A beekeeper friend of mine in the Central Valley called me back in February, and I could hear it in his voice before he even got to the numbers. He’d opened up his hives after winter, the way he’s done…
I’ve spent more hours than I’d like to admit standing over an open hive, watching workers move across comb like they’re following some invisible script. After a while, you start to think you’ve seen it all. The waggle dance. The…
I’ve kept bees long enough to have developed a few pet theories about what’s actually going on inside a forager’s tiny brain every time she leaves the hive. None of them were as elegant as what researchers just confirmed with…
I saw the headline yesterday and did a double take. A truck carrying beehives flipped over on a highway near Yellowstone, and just like that, somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 million bees were suddenly loose on the side of…
The first time I harvested honey, I did everything wrong. I pulled frames that weren’t fully capped, didn’t test the moisture, and — worst of all — I took way more than I should have and left my bees short…
Last July, I walked out to my hives at two in the afternoon and found something that stopped me in my tracks. The front of my strongest colony looked like it was wearing a beard — hundreds of bees clumped…
My neighbor Sandra is meticulous about what she feeds her family. She reads labels. She buys organic when she can. She swapped refined sugar for honey years ago because — as she put it — “at least honey is natural.”…
It started quietly. In January 2025, beekeepers across the United States began making the same phone call. Different states, different operations, but the same hollow voice on the other end: “My hives are gone.” Not sick. Not struggling. Gone. Gary…
You don’t need a farm. You don’t even need a garden. You just need a little intention — and maybe a balcony. A few summers ago, my neighbor knocked on my door holding a small pot with a scraggly purple…
I started asking this question after a beekeeper friend ruined my breakfast. We were sitting at her kitchen table, and I reached for the little bear-shaped bottle of honey to drizzle over my toast. She watched me with this look…
