What should you be looking for when you do your first spring hive inspections? This video walks you through our process for inspecting hives coming out of winter to ensure they are healthy and queen right.

A presentation given to the North Iowa Beekeeper's Club in February 2021. Learn more about the history of Bell Farm, how we got started keeping bees, and how we've evolved to become an Iowa rearer of queen bees.

Join us from the middle of a swarm! Turn your sound up, and it's like you're right there with us.

A waggle dance is the term used to describe the way a worker bee "dances" when she is communicating to the other bees about a good forage source of nectar or pollen. In this video, the worker is carrying pollen on her legs, meaning she's telling them about a pollen source she has found.

A quick tutorial on how and why we add emergency sugar to the tops of our hives for winter.

This was a cutout we did from an old building wall cavity in July 2017.

Ever heard a queen bee pipe? That's a specific type of noise she uses to communicate with other queens nearby. This communication signal is so important that when she pipes, every bee in the hive holds perfectly still so as not to disrupt her sounds. Watch carefully around the 9 second mark and you'll see every bee on the frame hole still while this queen is piping.

What do healthy, live bee colonies look like on warm winter days? Watch this video to find out.

How to feed bees in the winter.

How do you know you've successfully got the queen in the box when you catch a swarm.

Why do bees visit compost piles in late winter?

We always enjoy watching the activity of our busy bees at a hive's entrance.

It’s March in Iowa, and everyone is asking if they should reverse their hive bodies! We do things a little differently here at Bell Farm. Watch this video to find out what we do instead and why.

Knowing your mite count is the most important thing you can do to maintain the health of your colony of bees. In this video, we demonstrate taking a mite count using the slow alcohol wash method, which is considered to be the gold standard in mite count testing.