Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Starting Out As A New Beekeeper Can Be So Exciting But So Stressful

How Do You Feel About Your Bees?

Sheri and I would like to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for supporting our family business. This is our only livelihood so we are highly motivated to show our appreciation to you for every purchase you make with us. We know you have lots of options so we appreciate your purchases from us so much. One of the best ways you can put a smile on our face is to order one of our ONLINE COURSES. Not only is this a huge support, but it also helps us accomplish our passion of informing beekeepers the right way to keep bees.

Beekeepers around the country have recently started with a package or will install  package within the next few weeks. Our packages are on schedule so far, for this Saturday. It is exciting, especially for new beekeepers. With that excitement comes a little anxiety and maybe a tiny bit of fear or uncertainty for what to expect.

I remember when I bought my first package. I wasn't sure if I knew what I was doing or not. Even the whole next month after I installed my bees I kept worrying if I was doing the right thing. What should I do next? Should I keep feeding them? Will the cold nights hurt them? When do I add my next hive body? Do they need a pollen patty? Should I test for mites now, or wait? Since mites are the number one killer of bees, when should I start mite control? It is overwhelming to a new beekeeper. 

If you've started without taking a course you will be even more overwhelmed and your bees will likely suffer from your lack of knowledge and preparation. Two of our six online classes you will benefit the most from are: Basic Beekeeping & Spring Management. Check them out today and ease your mind by gaining the knowledge needed to help build up your confidence.

Okay, it's time for you to learn how to raise your own queens. Join David on May 24th 9am-3pm to learn how to raise your own queens. When you need to purchase a queen they are not easy to find and certainly not always available when you need them. You can raise your own queens and have them 
available when you need them and save lots of money and time. As an EAS Certified Master Beekeeper David has raised queens a long time. His practical expertise will help you raise just a few queens or hundreds. This is a hands on class with some training both indoors and out in the bee yard. Sign Up Today. Only 4 spots left.

5 Frame Nucs With Bees for Sale

We have 5 Frame Nucs with bees 
for sale. It's great when bees overwinter so well that we can sell bees from overwintered Illinois hives. These colonies have already been inspected by the Illinois Department of Ag and the inspector wrote on the inspection report, "Hives look very good."

These are 5 frame nucs with a mated Illinois queens. These are notnucs from the south and are not made from packages. These are nucs from Illinois overwintered colonies. Click here for more information.

Package Bee Pick Up This Saturday

This Saturday is our package bee pickup day. 9am-4pm. Please call first if you are wanting to pick up other items other than packages when you are here so we can be sure to have items in stock. Otherwise, inventory sells very fast to the early birds. Remember to call anytime to listen to a recording updating if Saturday is still a go before making a long trip. If there is any delay we will only place the info on our recording.

Wear rain gear if it rains and try to stay on the gravel if it is muddy. Let's hope for a beautiful day. We recommend wearing protective gear because there can be lots of bees flying around. 

BURNS BEES FEEDING SYSTEM

Our awesome feeding systems are selling faster than we can make them. Another batch should go online today or tomorrow. These are flying off the shelves and inventory is cleaned out as soon as we place them online. So keep checking the website. Click here for more info: Burns Bees Feeding System. 


HOTTEST SELLING ONLINE CLASSES THIS MONTH


OUR TOP 3 MOST VISITED WEB PAGES




BEEKEEPING YOUTUBE VIDEOS


Beekeeping Catching A Swarm


How To Start Beekeeping
Do You Have An Amazon Alexa or Echo Dot?
Every couple of days David places helpful beekeeping tips on the Amazon Alexa for you to listen to with your daily briefing. The Amazon Alexa/Echo was a phenomenal hit this past holiday season. If you were one of the millions of people that purchased one of these during the holiday season you can now listen to a daily beekeeping tip from certified master beekeeper David Burns. Just go to your Alexa skills and look for Beekeeping and add it to your daily flash briefing.

I'm glad you are keeping bees or thinking about it. Thank you for supporting our family business for all your beekeeping needs. Our hours today are 10am-4:30pm central time. Give us a call.

Sincerely,

David and Sheri Burns
Long Lane Honey Bee Farms
 

Tuesday, April 16, 2019

Should You Feed Your Bees In The Spring And For How Long?

What Should You Feed Your Bees and How?

SPRING AND FALL ARE CRITICAL TIMES OF THE YEAR TO FEED YOUR BEES

(Please Forward This To Every Beekeeper You Know!)

I wish we all could let the bees find their own food sources all year. But our country has an obsession with killing every weed, the bees' main source of food. Fence rows are sprayed and edges of mono-crop fields are sprayed or mowed. Your bees' natural food sources are quickly eliminated. Those studying Colony Collapse Disorder point toward poor nutrition as one of several potential causes.

A colony actually requires a large amount of food like any living organism. Since a hive is considered a single living organism its requirement for steady food is enormous. Bees are like humans, they live on carbohydrates (nectar/honey) and protein (pollen). Bees are healthier when they have a continual intake of pollen and nectar.

There are critical times during the year when bees need food but it is simply not available in the quantity they require. This takes a terrible toll on the your bees.
 
Take for example the installation of a package in the spring. Over the last week here in Illinois packages were unable to forage for food due to rain, wind and colder temperatures. Some places receive 5 inches of snow, locking the bees in their hive lacking food. To care for the new brood in the spring large amounts of stored nectar and pollen is consumed rapidly. 

When temperatures fall below 50 degrees (f) the bees cluster to stay warm and are no longer able to go down and eat from the entrance feeders. More resources are consumed by the colony than normal in order to produce heat. Brood is not cared for properly due to a lack of food and less eggs are laid during cold snaps. This greatly reduces the building up of brood. There are several reasons why brooding up is so important in the spring and early summer. A large population is essential for gathering nectar, building comb, storing honey and fighting pests and diseases. Weaker colonies usually become weaker which increases the risks of wax moths, small hive beetles and winter die-outs.

Without a large numbers of foragers they will not have large amounts of nectar need to expand quickly. Without large amounts of nectar they will not be able to produce large amounts of wax to build comb. Without comb there is no place for the queen to lay. This is why it is so important that as long as your bees are drawing our frames, they must be fed.

Since we have placed a colony of honey bees in our hive, on our property and want them to work on our terms, there are critical times during the year when we must feed our bees such as in the spring when it is cooler and rainy. Also, bees need fed in late summer during the inevitable dearth period between when summer flowers are finished and before fall flowers bloom. Bees need to store up food for winter in the fall but frosts will killed off all foraging sources. No matter how good your bees are, how perfect your queen is, these are critical times to ensure your bees are well fed so their numbers remain strong in preparation for a summer harvest and for winter. 

Several years ago I became overwhelmed with how many beekeepers were finding it difficult to feed their bees both protein and carbohydrates during these critical times. I remember I was at the Eastern Apicultural Society meeting in Pennsylvania when a friend of mine received a call that her bees were starving. This was in late summer during a dearth. She was in a panic to figure out how to quickly get food in the hives.
Then, I was speaking at the Tri-County Beekeepers annual conference in Ohio when another beekeeper and fellow master beekeeper told me how much he liked my Winter-Bee-Kind feeding system, but that I should make one for the summer and fall dearth.

We both discussed how this is one of the more critical times that bees need to continue building up on needed resources in preparation for winter. So it took me a year of trying out different methods and systems to finally figure it out. I finally did it! It took several prototypes but I finally developed the Burns Bees Feeding System. 

So often new beginners call us in a panic saying they just installed their new package but they are worried about the cold nights.

Here's the 411 on why new packages are so stressed that sometimes they never fully recover. People purchase their packages so early that the new package of bees is stuck in the hive. Snow storms, cold nights and a lack of foraging resources early in the spring causes the new package to fall behind on brood production. This can persist all through the year. All that is needed is to feed your bees from the top, NOT THE FRONT, so that when your new bees are clustered near the top, they have access to the food they so desperately need to build up fast.

Sure you may see your bees bringing in pollen but their demand for food is usually far more than they can find in early spring.
 
Some people try to place an entrance feeder at the entrance or on the frames of a deep and surround it with a shell of a deep hive body and place a lid on it.  But when it is too cold for the bees to go down to the entrance feeder at the opening, they just stay clustered at the top.  Also the bees need more than just sugar, they also need protein to keep building up.

So let me give the details the Burns Bees Feeding System. It comes with lids with pre-drilled holes for your small mouth jars. We recommend sugar water mixed 1:1 in the spring and 2:1 (2 parts sugar to 1 part water) in the fall.  We discovered last year it is best to add 1 teaspoon of our protein powder to your sugar water. This helps gives the bees the protein they need. Our feeder holds in the heat during the cool nights of spring.  We recommend the patties are smashed through the screen in order to create more texture so the bees can consume patties more effectively.

This allows the patty to be divided into tiny attached sections making it easier for the bees to consume and helps control small hive beetle infestation. This is a view of the patties facing up, but when placed on the hive, the patty pictured above is placed upside down and hangs directly above the cluster.


Here is a new package on undrawn foundation. A green drone comb is seen here which is excellent to help control mites. The Feeding System is placed directly on top of the cluster. Once all your frames are placed back in after installing your package our feeder provides the food your bees need to get off to a great start.

You can place a used deep on top of the feeder as a shell and place the top cover on that deep. Now you have a compartment to feed your bees and since our holes are lined with screen, the bees stay down when you change your jars. If you bought a new hive that came with 2 deep hive bodies, you can use one as a shell, because you only install your bees in 1 deep for the first few weeks.

Notice how the jar lid does not allow the sugar water to spill out, but simply bubbles due to a vacuum seal of your jar. The bees are able to drink from this effectively through the protective screen.
Finally place the top cover on and be sure to use a weight like a rock or brick incase of a strong wind.

To order our BURNS BEES FEEDING SYSTEM, click here now.  When you purchase products from us, you support our small, family business which allows us to continue to invent and provide awesome beekeeping equipment, so thank you in advance.
 
Can I Be Your Beekeeping Coach? April Special!
Seems like no matter where I go people recognize me from my YouTube videos on beekeeping. We now have nearly 18,000 subscribers! Many people tell me that I am their main source of beekeeping information. Over the last few years we have reached nearly 3 million people through our online videos, podcasts and beekeeping lessons. That's amazing. This is very humbling.

I receive hundreds of phone calls and even more emails per month from beekeepers around the country seeking answers on what to do next with their hive. 

In 2016 I launched a new partnership program to
For less than $5 a week here's what you will receive from my partnership program:

MEMBERS ONLY ACCESS TO:
-  Several New Instructional Videos Each Month.
-  Personal Email & Phone Mentorship With Me. Once you sign up you are given my personal cell phone. You'll be just a phone call, text or email away from a certified master beekeeper to help you when you need it most. Let's face it, spring is when we need help the most.

-  Picture/Video Evaluation Of Your Hive When Needed. Send me a video and/or pictures of what concerns you and I'll advise you on the next step to take. 

A few days ago a member sent me this photo fearing she had American foulbrood.
   
-  I will also send you several articles a month with tips on what you should be doing and looking for and interesting beekeeping science and practical approaches.

Sign up in the month of April and receive:
-  Your Choice Of 1(one) Item From Our Membership Gifts List
   Below: (After 3 months subscribed)
GIFT LIST (Choose 1 after your 3 month anniversary)
   - 1 Free online class or a free class at our location per year. 
   - 1 Free Winter-Bee-Kind
   - 1 Free Burns Bees Feeding System


Swarm Season Is Upon Us. Do You Need A Hive?
Seems like we are never expecting a swarm. When it happens we are scrambling to find something to put them in. By time we come up with something, they've flown away. Don't be that guy!

Our hives are Amish made from pine, 2 coats of exterior paint, painted aluminum top cover, screen bottom board, wooden frames with plastic foundation, beeswax coated. This is a complete hive, screen bottom board, two deeps, one honey super and all the frames. Also includes an inner cover. We know you have lots of places to buy hives, so we appreciate your support of a small, family business. Our hives are made here in Illinois.



I'm glad you are keeping bees or thinking about it. Thank you for supporting our family business for all your beekeeping needs. Our hours today are 10am-4:30pm central time. Give us a call 217-427-2678

Sincerely,

David and Sheri Burns
Long Lane Honey Bee Farms

Friday, April 12, 2019

What Can Bees Do For You?

What Can Bees Do For You?

What can bees do to make our lives better? Well, there is the obvious such as pollinate our fruits and vegetables and make honey, but is there more? Absolutely!

Bees provide for us an enjoyable outdoor hobby that fills our mind with peace as we enjoy observing these little, amazing creatures quietly keeping our ecosystem stabilized. 

Keeping bees brings us immense satisfaction knowing that these super pollinators may not make it without our help. Knowing that we are helping honey bees survive various challenges brings us gratification. We would be so sad if we lost our honey bees. Anyone who observes a honey bee on a flower immediately knows there will be future plant, tree or fruit. There is so much that bees do for us, now what can we do for them?

I'd Love To Teach You About Beekeeping 

Hi, I'm EAS Certified Master Beekeeper, David Burns. I'm  at Long Lane Honey Bee Farms and www.honeybeesonline.com, an online beekeeping resource that has helped millions of beekeepers through YouTube, In-House classes and now Online Beekeeping Courses. I'm not a commercial beekeeper with thousands of colonies but I really love sharing my love of beekeeping. And I've taught enough people in person that I know how to help you understand the most important aspects needed to be a beekeeping boss. I've spent over a decade creating beekeeping content just for you.

There's tons of beekeeping sites, blogs and YouTube channels now, but people kept telling me they like my style. What's my style? I'm told I am sincere and personable so that must shine through in my online video courses because hundreds of people keep telling us how much they enjoy these courses. I've packed years of learning and beekeeping experience into each course. 

But I can find all kind of beekeeping info online for free?
You can! But you're going to spend a ton of time watching a bunch of YouTube videos from beekeepers you know nothing about. Do you really want to search through forums listening to beekeepers arguing and confusing you even more? Why waste money on useless beekeeping equipment and costly hives and bad advice?

Why do your courses cost $59?
This isn't for everyone. But if you value your time and want to learn the most important beekeeping info in the shortest amount of time...I'm your man. Educating beekeepers is my full-time job. It's my passion and I take it seriously.

When do your courses start and finish?
The course starts anytime you want. They never end. Study and watch the videos at your own pace. You have a busy lifestyle, so I designed these courses to fit your schedule. 

What else do I get in addition to online videos?
For most of the courses you receive a worksheet. You do not have to use it, but if you like taking notes it helps you remember what you are being taught.

How long do I have access to the course?
How does as long as you live sound? After purchasing a course, you have unlimited access to our courses for as long as you like on any of your devices like your smartphone, computer or tablet. 

Is there a completion certificate?
YES. Once you complete the worksheet and send them back for me to review, I'll send you a beautiful, autographed certificate suitable for framing.

What have others said about taking your courses?
 "I feel I have learned a lot from your online spring management course!  You have done a great job and I look forward to the queen bee course!"     Yasmin, Canada

"I have finished all lessons from your online beginners course.  Really great and have learned a lot....I plan on continuing with some of your other courses."      Dennis, Georgia

"Just wanted to let you know that I am thoroughly enjoying the Spring Management online class. I'm gonna add the others soon!"   Dan, Missouri 

"David is so knowledgeable and teaches to my level as a new beekeeper.  He is also very encouraging. Very much appreciated."  Rick, Illinois

GET STARTED TODAY
Choose Your Course Below






(Save $85)

Private Beeteam6 Videos From 2016 Now Available To You
This new and exciting resource contains the first year of informative videos sent to BeeTeam6 members (May 2016-May 2017) addressing the real issues beekeepers face.

REGULARLY $49 BUT TAKE ADVANTAGE OF OUR INTRODUCTORY OFFER AND SAVE $10 ORDER NOW

When you need information on a particular beekeeping subject it can take you forever to find an answer. You can look for answers in books, YouTube and ask around at your local bee club but you will get as many answers as people you ask and videos you watch. This resource offers videos on specific beekeeping subjects so you can find ONE SOURCE, ONE ANSWER. Your time is valuable. 


Don't Waste Your Time Chasing After Ineffective Feeders
Even though April showers do bring May flowers, they also keep our bees from flying out for food. A new package or nuc has very little resources available on the cold and rainy days of spring when they cannot fly.  A lack of food will set your hive back by weeks. Avoid this set back and keep your bees expanding by feeding them from the top with our Top Feeder. These have been very popular over the last few year. Screen keeps your bees down so you can change jars easily. 


Tuesday, April 2, 2019

45 Beekeeping Videos As One Resource

I'm EAS Certified Master Beekeeper, David Burns. I'd like to introduce a new resource I'm releasing today. 

45 beekeeping videos all in one spot. 

Over the last 3 years I've enjoyed personally mentoring hundreds of beekeepers through BeeTeam6. This new and exciting resource contains the first year of informative videos sent to BeeTeam6 members (May 2016 - May 2017) addressing the real issues beekeepers face.

 *Order Now and Save $10 On This Introductory Offer*

This resource is a very unique opportunity for you to have access to 1 year's worth of BeeTeam6 videos-- a library of informative beekeeping videos compiled here in one place. Each video was produced privately by EAS Certified Master Beekeeper, David Burns for his BeeTeam6 subscribers. Also included are several other top videos that beekeepers have enjoyed the most on YouTube. BeeTeam6 is a Beekeeping Partnership program established by EAS Certified Master Beekeeper David Burns in 2016. Several times per month David sends beekeepers participating in this program an informative video and newsletter targeting key subjects to help improve their beekeeping skills. This new product contains the first year of BeeTeam6 videos. 

Here's how it works. Once you purchase this resource, you will be sent an email which contains the titles and descriptions and links of 45 videos between 4 - 15 minutes in length.   Quickly find the answers you are looking for. Remember, once you've made your purchase of this resource you can watch the videos as long and as often as you'd like.

Order now and save $10 on this introductory offer. Regularly $49, only $39 for a limited time.

I'm glad you are keeping bees or thinking about it. Thank you for supporting our family business for all your beekeeping needs.

Sincerely,

David and Sheri Burns
Long Lane Honey Bee Farms
217-427-2678
www.honeybeesonline.com