Urban backyard beekeeping on the rise and many of the newcomers are millenials

9/8/2019

Thousands of pollinators are at risk of extinction. Now, some cities are modifying bylaws to encourage residents to take up backyard beekeeping.

And it's working.

In Greater Vancouver, beekeeping schools are reporting increases of 50 per cent or more in beginner enrollment over the last 10 years. And master beekeepers say a growing number of those novice beekeepers are millennials.

Shelter offers beekeeping to help residents with PTSD

9/3/2019

It's all the buzz in Trumbull County.

Kirk Barrett is checking the hives to see which ones are ready to be harvested, but he's not just tending to the bees, he's healing.

"My anxiety levels are not as high as before," said Barrett. "I'm a lot calmer."

Don't bee scared, honey: Local beekeeper hopes to help fellow humans understand, love and save bees

7/29/2019

Dirk Morgan saved the day when a swarm of 75,000 bees temporarily halted a Reds game at Great American Ball Park in May. Now, he hopes to create a new buzz about his plans to make more people bee friendly. Or, rather, bee-friendly.

Honeyland Finds Poignance in the Lonely Life of a Beekeeper

7/26/2019

There’s not much vegetation where Hatidze Muratova lives in Macedonia. There’s no running water, no electricity. But there’s also no exotic sense of exclusion from the rest of the world—or, rather, that exclusion is not what Honeyland, Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov’s new documentary, is about.

Breeders toughen up bees to resist deadly mites

7/25/2019

The death of his favorite queens in 2013 was the final straw for BartJan Fernhout, an amateur beekeeper in Boxmeer, the Netherlands. Fernhout's queens, which he had purchased from a specialty breeder, produced workers with prized traits: They were calm and made plenty of honey. Then, Fernhout's hives became infested with a parasitic mite named Varroa destructor, which has become a major contributor to the demise of bee colonies worldwide.

Honeybees hit by budget cuts

7/6/2019

The US Department of Agriculture has suspended data collection for its annual Honey Bee Colonies report, citing cost cuts -- a move that robs researchers and the honeybee industry of a critical tool for understanding honeybee population declines, and comes as the USDA is curtailing other research programs.

While Honey Production Continues To Decline, Wild Honey Bees Appear To Be Thriving

7/5/2019

Wisconsin’s honey production has been falling for years. In 2018, the state reached a 10-year low, producing 2.3 million pounds of honey — 23 percent less than in 2017.

Weather and changes in agricultural practices have played a role in declining populations, as well as parasitic mites called Varroa mites which have ravaged honeybee colonies across Wisconsin and in other states.

Yet, one population of bees is doing surprisingly well. Wild honey bees have seen a resurgence after a steep decline in the mid-1990s, according to Thomas Seeley, a biologist at Cornell University and author of "The Lives of Bees: The Untold Story of the Honey Bee in the Wild."

Will County Beekeeping Laws: Town by Town

Cook DuPage Beekeepers Association