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Yorkshire, first year, two hives, and I thought queen cells were a spring problem. Went into hive two yesterday for a quick stores check and found three sealed queen cell…
A neighbour rang yesterday about bees in her olive tree. I expected a wasp nest; it was a proper swarm, maybe two kilos of bees, calm and hanging in a tight cluster. Shoo…
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…
Vermont, second year, two hives on double deeps. Went through hive one on Sunday: all the bees, the brood and most of the honey are in the top deep. The bottom deep has d…
Ontario, second year, three hives. We've had a freak warm week — 26°C today, humid — and tonight two of my hives have a beard on the front like it's July. A few hundred b…
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 …
Kent, third year, four hives. Did what I thought would be a quick last brood check yesterday on hive two and my blue-marked 2025 queen is nowhere. Instead there's an unma…
Every September the same visitor shows up in my Tyrolean apiary: Vespa crabro, the European hornet, big reddish-brown thing the size of my thumb. Right now there are two …
Galway, second year, three hives. The ivy has opened along every hedge round here and the bees are absolutely flying on it — bright orange-yellow pollen loads coming into…
Uppsala, third year, four hives. The last few days I've been seeing a handful of bees on the landing board of one hive with their wings held out at odd angles — the front…
First year, two hives in central Minnesota. Yesterday I noticed maybe twenty or thirty bees crawling in the grass in front of my stronger hive, and when I looked closer a…
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…
Ontario, second year, three hives on 2:1 for the last two weeks. I'm using the 4-litre hive-top trough feeders that sit under the outer cover, and every single refill the…
Fifth year in Małopolskie, ten hives. After a warm start to the month we've had ten days of cold rain and the bees have been stuck inside. Two of the ten hives now have b…
Five years, nine hives in Quebec. One colony superseded in August and must have lost the virgin, because this week I found it: several eggs per cell, eggs stuck on the ce…
Third year in Uppsala, three hives, and everything is glued. Crown boards need a hive tool at every corner, the frame lugs are welded to the runners, one colony has narro…
Seven years, forty hives near Mendoza, Argentina, where mid-September is early spring. The poplars are giving pollen, the first Zonda came through last week — one afterno…
Third year in Kent, four colonies, and I'm annoyed with myself. Two Apiguard trays, 14 days apart, started on the 8th of August and finished on the 5th of September, ekes…
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…
First year in Minnesota, two hives. I extracted four mediums in late August, let the bees clean them for a day, then stacked them in the garage with a lid on top and forg…
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