Bad Beekeeping
A memoir of commercial beekeeping, prairie weather, southern swamps, queen production, mistakes, luck, and the people encountered along the way.
About the book →Writer · Beekeeper · Curious Observer
Stories where bees, people, science, and history meet.
I’m Ron Miksha, a Canadian writer and longtime beekeeper based in Calgary. I write about bees, science, history, landscapes, people, and the curious connections that make all of them more interesting.
A life with bees
Beekeeping gave me a subject. Curiosity gave me the rest.
I began keeping bees young, working commercially in Pennsylvania, Florida, Saskatchewan and Alberta. Along the way, I produced over a million pounds of honey, bred excellent queens, studied and consulted in geophysics (odd, eh?). I eventually returned to university to research bee ecology. Always, I kept writing.
That writing became Bad Beekeeping, the Bad Beekeeping Blog, magazine articles, The Mountain Mystery, science and history pieces, and now the podcast About Bees, Culture, and Curiosity.
Start here
Science, history, and bees
Writing about pollinators, ecology, beekeeping history, curious people, and questions that are usually more complicated than they first appear.
Read more →About Bees, Culture & Curiosity
A documentary-style podcast about bees, the people who keep them, and the surprising side roads connecting insects with culture and history.
Listen →“But none of this means that I know much about bees. Use advice and ideas you find here with caution.”
The approach
Curious, evidence-minded, and occasionally skeptical.
I like stories with a factual backbone. Bees are often the starting point, but the route may wander through ecology, agriculture, biography, climate, geography, old books, or a badly remembered piece of beekeeping folklore.