Beekeeper Resources
How to Keep and Help Bees
Six Ways To Help Bees
1) Identify and manage native bee habitat on your farm or in your garden.
2) Use organic farming practices when weeding, haying, sowing cover crops, etc.
3) Use organic-approved pesticides when possible. Learn safer ways to apply common pesticides, and consider using non-toxic insecticides, repellants, pest barriers, herbicides and fungicides.
4) Find more resources online at the Pollinator Conservation Resource Center. Click your location for a list of recommended plants for your area.
5) For downloadable fact sheets and detailed information on how to help bees, see the Xerces Society’s website on Pollinator Conservation: Organic Farms.
6) Join the 2012 Great Sunflower Project to help figure out what’s happening to bees.
Learn About Keeping Bees
Keith Fielder, a Cooperative Extension Service Agent in Putnam County, Georgia, is a long-time apiarian. His grandfather, who kept hives for honey, taught him to drive his first piece of farming equipment, a Massey Ferguson model 65 tractor. Fielder has fond memories of that time and, today, he’s following in his grandfather’s bee keeping footsteps. He recommends these websites for learning more.
Flower Pollinators: All About Bees and Beekeeping (special thanks to Nancy’s kids at GCC)
The University of Georgia Honey Bee Program
Beesource – All things Honeybee
Rossman Apiaries, Georgia
North American Beehive Company, Florida
Walter T. Kelly Company, Kentucky
B&B Honey Farm, Minnesota
Brushy Mountain Bee Farm, North Carolina & Pennsylvania
Ruhl Bee Supply, Oregon
Special thanks to Keith Fielder for his generous assistance with this article.
More Resources
Canadian Beekeeping College Programs and Courses
Commercial Beekeeping Program, Grand Prairie Regional College, Alberta, Canada,
Natural Resources Defense Council. Also, see download “Bee Facts.”
University of Arkansas, Division of Agriculture, Cooperative Extension Service, “Beekeeping”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, “Wild Bees Enhance Honey Bees’ Pollination of Hybrid Sunflower”
USDA, “Questions and Answers: Colony Collapse Disorder”
USDA, Agricultural Research Service, “Beer-making Hops Components Help Protect Bees from a Parasitic Mite”
Pest Control Technology Magazine, “Honeybee Deaths Linked to Insecticide Exposure, Researchers Report”
Environment News Service, “Fly Parasite in Honey Bees Could Explain Colony Collapse Disorder”
United States Environmental Protection Agency, “Integrated Pest Management Principles”
University of Minnesota Bee Lab
