bees Archives | Carson Arthur

April 13 2019

To save the bees, it’s time to give a little bit back

Now that spring is here, I can’t wait to get into my garden and start working on the list of chores that I do every April. This year, however, I am going to make a few changes in my ‘to do’ list and all of them have to do with bringing back the bees to my outdoor spaces.

Bee-sting therapy controversial

Carson Arthur Miscellaneous beekeeping, bees 0

As a result of the harsh winter we just went through I had several casualties in my garden — including the collapse of both of my bee colonies. The constant thawing and then rapid temperature drops were too much for them.

Come spring, I had two unoccupied hives full of honey so, of course, I immediately ordered to more nucs (nucleus — a small colony of bees split off from a larger one). This past weekend I picked up my two new colonies and transported them to my meadow.

DIY pollinator hotel to attract beneficial insects

sharon Gardening bees, butterflies, garden 0

How to build a pollination house to attract bees and butterflies to your garden.

January 6 2017

Bee basics: More homeowners getting into beekeeping

Carson Arthur DIY beekeeping, bees 0

All around the world we continue to hear about the plight of bees. ‘Save the bees’ and ‘colony collapse disorder’ are pretty important things to be paying attention to going into 2017 because up to 90 per cent of the food we eat is pollinated by honey bees.

This is part of the reason more homeowners are getting into beekeeping, myself included. The other reason — its just really awesome and invigorating.

July 15 2016

Saving the bee population: We can all do our part

Carson Arthur DIY bees 0

I wanted to share an update on my meadow, the new Flow Hive and the state of the bee population in Canada.

I am so proud to say that the Honey Nut Cheerios program called #BringBacktheBees was wildly successful.

Their original target of 35 million free seeds to be distributed in Canada was surpassed by almost 85 million! That’s a lot of wildflowers to help the bees.

My own meadow is happily growing along. My choices to go with several different wildflower mixes seems to be paying off as the field keeps changing colours every few weeks as new flowers bloom.