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treatment-free beekeeping

How Wild Bees Winter in Insulated Horizontal Hives

Published February 1, 2026

A January storm dumped five inches of snow on us this weekend and I wondered how the swarms of wild bees I’d caught over the last few years were faring. Here’s what I found.

Snow-covered homestead in western North Carolina the morning after a January storm — The scene of the snow: our homestead the day after the storm.

The bees live in five insulated horizontal hives that I built in our hay barn and then placed around our property. Unlike the standard Langstroth hives most beekeepers use, these heavily insulated horizontal hives… Continue reading →

Drinking at the Beebox: Feral Bees Settling in for Winter

Published December 11, 2023

My new passion is beelining, where you catch wild bees in a small box called a bee box, feed them sugar water, and follow them to their nests. Here, a yellow jacket joins three bees for a sip of sugar water in front of the bee box I built in my shed. I'm hoping the bees don't lead me to a wasp nest (or "wasper" nest, as Cooter, the guy who used to live on our property, called them).

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