Questions and answers from the Beekeeping Community app — beekeepers helping beekeepers, worldwide.
Third year, first serious attempt at foundationless, and I earned the classic punishment: the bees ignored my starter strips and built one glorious sheet of comb diagonal…
Vermont, second year, and my weaker colony is throwing two different kinds of gross at me and I can't tell what I'm looking at. Thing one: hard white and some grey-black …
Sharing because this nearly became a fence war. My two hives decided the neighbour's pool was the finest water source in Kent. Dozens of bees on the pool edge daily, a fe…
Follow-up for everyone who talked me off the ledge. Made a walk-away split June 9th with eggs, young larvae, and plenty of nurse bees. Checked day 21: nothing. Checked da…
I feel absolutely sick. First year, two hives, and today during inspection a frame slipped out of my grip and fell about a foot onto the top bars of the box before slidin…
Went through my 8 production colonies in Skåne yesterday and every single box smells like warm honey. Fresh white wax on the top bars, burr comb between boxes full of nec…
Yearly reminder for everyone enjoying the flow: do a wash NOW, not in August. In spring a 3% infestation (9 mites per 300 bees) is the common treatment trigger. From mid-…
My overwintered colony here in Vermont has become a monster: double deep, both packed, bees hanging off every frame, three mediums on and they're drawing and filling the …
Question for the late-flow chasers. Here in Małopolska the Japanese knotweed thickets along the rivers bloom from about late August into September, and the old-timers spe…
Perthshire, 7 seasons, first year doing cut comb properly on thin surplus foundation and I want to settle a timing argument I'm having with myself. Everything I've read s…
Third-year keeper in Uppsala and I finally tried grafting on Wednesday. Results are in: 3 accepted cells out of 20 grafts. I'm weirdly proud of the 3 but obviously want t…
Ontario second-year with a sinking feeling. Ordered a mated queen to requeen my grumpy hive; she shipped Monday in a standard cage with attendants and a candy plug, was s…
Third summer in North Carolina and my strongest hive has taken up permanent residence on its own front porch. It's been humid and 33-35°C for a week, and I expected after…
A thread for the Southern Hemisphere crowd, since the forum is understandably wall-to-wall swarms and supers right now. It's cold, grey mid-winter here in Wellington and …
I do a handful of removals every season here in Jalisco and finally retired my death-trap shop vac rig for a proper cyclone bucket build. Sharing because the difference i…
Minnesota first-year here, trying not to get greedy. My April package has done brilliantly: the deep is wall-to-wall brood and bees, and the medium above it is maybe 80% …
Bit of a soft question tonight. I'm five years in, out in rural Quebec, and the man who taught me everything — 40 years of beekeeping, could read a frame like a newspaper…
Fourth season in Devon and my strongest colony has decided it's time: five capped swarm cells along the bottom bars plus two charged open ones. Queen still present (saw h…
Yorkshire first-year keeper trying not to spiral. We had that cold wet snap last week (down to 6°C at night) and yesterday's inspection showed a patch of dead brood on th…
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…
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