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Fifth year, Małopolskie. I have a colony that's queenright and healthy but just small — maybe four frames of bees after a poor season, not combine material in my view bec…
Uppsala, third year, five hives. One colony has a queen I've been unhappy with all season — patchy pattern, colony never took off, wash numbers fine so it's not mites. I …
Third year, Uppsala. Inspection on Tuesday found a single capped queen cell mid-frame in my strongest hive — classic supersedure position, not a swarm-cell fringe. The ol…
Third year in North Carolina, and my best hive from spring is suddenly showing a pattern that would've made me panic in year one. Instead of solid slabs of sealed brood, …
Second year, three hives, southern Ontario. My middle colony's queen has failed — laying pattern collapsed over two inspections, now multiple eggs per cell in a small pat…
Kent, third year, five hives. Inspection yesterday on my 2024 queen's colony: two capped queen cells, both on the FACE of the comb (not the bottom bar), colony not conges…
Quebec, fifth year, seven hives. My breeder has mated queens available next week and two of my colonies are strong enough to spare resources. The itch: make two 5-frame s…
Galway, second year, and I've properly messed up: my split from June clearly never got a mated queen and I missed the signs for weeks. Yesterday's inspection showed the c…
Vermont, second year, three hives. Inspected yesterday and my strongest hive shocked me: barely any eggs, a few patches of young larvae, mostly capped brood and emptiness…
18 years in Tyrol, and the single biggest upgrade to my operation was learning to overwinter nucs reliably. Every spring loss becomes a shrug instead of a purchase. But t…
Third year in Kent, four hives. My gentlest colony — the one I show visitors — has turned genuinely unpleasant in the space of two weeks. Following me across the garden a…
First year, two hives in Yorkshire. Did my inspection yesterday and found two capped queen cells in hive 2, both smack in the middle of the comb face, not on the bottom b…
Perthshire, seven years, and every season I read about two-queen systems producing monster crops and every season I chicken out. With the heather flow starting late here …
Uppsala, third summer. Ordered a mated Buckfast queen for a nuc I was making up this week, but the donor colony threw me a curveball — found a frame of queen cells during…
One of my three Kent colonies quietly superseded in late June — I found the old marked queen gone, one opened supersedure cell mid-frame, and yesterday, finally, eggs and…
Second year keeping bees here in İzmir and I finally feel brave enough to mark my queens. I bought a set of Posca pens but now I'm second-guessing which colour I'm suppos…
One of my six hives has turned genuinely nasty over the last month — followed me 30 meters to the shed last week, stings through the suit, neighbors starting to comment. …
Ontario, second year, 4 hives. One colony has been queenless for a while — my fault, a requeen attempt failed and by the time I admitted it they were down to maybe 3 fram…
Yorkshire, first year, so please be gentle. My stronger hive swarmed two weeks ago (my fault, missed the cells) and I left it to requeen itself with the cells that remain…
İzmir, second year. My strong colony swarmed in mid-June despite my efforts (lesson logged) and I let them requeen themselves. I actually saw the new queen emerge from he…
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