Suburban Sodbuster
Natural Beekeeper and Organic Gardener
I grew up on a farm on the edge of the Nebraska sandhills. A cattle ranch that bears our family name, founded in the late 1800s by my ancestors, is still owned and worked by my cousin. Life events have put me in the suburbs of a major metropolitan area in middle America, where my wife and I have raised our two kids. It's in this environment that I work to make as sustainable a life as I can, converting much of our backyard to grow food, including a garden, fruit trees and bee hives.
I attempt to use natural methods, as much as is possible, in my gardening and beekeeping. I garden organically and continue to learn to work with the soil and the plants, without the use of chemical supplements, herbicides or pesticides, to improve our harvest. Our honey bees are sourced from local colonies through swarms, trap-outs and cut-outs, and are kept, using treatment-free, natural methods, in Layens horizontal hives.
Why Would Anyone Make a Beehive from Concrete?
First Beehive Inspections of 2025 - Searching for Survivors
Flooded Beehive Rescue - Can the Bees Survive?
Can You Harvest Honey from a Layens Hive with no Queen Excluder?
Plan Your Self-Reliant Garden with Survival Garden Seeds
Ozarks Homesteading Expo and New Beehive Stand Announcement
Insulating, Not Ventilating, My Bee Hives
What You Should Know About Honey Bee Swarming
Removing Honey Bees from Downed Trees - Failure and Success
What to do After You Catch a Honeybee Swarm
Honeybee Swarm Lure Comparison - We Have a Winner!
Inspecting Beehive Splits (and making more!) with Homestead Refuge
Honeybee Hive Inspections and Splits with Homestead Refuge
Making Use of a Failing Honeybee Queen
Honey Bee Activity During the Solar Eclipse
A New Start with Honey Bees and Testing Swarm Lures
Checking Remote Layens Bee Hives for the First Time in Months
My First Layens Beehive Inspection of 2024
Removing Honeybees from an Apartment Storage Ceiling
It's Time - I'm Quitting!
Honeybee Winter Survival in Langstroth Single Deep Hives
Looking Ahead to What 2024 Will Bring for Suburban Sodbuster
Why I Prefer the Layens Beehive (and you might, too)
New Information About How Honeybees Survive Winter
Unboxing and Testing a New Honeybee Hive Stand
Clyde's Garden Planner from the Ozarks Homesteading Expo
Transforming Langstroth Boxes into a Layens Beehive
Disastrous End to the Quictent Greenhouse
How to Avoid Smashing Bees with Layens Beehive Frames
Fixing my Queenless and Laying Worker Honeybee Hives