Blue Sky Bee Supply Blog

Home to the busiest streets in America, cars lined bumper to bumper, herds of young professionals making their way through the surge of rush hour; New York City might be the last place you would think hundreds of colonies of honeybees would call home. Queens-based beekeeping master Nick Hoefly of Astor Apiaries shared with us his ongoing journey as a beekeeper on the rooftops of New York City.Nick is a certified master beekeeper and Apiary Manager of The Bee Conservancy, a nonprofit ba …

As a beekeeper, it is important to be able to understand what robbing is and how to recognize the behavior. Robbing describes the activity of honeybee invasion on another hive and loot their honey stores. The process is not all that easy; the honeybees will fight the resident bees until they reach the stores even if it means death. The bees break open capped cells, fill their stomachs, and return to their own hive. Robbing is evident primarily during the late summer to early fall. Robbin …

Can you recall the exact moment you realized you wanted to become a beekeeper? For Jenean “Dolly” Neely, beekeeping is a saving grace, her catalyst in doing better for the world of living things. Dolly is a farmer who works to better the life of domestic farm animals, an array of exotic birds, and eventually, the lives of helpless rodents like Possums once she earns her license. Dolly is a one-of-a-kind farmer and beekeeper.Dolly grew up in the rural acres of Clarion, Pennsylvania, the same stat …