong honey production. They build up fast in spring and forage aggressively.
• Lower swarming tendency compared to some other strains.
• Good overwintering ability when properly managed.
• Excellent hygienic behavior, which can help with disease resistance.

A few tradeoffs:

• Because they’re hybrids, queens may not “breed true” if they mate naturally. A second-generation Buckfast colony can behave very differently from the original line.
• Some lines can become a bit too prolific, meaning you need to stay ahead on space management.
• Availability and quality vary a lot depending on the breeder.

Compared to Italian honey bee:

• Buckfasts are often calmer and more conservative with winter stores.
• Italians are usually easier to source and can explode with brood production.

Compared to Carniolan honey bee:

• Buckfasts tend to swarm less.
• Carniolans often winter in smaller clusters and handle cold very efficiently.

For western Pennsylvania winters, a well-bred Buckfast line can do quite well if you keep mites under control and make sure they enter winter heavy enough. Around your area, a lot of beekeepers end up liking them because they’re productive without feeling like every hive inspection is a medieval siege.

(AI Generated Buckfast Bee fact list)