Gardening with Bees in mind.

Bees need a varied diet with many types of flowers, and they need to avoid pesticides, which means we need to avoid using pesticides.

Bee-Friendly Garden Plants, all season long!

The bees visit a garden for the pollen and nectar because it is their food. Mono-cropping is part of the reason bees are getting sick and having Colony Collapse - nutritional deficiency combined pesticides/herbicides leaves the bees in danger from parasitic or other infections. The trifecta of ill health can be improved by adding more wildflowers and flowering trees and shrubs to our landscapes and farm field roadways. Wherever bees are visiting, they need variety in their diet - not all almond flowers when the colonies are visiting almond fields, or not all of any other single flower.

Like bees, we benefit from diversity in our diet, and from aromatic chemicals that fill the air in an orchard of blooming almond trees or a seasonal allergy inducing field of Goldenrod.

Growing flowers with the season in mind can also help the bees who need to eat all season long. Spring flowers include many flowering trees and something like hazelnuts can also provide food for humans or squirrels. Chickens like crabapples and most of us like blueberries.

The mid-season blooms include flowering herbs, other berries, and sunflowers and the late-season blooms include common garden flowers, wildflowers, and sedum. Winter squash also blooms late into the season and can make an edible squash flower treat. This version is stuffed with goat cheese and oven-baked instead of deep-fried: Low Carb Stuffed Squash Blossoms without Frying, (farmtojar.com) .

• Early Blooming: Blueberry, Cottoneaster, Crabapple, Cranberry, Crocus, Foxglove, Heliotrope, Hazelnut, Heather, Primrose, Willow.

• Mid-Season: Blackberry, Cat Mint, Catnip, Chives, Dahlia, Hyssop, Lavender, Raspberry, Sunflower, Yarrow.

• Late: Aster, Beggar's Tricks, Borage, Coneflower, Cornflower, Cosmos, Goldenrod, Pumpkin, Sedum, Squash.

• Source: #21. Bee-Friendly Gardens and Urban Beekeeping, The Food and Water Institute, (pdf) also urges us to avoid using pesticides in our gardens! Due to the decline of commercial and wild bees.

The following long list of resources makes it clear that there are different basic types of beehives. The Sustainable Beekeeping article explains why the difference matters to bees:

"Bees abhor empty space. They try to fill in the gaps outside the frames with wax and/or propolis. To retain frame mobility, beekeepers must constantly remove the extraneous deposits. But as fast as they remove them, the bees replace them. This too increases consumption of food. Thus beekeeping using frames, because it increases consumption by the bee and thus by the beekeeping operation, must be less sustainable than not using frames.

Natural comb hives such as the horizontal/long format top-bar hive (hTBH, see Figs. 1 & 2)7 and the vertical/tiered format top-bar hive of Abbé Émile Warré (vTBH, see Fig. 3)8, provided that they are not repeatedly opened, are examples of hives that are inherently more sustainable regarding heat retention. Compared with framed hives they reduce energy consumption. They save some stress on the bee, or at least save wasting the bee's efforts on repairing the damage to nest integrity that frames cause.

However, both TBH formats are not necessarily sustainable everywhere on the planet. The horizontal format performs less well in colder climates and the vertical format has not only yet to be tested at climatic extremes, but also is probably unsuitable for hanging in trees, which is how horizontal TBHs are often deployed in the tropics."

#40. Towards Sustainable Beekeeping, by David Heaf, combination and update of a series published in The Beekeeper's Quarterly, (32 pages) (pdf)

#43: What You Don’t Know About Beekeeping:

This is a bit of a rant. We beekeepers are entitled to a rant at all the non-beekeepers out there, and I type faster than most, so I’ll nominate myself to try to represent us all.

Colony Collapse Disorder has been all over the news, but no one has explained what the problem really is or what beekeeping really is. There’s been lots of drive-by journalism, and lots of hype, but very little information of value in the “mainstream press”. So, you wanna know about beekeeping? These days, its really all about almonds. They make us do insane things. No, that’s not right, the money makes us do insane things. But the almonds are where the money is. Almonds have done to beekeeping what cocaine did to Miami. - James Fischer, 2007, Read more: (pdf)

It turns out that bees don’t really like the removable trays - they would prefer a hollow tree probably with no moveable parts. Photo by Bianca Ackermann on Unsplash

I could try to regroup these into types but they are currently in a rough alph order system that My Dropbox arranged them in, so I'm leaving them as is. My notes and page counts give some information about the article's target audience or topic:

Resources about Beekeeping:

1. 4H Beekeeping, Division 1, Purdue Extension, 4-H-571-W, (29 pages) (pdf)

2. About Beekeeping, by Roger Patterson, (12 pages) (pdf)

3. Backyard Beekeeping, James E. Tew, Alabama Cooperative Extension Service, (54 pages) (pdf)

4. Basic Beekeeping, Lesson One, David Burns, Long Lane Honey Bee Farms, (3 pages) (pdf)

5. Beekeeping - Natural, Simple, Successful, by Johann Thür, Beekeeper; Translated by David Heaf from Bienenzucht. Naturgerecht einfach und erfolgsicher by Johann Thür, Imker (Wien, Gerasdorf, Kapellerfeld, 2nd Ed., 1946). Ch. 1 & 2. http://www.seanet.com/~alexs/bien/bienenzucht_full.pdf (11 pages) (pdf)

6. Beekeeping, Technology Brief, 1994, (6 pages), (pdf) Detailed pattern to build a hive, and care guidance, in brief.

7. Beekeeping and Honey Processing, (4 pages) (pdf) *One section of something longer - focus is on honey processing and expense versus profit potential - math.

8. Beekeeping and Honey Production, U of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service, (4 pages) (pdf) Includes quite a few links to other resources and Factsheets.

9. Beekeeping and Sustainable Livelihoods, by Hilmi, M., Bradbear, N., and Mejia, D., 2011, Food and Agriculture Org. of United Nations, (83 pages) (pdf)

10. Beekeeping and Agriculture, By Lance Gegner, NCAT Agriculture Specialist, April 2003, ATTRA, (22 pages) (pdf)

11. Beekeeping in Denver Urban Gardens, Community Gardens (6 page, includes resources/suppliers) (pdf)

12. Beekeeping in Tennessee, Skinner, et al., Extension PB1745 (43 pages) (pdf)

13. Beekeeping in the Tropics, Agrodok 32, by P. Segeren, (90 pages) (pdf) This is an extensive guide but it is written in a fairly simple style, user friendly.

14. Beekeeping with a Top Bar Hives, by Nicola Bradbear and Gladstone Solomon, Bees for Development, (7 pages) (pdf) Guidance that seems geared towards a small business set-up rather than a homestead/personal gardener hive.

15. New York City Beekeepers Association’s Best Management Practices for Safe Urban Beekeeping, (2010) (6 pages) (pdf)

16. Better Beekeeping in Top Bar Hives; Entrances and Roofs, by Pam Gregory, UK, Bees for Development Journal, (2 pages) (pdf)

17. Build Your Own Top Bar Hive The BackYardHive.com Way, (7 pages) (pdf) Hand-drawn pattern, detailed, with photos of the completed project.

18. Building 7 Modified Warre' Bee Hives, (20 pages) (pdf) Has images, pattern, and step by step directions.

19. Building a Better Beehive; Innovative Beekeeping & Value-Added Marketing, by Robert Gerard, 2004, ACRES, The Voice of Eco-Agriculture, USA, (7 pages) (pdf)

20. California Beekeeping, Pub. 21422, by Mussen, et al., 1987, U of California, (78 pages) *the legal information maybe out of date, check current laws or guidance. (pdf)

21. Bee-Friendly Gardens and Urban Beekeeping, The Food and Water Institute, (pdf)

22. Golden Mean BACKYARD BEEHIVE, Backyardhive.com, Designed by Carlos Steybe of Four Elements Design. (6 pages) (pdf) *precise pattern to follow, but no real life image examples of the finished item.

23. Quick Start Guide to Natural Beekeeping with the Warre Hive. Free Report from DIYBEEHIVE.COM By Nick Winters, (23 pages) (pdf)

24. Hexagonal Top-Bar Bee Hive Cross-section, (5 pages) (pdf) *Pattern and directions without images of the finished piece.

25. How to Install a Package of Honeybees Into Your Gold Star Top Bar Hive, by Gold Star Honeybees, (7 pages) (pdf)

26. How to Start Beekeeping for Free! (4 pages) (pdf) - this one explains what makes a Top Bar Hive simple to build and that using the "Field of Dreams" method may work - "Build it and they will come" - The bee swarm may move themselves in during the season that that tends to happen.

27. Integrative Top Bar Hive Management, by Melanie Kirby, (7 pages) (pdf) - discusses briefly both main bee hive systems and how she combined features of both.

28. Keeping Top Bar Hives, by Dan Putnam, (2 pages) (pdf)

29. Practical Beekeeping: Making a top-bar hive, by Janet Lowore, Monica Barlow and Mark Loveday, Bees for Development, (8 pages) (pdf)

30. Natural Topbar Beekeeping Course handbook, by Les Crowder, edited by Heather Harrell, permaculture.org (13 pages) (pdf)

31. Parasitic Mites of Honey Bees, by Greg Hunt, Bee Specialist, Purdue University, Purdue Extension, E-201-W, (7 pages) (pdf)

32. Plans for a Complete Beekeeping System, Garden Way Publishing, *out of date in 1983 (21 pages) (pdf)

33. Practical Guide for Organic Beekeepers, June 2006, EPOPA (Export Promotion of Organic Products from Africa) (15 pages) (pdf) *Easy intro level guide with pictures and a basic overview of bee types and care in a small farmer in Africa setting.

34. Protecting Honey Bees from Pesticides, by Christian H. Krupke, Gregory Hunt and Rick E. Foster, Extension Entomologists, Purdue Extension, E-53-W, (5 pages) (pdf)

35. Agroforestry: Sustaining Native Bee Habitat For Crop Pollination, USDA AF Note 32, (4 pages) (pdf)

36. The Apprentice Beekeeper, Oregon Master Beekeeper Program, (5 pages) (pdf) *lists skills that would be expected for an apprentice level beekeeper to learn.

37. The pleasure of beekeeping with the Warré hive, Translation by David Heaf of pages compiled by Jean-François Dardenne at http://ruche-warre.levillage.org/Ruche%20ronde.htm . (16 pages) (pdf)

38. An Introduction to the Top Bar Bee Hive, by Jacob Klingensmith with Matthew Pressly (2 pages) (pdf)

39. Top Bar Beekeeping in NewZealand Backyards. (17 pages) (pdf) *Good overview of beekeeping, pest problems and basics.

40. Towards Sustainable Beekeeping, by David Heaf, combination and update of a series published in The Beekeeper's Quarterly, (32 pages) (pdf)

41. Plans for the Construction ofThe People’s Hiveof Abbé Émile Warré, (11 pages) (pdf)

42. West Virginia Beekeeper's Guide, WVDA Apiary Program, (50 pages) (pdf)

43. What You Don't Know About Beekeeping, by James Fischer, 2007, (4 pages) (pdf)

Disclaimer: This information is being provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of Fair Use and is not intended to provide individual health guidance.