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Istria here, so Slovenia is practically over the hill, and I've been visiting a friend's čebelnjak (bee house) near Maribor — three walls of AŽ hives stacked like filing …
Minnesota first-year here. My elderly neighbor kept bees decades ago and yesterday, when a swarm (not mine!! checked!) went over our street, he ran out banging a saucepan…
İzmir hit 38°C this week and I opened my second-year hive to find a disaster: a big new foundationless comb, drawn just this month and heavy with nectar, had sheared off …
Vermont, second year, three strong hives and I want a fourth. Option A: walk-away split — free, but the bee math scares me. Split with eggs today, they raise an emergency…
Confession time so nobody repeats this. Moved four 5-frame nucs about 90 minutes to an outyard on Tuesday. Screened their entrances shut, loaded them in my enclosed cargo…
Midwinter here in Mpumalanga — dry season, aloes flowering, my scutellata colonies ticking over nicely. But I lost one last month to something most of the Northern folks …
Third season, four hives in Kent. This spring I finally started marking queens (white for 2026, got the posca pen, very pleased with myself) and it's transformed my inspe…
Posting this as a warning to fellow slow inspectors. I have a 3-frame mating nuc from a split, maybe two cups of bees. Yesterday was warm and I spent a good 25 minutes go…
After a near-miss last month I've been photographing every cup and cell I find, and I think a proper visual thread would help a lot of second-years. Posting mine: hive 1 …
Fourth year, ten hives in central Texas, tallow flow going strong. I keep seeing checkerboarding recommended in the same breath as supering and I think people are mixing …
Old timer at my local association swears by running 9 frames in a 10-frame brood box once the combs are drawn — says the extra space makes inspections gentler, fewer roll…
Hived a decent prime swarm two weeks back, my second season and first swarm, west of Ireland so it's been damp and cool as usual. Yesterday I found maybe a dozen white ch…
Bit of a soft question but I'm genuinely confused. Since getting my two hives this spring I keep 'recognising' my bees all over the garden, but my partner pointed out tha…
Second year, two hives in Ontario, basswood about to pop. Last year I inspected every single week all summer because the books said so, and honestly I think I set them ba…
Caught my first ever swarm off a neighbour's fence post 10 days ago and hived it on foundationless frames with starter strips because that's what I had. Went in yesterday…
Devon, fourth year, five hives. The farm hedges around my out-apiary are absolutely humming with privet bloom right now, and the bees are working it hard in the mornings …
Second year but effectively restarting — lost my only colony over winter (long story, mostly my fault, we've all read my chalkbrood thread). Local supplier in Galway just…
Walking fence line on the back forty yesterday and heard them before I saw them — good-sized colony maybe 12 feet up in a hollow post oak, entrance the size of my fist, t…
Kent, third year, four colonies. Yesterday's inspection of my best honey producer turned up six charged swarm cells along the bottom bars, larvae swimming in royal jelly,…
Second year, three hives near İzmir. Opened hive two yesterday evening and the sound was different — not the usual even hum but louder, higher, kind of an unsettled roar …
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