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Your questions help the rest of us new beekeepers and others who will follow in the coming years. At some point I might have the same question and a quick search will lead me to the answer simply because you did ask already. Besides misery loves company ;) my beekeeping year has not yet started...

Here in Sask. you must register your hives as well, it is free. If you buy bees locally or bring them in from another province they must come with a certificate from a bee inspector showing no AFB, SHB, varroa. ETA just checked mine from last year, it also includes other diseases such as chalk...

Not enough like buttons for this comment. Western governments have been woefully inadequate in their response. While the reasoning was "we do not want the war to escalate", IMO it already has, just not on our soil.

If you want to try it go right ahead. I built my first two hives from reclaimed wood, only cost me the glue and screws it is just a box after all. If you have the building skills why not????? If you are so inclined you can make a hive with one of those disc entries and eliminate the bottom...

Spruce or Pine. Yes, but interestingly most of the Canadian wood is sent overseas to China as logs and we buy a lot of our milled lumber from the USA, funny how sometimes being close means naught. Besides, with the increase in lumber prices everyone is cashing in and selling their trees. The...

I build my own hives and frames, I use 1x lumber rather than plywood. I only use ply for the nucs. Why do I do it? Because living in a remote area where you need to buy online and get it shipped means the shipping puts the costs way too high, wood is heavy. Besides, retirement results in time...

I need a 1/4" mesh screen to keep the shrews out, they can get thruu 3/8". They will go thru a mouse guard. Although, we have pygmy shrews, maybe you do not?

Or shrew droppings, shrews will leave bee bits all over, they chew the thorax but leave the rest. Shrews apparently don't live and nest in the hive, they come in and eat the bees but leave. This guy from the site Mud Songs Beekeeping seems to know his shrews well...

All us Western countries seem to think that, Canada does as well, we think the if we are nice, they will be nice. Unfortunately that is, IMO, a very naive opinion.

The same thing happens out here. We have lived on this farm for almost 40 years and the ditches are mowed along the small road for access every summer. For three years the local council got behind times and was not able to mow till late fall. In 2020 the number of prairie lilies was outstanding...

You are quite right.

Queen failure????? But definitely something came in and chewed up those combs. I had a shrew last season that decimated one of my hives, but they leave body parts not whole bees.

Chilly? sort of, but we get an amazing amount of sunshine and at this time of the year the strength of it melts snow even at -4C. Spring springs sometimes as early as April 1 but lately our seasons seem to be shifting over. We farm and what we used to do in spring is a little later but on the...

Went out to check my hives to see if any were flying. It is now Sunny and +2C, two hives have bees out and about. But this flight is different from the ones a few weeks ago even though the air temps are the same. The bees are not out cleansing and then dying in the snow, they are circling the...

That is how I do it. I put them in a large roasting pan, drizzle with olive oil, add spices if I wish and roast, then I take a hand blender and buzz them up. I freeze mine and we take it out in the winter as a base for tomato soup, sauces and salsa. I find it easier than making each sauce...

How do you find they transplant? Do they suffer, and how many weeks before planting do you start them. I have never started peas from seed, sweet peas but not edible peas. Good idea.

Absolutely, home grown sweetcorn is the best. This season, with the increase in pricing and the fact I have the garden space, I am going to expand my corn patch and freeze a bunch. My season was too short for sweet corn just planted the regular way so I start mine under plastic row covers. I do...

That is a little later spring than we get. The tree leaves on poplar come out around the end of May but dandelions and willows are out a bit earlier than that, apple trees are in the beginning of June. We need to start feeding sugar water the first of Sept. but last fall the drought eliminated...

I am just north of the 53rd. but living in central Canada does not give us the more milder climates that those nearer the coast have. Kinda boxed in, so to speak. I think I will need to look up beekeeping in Finland to broaden my mind. I have relatives in Germany, their climate is warmer but...

For sure, I am not here to offer advice, I am here to gain simple bee manipulations that may not be our norm. I am not arrogant enough to think I would have anything to offer in the way of beekeeping on this forum both because I am new and my conditions are different. But a forum is for...