Strictly speaking, honey bees are not pets. But they are so industrious and remarkably tolerant that many gardeners would disagree. Even though today’s guest article is a bit stiff in its style, it offers some excellent tips for keeping bees, especially for the beginning gardener.

Beekeeping For Beginners – Methods To Start Beekeeping

The pastime of beekeeping is quickly becoming one of the top pastimes for folks from different walks of life. Even if the entire idea of keeping bees in your yard may seem somewhat challenging at the outset, any rookie beekeeper can easily prevail over that with a little bit of help and guidance. If you would like to know more on how one could start beekeeping, then this short article will help you along the way. Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s guest article about the honey bee queen will be a great help to the amateur beekeeper gardener. According to the article, the lives of all bees in the hive center around and are focused on honey bee queens – both old and new queen bees.

The Queen Bee

The survival of a colony of bees living in a bee hive really relies on the queen bee. Without a queen bee the hive would ultimately die. The hive’s queen is the only female bee in the hive that has completely developed reproductive organs. The queen isn’t just in charge of the hive. Her very purpose is to lay eggs that will develop into bees that will fill various duties inside the hive.

The queen bee is determined whilst the bee is still in its larval phase. The larvae that have been put aside as possible queens are given more royal jelly. Read the rest of this entry »

Bees are in crisis because of what is called Colony Colapse Disorder. According to a New York Times article, “a fungus tag-teaming with a virus have apparently interacted to cause the problem.” Our home gardens can be a wonderful, safe, and healthy habitat for honey bees to re-establish themselves. The guest article for today offers some tips for building a beehive from scratch. If your community zoning allows this, please consider a beehive. Our local farmers (and bees) will thank us!

Ways to Build A Beehive – 6 Ideas

As you start beekeeping, there are particular items that are necessary. The majority of of these, you’ll have to buy, but with regards to the beehive itself, you’ve got an option. You can buy one (either ready assembled or as a flat pack for self assembly). But you, likewise, have the alternative of constructing your very own beehive.

Clearly, this would not be for everyone. You do need to have a particular degree of fundamental skills to be able to build a beehive. But you surely don’t need to be a skilled carpenter – it is surprisingly easy to construct your own beehive if you have a very good set of plans and comply with some basic rules.

So, if you’d like to give it a go, listed here are a few tips on the way to construct your own beehive, and help to ensure that it turns out as you hoped – well-built, nice-looking, and durable. Read the rest of this entry »

Susan’s Lawn Gardens is pleased to feature this article from today’s guest author, HUGH HARRIS-EVANS. He is a gardening expert, so we feel very comfortable recommending his work to our visitors.

Cat Repellent or How to Keep Cats Out of Your Garden
By Hugh Harris-Evans

Do cat repellents work? How to stop a cat from using garden as litterbox? Tell me how to keep cats out of my garden. These are common questions of concern to all gardeners but is there a real answer?

The first line of defence is to ensure that your yard boundaries are secure. Any gaps in your fence should be blocked to deny low level access. But cats can jump so fix a taut wire or string some six inches above the top of your fence to deter this approach.

Once inside your garden many people say that the best cat repellent is a dog who will soon see off any feline invader. Read the rest of this entry »