by kirkwebster | Apr 15, 2025 | View All Posts
A New Book ← View Previous Post Finally, a new posting: There has been no new material added to my website for quite a few years now; this is because most of my extra time for the last four winters has been devoted to finally writing a book about my apiary...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 2020 | 2020 Writings, View All Posts
OPPORTUNITIES TO VISIT AND WORK WITH US AT CHAMPLAIN VALLEY BEES AND QUEENS ← View Previous Post View Next Post → UPDATED DATES JAN 2020: Every year I get many requests to visit and/or to work here in the apiary– to see in person an apiary operating...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 2016 | 2016 Writings, View All Posts
Feral Bees ← View Previous Post View Next Post → January 2016: FERAL AND MANAGED COLONIES (I was hoping to publish this essay together with a description of feral bees by another author who has studied them quite extensively. When I could see that the...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 2014 | 2014 Writings, View All Posts
The Best Kept Secret Revisited ← View Previous Post View Next Post → (An edited version of this was first published in the Small Farmer’s Journal, Spring and Summer issues, 2014. This is the complete text. The original essay: “The Best Kept...
by kirkwebster | Mar 1, 2012 | 2012 Writings, View All Posts
My Apology to EAS ← View Previous Post View Next Post → With EAS (Eastern Apicultural Society conference) coming to Vermont this year, and many inquiries coming in from customers and friends who are members, I’ve decided it’s time for me to post...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 2011 | 2011 Writings, View All Posts
Helping Honeybees Refill Their Niche – The Apiary Farm ← View Previous Post View Next Post → I’m embarrassed to admit that I can only remember three specific things that I learned in the Ecology program that I attended for a semester at the...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 2011 | 2011 Writings, View All Posts
Collapse and Recovery: The Gateway to Treatment Free Beekeeping ← View Previous Post View Next Post → At the Treatment-Free Beekeeping Conference in Leominster last July, it was very clear that the people who have succeeded in keeping a productive apiary for...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 2011 | 2011 Writings, View All Posts
Since the arrival of tracheal and varroa mites, beekeeping meetings have for the most part reflected the industry’s depressed state of mind, and more recently they leave one with the overall impression of individuals or small groups of beleaguered soldiers,...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 2010 | 2010 Writings, View All Posts
Nature Has All the Answers, So What’s Your Question?* and A Page From a Treatment-Free Beekeeping Diary ← View Previous Post View Next Post → Maybe we’re asking the wrong questions, or asking too many small questions instead of facing up to the...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 2009 | 2009 Writings, View All Posts
Some Great Mentors ← View Previous Post View Next Post → As a change of pace from my other contributions for 2009, I thought I would share with you a few stories about my mentors and how they shaped the way I conceived and developed the apiary I’ve...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 2009 | 2009 Writings, View All Posts
A Practical Plan For Removing All Treatment From Commercial Apiaries ← View Previous Post View Next Post → Hobby beekeeping in America is obviously going to survive and thrive in the future. A small, but certain percentage of the population will always be...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 2009 | 2009 Writings, View All Posts
What’s Missing From The Current Discussion And Work Related To Bees That’s Preventing Us From Making Good Progress? ← View Previous Post View Next Post → For several years, back aways now, it was unbearably dreary and frustrating listening to...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 2008 | 2008 Writings, View All Posts
A New Paradigm For American Beekeepers ← View Previous Post View Next Post → This was written in preparation for a talk at the 2008 National Beekeeping Conference in Sacramento, Ca. The actual, give and take session was likely somewhat different… The...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 2007 | 2007 Writings, View All Posts
#11: December—Conclusion ← View Previous Post View Next Post → So, after almost a year, we’ve arrived back where we started this column, doing the very last outdoor job of the season—melting the cappings wax on a nice day in December. It’s a good job to end...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 2007 | 2007 Writings, View All Posts
#10: November and December: Packing bees; Blowing Out Failing Colonies. ← View Previous Post View Next Post → When November arrives, I start packing, beginning with the 2-story honey producing colonies. If, early in the month, there appear to be a good...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 2007 | 2007 Writings, View All Posts
#9: September and October—Finish Extracting; Feeding and Moving Nucs ← View Previous Post View Next Post → With a good honey crop, extracting will continue for the whole month of September. This month usually begins as the end of summer, and finishes as the...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 2007 | 2007 Writings, View All Posts
#8: Late Summer—Extracting Honey and Expanding Nucs ← View Previous Post View Next Post → Around here the most likely time to have very hot and humid weather is during July. One of my farming friends always crosses out the word “July” on his calendar, and...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 2007 | 2007 Writings, View All Posts
#7: High Summer—The Main Honey Flow; a Crop of Honey and Bees ← View Previous Post View Next Post → Around here, our honey crop—the excess honey we can sell—comes from the various clovers, birdsfoot trefoil, purple vetch, alfalfa and basswood. Because most...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 2007 | 2007 Writings, View All Posts
#6: Summer—Making Nucleus Colonies; the Main Honey Flow Begins ← View Previous Post View Next Post → Beekeeping has been present in this part of Vermont almost as long as European settlers have been here—that is, since the 1790’s. During all of that time,...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 2007 | 2007 Writings, View All Posts
#5: Early Summer—Queen Rearing Begins ← View Previous Post View Next Post → I know that summer doesn’t officially begin until June 20 or so; but around here we really need to have all of June as a summer month. Otherwise our only warm season would be too...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 2007 | 2007 Writings, View All Posts
#4: Spring—Things Are Getting Busy ← View Previous Post View Next Post → The last two weeks of April and the first week of May are one of the most interesting and critical times of year in this apiary, where lots of nucleus colonies are carried through the...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 2007 | 2007 Writings, View All Posts
#3: Early Spring—Unpacking and Evaluating Colonies ← View Previous Post View Next Post → You often hear it said around here: “April is by far the cruelest month”. At this time of year we can spend one whole day outside in the warm sunshine, and then look out...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 2007 | 2007 Writings, View All Posts
#2: Late Winter—“Harvesting” Empty Equipment ← View Previous Post View Next Post → Interest is really building now for a more self-sufficient, healthy and resilient style of non-migratory beekeeping in the northern states. Unstable honey prices, mites,...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 2007 | 2007 Writings, View All Posts
A Beekeeping Diary – Introduction ← View Previous Post View Next Post → Interest is really building now for a more self-sufficient, healthy and resilient style of non-migratory beekeeping in the northern states. Unstable honey prices, mites,...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 2006 | 2006 Writings, View All Posts
Where Commercial Beekeeping Went Wrong: The Difference Between Having A Farm And Having A Business ← View Previous Post View Next Post → Now I come to the last of this year’s essays, and the most difficult of all to write. It’s also perhaps the most...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 2006 | 2006 Writings, View All Posts
Some Thoughts On Breeding Bees In The North ← View Previous Post View Next Post → I have a favorite book from the 1940’s: The Farming Ladder, by George Henderson. It’s a great story of two brothers from London, who set out at age 15 and 16—with no money—to...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 2006 | 2006 Writings, View All Posts
Cell Building And Overwintering Nucs – The Key To Stability And Resilence In A Northern, Non-Migratory Apiary ← View Previous Post View Next Post → OR: WILL THE NORTHERN STATES SUPPLY THE NATION’S SURPLUS BEES AND QUEENS IN THE FUTURE? I have to admit,...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 2006 | 2006 Writings, View All Posts
Some Problems Of Health And Disease In Beekeeping And Agriculture ← View Previous Post View Next Post → We all know that honeybees in North America (and much of the rest of the world) are having really serious health problems; and that these problems have...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 2006 | 2006 Writings, View All Posts
The Natural Form of a Northern Apiary ← View Previous Post View Next Post → ← View Previous Post View Next Post...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 2006 | 2006 Writings, View All Posts
Healthy Beekeeping: Now And In The Future ← View Previous Post View Next Post → To most of us who were keeping bees twenty and thirty years ago—as either a hobby or a livelihood- two of the chief attractions were the opportunity to work closely with the...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 2005 | 2005 Writings, View All Posts
Commercial Beekeeping Without Treatments Of Any Kind – Putting The Pieces Together Part 2 ← View Previous Post View Next Post → ← View Previous Post View Next Post...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 2005 | 2005 Writings, View All Posts
Commercial Beekeeping Without Treatments Of Any Kind – Putting The Pieces Together Part 1 ← View Previous Post View Next Post → ← View Previous Post View Next Post...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 1999 | 1999 Writings, View All Posts
The Best Kept Secret Part 2 ← View Previous Post View Next Post → The Best Kept Secret–Part 2 (First published in the Small Farmer’s Journal, Fall 1999) It’s all very well to speak and write about the thoughts and ideas that develop from working...
by kirkwebster | Jan 1, 1999 | 1999 Writings, View All Posts
The Best Kept Secret Part 1 View Next Post → The Best Kept Secret–Part 1 (First Published in the Small Farmer’s Journal, Summer, 1999) Surely the best kept secret in the U.S. today is the wonderful way of life that’s possible with full-time farming on...
