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beeman_z

Cabinetmaker, furniture maker and Carpenter. Historic restoration,repair and reproduction work.

Beekeeper, selling honey, and limited supplies of creamed honey and comb honey. As well as Hardy, Healthy Local Honey Bees. 63 Mount Joy Rd.,Milford, NJ 08848

08/10/2026

Days of Our Hives: Episode 93

The last week of July was whirlwind of activity for me. After dropping off our Honey Bees and our Honey Show entries at the Warren County Farmers Fair it was off to Sheperdsville KY with my friend and fellow beekeeper Kevin Inglin. We were off to the Eastern Apicultural Society's (EAS) annual conference. I had a few honey show entries in tow too.
But my main goal was to take my second shot at my EAS Master Beekeeper certification.
The Eastern Apicultural Society of North America, Inc. (EAS) is an international nonprofit educational organization founded in 1955 for the promotion of bee culture, education of beekeepers, certification of Master Beekeepers, and excellence in bee research.
Last year I passed 3 of 4 tests and had one more to go. I took that exam Tuesday morning but had to wait until Friday noon for my results.
In the mean time I competed in the Honey Bee Olympics with our fearless leader JoBeth Dingman. It was a blast. Then I learned my Blue Ribbon Teak Grafting frame earned the Best in Show with 100/100 points. woohoo! Thank you Honey Show volunteers!
But what I am most proud of was earning my Master Beekeeper Certification. I was smiling from ear to ear for days and still am. It has been a personal goal of mine for several years to see if I knew enough to pass the rigorous exams. I'm 1 of 2 that passed this year. It's a goal I set to help me be a better teacher and a steward of the Bees and Pollinators. It was a wonderful experience. My deepest gratitude to the countless volunteers at EAS bringing the leading researchers in the industry together to share what they have learned. And to the EAS Master Beekeeper Certification Committee... to all of my family and friends for their support,especially my brother Mark...My children Alexzandra and Matthew,but most if all to my best friend and wife Deborah. Without her love, encouragement, patience and guidance I never would have achieved my Master Beekeeper goal. I'm blessed ❤️
Happy Beekeeping.
Thank you all!🐝

07/20/2026

A Beekeeping hack to take advantage of the bee's OCD to clean up wet honey buckets. They don't want things out of place and will store the honey below in the nest. I invert the bucket above a strong colony and they will clean the bucket out in a couple hours.

07/13/2026

Days of Our Hives: Episode 92

Today was the the day to transfer 2 swarm box colonies into more permanent homes. I left the in the swarm box too long of course so they build down into the void below the frames. This void is one of the things that makes these bait hives attractive to a homeless swarm.
One colony played nice and extended down parallel with the frame.(last photo) The other colony not so much.
I used my custom fashioned wrought iron tool to slice the diagonal comb off the bottoms then I rubber banded those pieces into new frames. I made this tool about a month ago from a found piece of wrought iron I found while beachcombing the North Shore of Long Island with my friend Sam almost 10 years ago.
The bees will stitch the comb to the frames and chew the rubber bands off. Ill come back and remove all the rubber band remnants in a couple weeks
Happy beekeeping!

07/08/2026

Making unique entrance markers with yellow paint and UV marking pens. Bees see UV light. I did this to help the returning queens better find their way to their home after a mating flight.

06/23/2026

Days of Our Hives: Episode 91

This past weekend I spent a day and a half on ladders removing a honey bee colony for a great couple not too far from home. Looking at the volume of bees it's hard to believe they just moved in a month ago. The homeowners witnessed the swarm moving in. They said they heard it coming before they saw it!
The swarm found a well established former bee hive.
After 8 hours of hard work, I had removed about 30,000-40,000 honey bees, their queen and comb.
For scale the yellow vacuum bucket is a standard 5 gallon bucket, and it was nearly full of bees! I rehomed them in our bee yard and gave them their brood comb back again.
That made it a 11 hour day, then the next day it took me 4 additional hours to clean things up and then close the house up again, sealing all the openings so they don't return again.
I was beat!!
Success! and off to the next one.
Happy Beekeeping!

06/22/2026

Days of Our Hives: Episode 90

Over the last couple of weeks I have been working to raise some queens to carry on the Riegelsville Boro Hall North Colony genetics. The daughter queen is now 2 years old and not likely to survive another winter. So I set up a queenless cell builder and grafted young larvae into queen cell cups for the nurse bees to raise new queens from. I grafted from the Riegelsville Queen and from my top honey producer from another cut out on Bear Tavern Road years ago.
Well I had about a 50% success rate in grafted cells to queen cells. And almost all the queens have emerged as of today.
The next challenge is to get them all mated and safely returned home. I was setting up queen mating nucs today and I have 6 more to go.
Ill know in a couple more weeks what my success rate is.
I'm looking forward to carrying the R'ville genetics forward.
Happy Beekeeping

06/18/2026

Days of Our Hives: Episode 89

This post is long overdue! I haven't posted since March, where have I been? I've been rebuilding our Apiary. Our winter losses were devastating. 75% of our bees perished this winter 43 out of 57 colonies. We have a very good hypothesis of what the cause of their demise was, but I'm refraining from sharing until the test results are in. We have samples of both Bees and Honey with Dr. Underwood and Penn State as well as Beltsville Bee Lab.
It was a rough month of March, but I'm happy to report, our numbers ard nearly back to 50+ colonies. Between a couple of splits(only 2 of 14 survivors were strong enough), 15 packages purchased, 10 swarms caught, 2 cutouts so far (4 more to come), queen grafting, and 3 open mated queens I'm feeling pretty good about where we are at. My head has been down, grinding to get to a better place.
It's been a lot of work this spring, both a learning and teaching experience. I've spent countless hours researching the possible cause and learned so much in thd process. Just cleaning up 43 dead-outs was a tremendous amount of work(and depressing).
But our bees are managing to make honey in the worst honey flow in years due to the April deep freeze. I'm seeing some heavy honey supers. Wooohoo!
We will be back on track to sell nucs next spring if nature is kind to us this winter.
Thanks for all your support, especially the honey sales which help to fund our recovery.
Happy Beekeeping!
James

03/11/2026

Days of Our Hives: Episode 88

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
Beekeeping is tough

It has been a rollercoaster of a couple weeks..On Feb. 28th I attended the New Jersey Beekeepers Association winter meeting..We heard some very good speakers on a variety of subjects. I was there to to pick up our ribbons and awards from the NJBA State Honey Show. We entered 16 categories and came home with 13 ribbons plus Best Exhibtor and Division Best in Cut comb and spreads. I watched our blue ribbons winners auctioned off at the end of the afternoon. The light honey brought $47/lb. Our light has won the last 3 years in a row. Our Chunk honey sold for $48./lb. And our cut comb sold for $50/section!! I was Best Exhibitor for the second year in a row. I was on cloud 9 with our awards.
But then came our hive inspections as the bitter cold winter weather broke. Sadly, over the last week, we have discovered we have lost 42 of the 57 colonies we entered winter with. Our worst loss ever. Nearly 75% of our colonies died. How depressing! So sad to stand in the bee yard and scan all the hives knowing the majority are dead. What could I have done differently? I don't know. The exact causes are a mystery with many of the colonies. Some I know why, but most I don't. I had to inform my many customers I couldn't fulfill their orders for bees this spring. On a positive note the survivors are strong and their genetics will be a good source to rebuild our numbers with. We have our work cut out for us thus spring

02/01/2026

Days of Our Hives: Episode 87

Late in 2025 I got a hair-brained idea to build a teak grafting frame for entry in the 2026 National Honey Show , hosted at the North American Honey Bee Expo in Louisville KY. While reading the rules there is a category tailor made for me, Woodcraft in Beekeeping. I thought what piece of wooden ware is somewhat complex and challenging. Building a hive box is kind of a drawer box with no bottom...i didn't find it too exciting. After watching Cory doing Harbo Assays and learning how to do it myself from watching Cory I thought, thats it! a grafting frame, a simple but useful tool that I can modify the design and make it a little more elegant...then I raised the bar for myself by adding ivory inlay and 12 hand carved lambs tongues, wedged thru-tenons and hand cut dovetails . I managed to come home with the Blue Ribbon and title National Champion. It was weeks of work designing, sourcing the thumb screws and building and finishing it. The attached photos are of some of the steps of construction and below in the comments is the typed description of the object i was required to submit with it... I put it in the comments because its too long to be included here.

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