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…
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…
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 …
Ontario, second year. I extracted in early September, dumped the cappings into two food-grade buckets with lids, and told myself I'd render the wax on a weekend. That wee…
Istria, seven years. Our regional show is the third weekend of November and I've entered twice: once mid-table, once last in my class, and both times I got a score sheet …
Alentejo, sixth year. The strawberry trees are flowering in the hills behind me and I moved six hives up there three weeks ago, mostly out of curiosity — medronho honey s…
Provence, eight years. The honey is sold and the wax bucket is full, so October and November are candle months here. My process, and where I'd like input. Cappings wax ge…
Tuscany, 40 hives, and the extraction room finally goes quiet this week. Every year I put off the clean-down and every year I regret it, because dried honey is glue and d…
Flanders, sixth year, twelve hives. My summer honey — lime and clover mostly — has set solid in five 25 kg buckets and I have about 200 jars to fill before the first Chri…
Ontario, second year, three hives. Extracted six mediums on Wednesday and now I have six wet supers dripping in my garage and two different pieces of advice. My neighbour…
I think I have ruined a whole bucket of honey and I want to know if any of it can be saved. İzmir, second year, four hives. I extracted at the end of August, in a hurry, …
Jalisco, ten years, and cut comb is my best margin at market — people pay double per kilo for it. This year I pulled my last comb frames late, off the end of the rainy-se…
Istria, late frames off six hives last week — a mixed autumn honey, plenty of it, but the refractometer says 19.0% on the uncapped bits and 18.4% even on the capped frame…
Spring check-in from Minas Gerais. The eucalyptus plantations around my apiary are opening and my twelve Africanized colonies have exploded in the last three weeks — the …
Devon, fourth year, and my late supers came off last week with a good chunk of ivy in them. Ivy honey sets like concrete — the two buckets I extracted on Saturday are alr…
Devon, fourth year, six colonies. The last supers need to come off this week before the ivy gets going and the bees start crossing back up with it. Trouble is the weather…
Second year in İzmir, four hives. In August I bottled about sixty jars of my summer honey — mostly cotton and thyme from what's around us. They sat in the pantry and now …
Pulled the propolis mats off all twelve hives in Istria this week, the end of a season that started in early June. Method, for anyone curious: plastic mesh trap mats unde…
Season is wrapping up in Małopolska: ten hives extracted, about 3 kg of cappings drained and dried, plus six old black brood frames pulled during the autumn comb rotation…
Second season in Ontario and my first time keeping a fall super on. Two hives, one medium each, and the goldenrod-aster mix came in like a freight train the last three we…
Join 12,000+ beekeepers logging hives, asking questions, and mapping forage.
Get the Beekeeping Community app