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Something for the pure joy of it. A researcher friend visited my Tuscany apiary and brought a ridiculous rig: a fishing pole with a caged drone and a queen-pheromone lure…
Second-year beekeeper near İzmir with 3 hives that sit in full sun all day — everyone told me full sun is good when I started. But the forecast says 38°C, maybe 40°C, for…
Second year keeping bees in Galway and my nerves are in tatters. Colony swarmed at the end of May, I left one good cell, and I watched the virgin emerge on the 4th of Jun…
You all know the rhyme: a swarm in May is worth a load of hay, a swarm in June is worth a silver spoon, a swarm in July isn't worth a fly. Well, it's the 29th of June so …
Six years in and I'm a bit ashamed to admit this: I run two apiaries about 12 km apart here in Flanders, and my hive tool and gloves have been to every single colony with…
Quebec, 5 years. Our club got a booth at the regional fair in August plus two school visits in September, and I've volunteered (been volunteered) to build and run the obs…
Skåne, 8 years, and this winter I finally read Mel Disselkoen's OTS (On The Spot) queen rearing material properly instead of absorbing it via forum osmosis. The core mech…
İzmir, 2nd year. Installed a package in mid-April, queen got going okay — not spectacular, laying was a bit patchy but there was steady brood. Today's inspection: two fat…
Oregon, 5th year, 12 colonies, and after this spring's inspections my lower back has opinions. Currently running double deeps for brood. A full deep of honey is 80-90 lb;…
Perthshire, 7 years. One colony beat me to it this spring — prime swarm left around June 10 (caught it, it's fine), but the parent hive is now throwing cast after cast. T…
While you northerners are drowning in nectar, a dispatch from Brazilian winter — dry season here in Minas Gerais, cool nights, almost no flow, and my Africanized colonies…
Galway, 2nd year, first ever extraction day last weekend. Borrowed the club's 4-frame hand-crank tangential extractor for my grand total of 8 frames. First two frames: un…
Flanders, 6 years in. Every summer the same story: linden finishes early July and then there's a hungry gap until the ivy in September, right when colonies are raising th…
Ontario, 2nd year. My overwintered colony went queenless (confirmed, no eggs 10 days, started a test frame). New mated queen arrived Tuesday, I hung the cage between broo…
Uppsala, 3rd year, two hives at the bottom of a suburban garden. One swarmed last week (my fault, missed cells), and it briefly clustered in the neighbour's apple tree be…
North Carolina, 3rd year, and I caved and bought a Flow Hive 2 last summer after two years of conventional Langstroths. Now that I've run it a full season I keep getting …
Yorkshire, first year, learning bee math the hard way. Everyone says queen: egg day 0, cell capped day 8, emerges day 16 give or take one. So here's my problem. I found c…
Devon, 4th year. We've got a tawny owl box about 3 m up an ash at the bottom of the garden, empty since the winter, and a swarm has moved in — I watched the tail end of t…
Second year, three hives in Vermont. I did mite checks on all three this weekend and on my strongest colony I ran both methods back to back out of curiosity, separate hal…
Got a call about a swarm in a live oak, nice volleyball-size cluster but it's a solid 10 meters up on a limb I can't ladder to safely. I've done the bucket-taped-to-a-pai…
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