I'm glad you are enjoying this article.
Vicki I'll have to get that book and read it myself; I might learn something I don't know yet.
The bees dying makes me sad too but when you stop to think about it their short life span is probably equal to our longer one considering their size.
Lynn my husband currently does all the beekeeping stuff and we recently had a discussion on whether the bees use the bathroom inside the hive or not. Most of the information I've found on that says they won't but he says in the winter time when they can't get out they do and clean their hive out when it warms up as soon as they can. We are finding that beekeeping is really a learn as you go kind of project because while something may hold true in some cases it doesn't always hold true in others. Another example of this is several sources say honeysuckle is not a good honey bee plant being more suited to bumblebees and that the honey bees can only reach the nectar if bumblebees chew a hole in the blossom first. Yet here we've seen honeybees working those blossoms without any help from the bumblebees.
