Observing Honey Bees at Home
You cannot be a good beekeeper if you don’t know much about bees. And it is hard to learn much about bees when they are hidden away in an opaque wooden box in a far corner of the yard. What to do?

One possibility, one I learned a lot from, and recommend, is to keep a small colony in a glass hive in your house, an observation hive. I kept an observation hive in the room where I spent a lot of time, and every time their tone changed, I took a look.

I saw more in a year than many backyard beekeepers see in a lifetime. And every year is different. In this talk I will show you how to keep bees in an observation hive and provide several examples of the ‘learning opportunities’ that the bees gave me.

Frank Linton, Ed.D, retired artificial intelligence engineer, and Research Associate at Appalachian State U., has kept honey bees since 2005. An EAS-Certified Master Beekeeper, one of his main interests is in finding ways to use remote sensing technologies to monitor and improve honey bee colony health and productivity.

Author of The Observation Hive Handbook, maintainer of the websites thebeepeeker.com and colonymonitoring.com, contributor to beekeeping magazines, invited speaker at beekeeping associations and civic groups, and mentor to new beekeepers, Frank runs a few hives near his urban apartment and invites swarms of honey bees to take up residence on his balcony.