Questions and answers from the Beekeeping Community app — beekeepers helping beekeepers, worldwide.
Alentejo, sixth year. I've taken a pitch at a Christmas market for the first time — three days in early December in a town square — and I need to decide what to bring and…
Ontario, second year, two colonies after the unite. I put a fondant slab on each hive at the start of October, on the top bars under an eke, following the advice on here …
Mendoza, seventh year, 24 colonies, and spring is properly here. The stone fruit is finished, colonies are on eight to ten frames of brood, and the first swarm cells have…
Tuscany, fourteen years, 40 colonies. My queen supplier opened his books last week for next spring and I've been caught out enough times to take it seriously. My pattern …
Yorkshire, end of my first season. Everything's closed up for winter and I've written up the year. Here's the honest version, since this forum carried me through it. What…
Quebec, fifth year. I run five wooden hives and three polystyrene ones, bought partly out of curiosity, and after four winters I've got enough of a feel to be useful to s…
Vermont, second year. I've read the word "cluster" a hundred times on this forum and I realise I don't understand the mechanics of it, which makes it hard to judge anythi…
İzmir, second year. Two of my hives are on family land outside the city but one sits on the flat roof of our apartment building, which seemed like a clever idea in April …
Skåne, eight years. I've got the boxes from a colony that collapsed in September sitting in my shed — properly diagnosed as far as I can tell, heavy mite load, deformed w…
Drenthe, nine years. I fitted round-hole mouse guards three weeks ago and on two hives the entrance is now half-blocked with dead bees. The undertakers clearly can't drag…
Istria, seven years. I've got roughly 150 kg left in buckets and a cellar that sits around 6-10°C from November to March. I keep being told contradictory things: that col…
North Carolina, third year, six hives — five fine and one that I now realise has been queenless for a while. No eggs, no young larvae, a scattering of drone-sized cells i…
Provence, eight years, sixteen hives. A neighbour clearing branches found a nest the size of a beach ball high in a plane tree at the edge of the village, and it's unmist…
Galway, second year. Lost one of my three. I went out on Wednesday, saw no activity at one entrance on a mild day when the other two were flying, and opened it up. What I…
Enugu, eight years, fourteen top-bar hives. While everyone north of me is wrapping boxes against the cold, my hard season is about to start too, and it's the opposite pro…
Muğla, fifteen years. Since the pine honeydew thread got some interest, here's the storage side, which people ask me about at markets constantly: why doesn't it set like …
Vermont, second year. After the mess I made of not noticing a dying colony last month I've put clean trays under all three remaining hives, partly for mite counts and par…
Minnesota, first year, two hives. Thanks to this forum I've done the whole list: mite treatment finished, fed to weight, frames rearranged so the stores touch the cluster…
Tyrol, eighteen years, 24 colonies. I'm writing my replacement list for next spring and I want to argue about the received wisdom, because I keep hearing "requeen every t…
Eleven years, 40 colonies in Mpumalanga, and October is our spring. Reading the autumn threads here is fascinating but I want to put down the other half of the year, beca…
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