I have been stung upwards of 30 times doing hive inspections today 😭 fully suited/gloved!! I’ve only been stung a handful of times in the last year. Weather is definitely a factor as the temps are dropping and it’s a bit cloudy today, but the bees were on another level with me specifically. We have determined that they must have a fucking vendetta for oxi clean.

Can anyone suggest an alternative to get the smell out/for future washes? Maybe just a baking soda or vinegar wash?

Had an unusually warm day the other day (Zone 6A) and took advantage to inspect and feed.

Found that the bees had filled up nearly all of the deep frames and the medium frames and started storing food in the brood box.

Only saw about two frames of capped brood and they were scant. Wondering if this is to be expected or if there’s something else going on?

Other than that everything looks good. Population looks strong, treated for mites, food stores are great.

Greetings, having had a full day at the apiary today, and being near the time where i can finally kill them all in a brood-less hive

I took my time to see how varroa behave when adhering on a live bee.

-They can walk way faster than i expected finding their way into the crevice between the abdomen of the bee rendering them virtually invisible

-It's extremely hard to physically dislodge a mite from the bee body just by sliding it off with your fingers, you need to pinch it off from below with your nails( I only imagine how hard is for our belove bees to scrape them off from their body with the limited tools they have)

-They don't die immediatlely,( i tossed 3 dislodged mites on a empty jar and theyre still alive and walking, to kill them off you must pinch hard with 2 fingers,

Hi,
Can anyone tell me what’s going on with this frame with sunken dark cells? There are other frames in the brood box that have normal brood cells.

Early morning, +13 celsius, sky high humidity, this hive was given 2.1 syrup yesterday with garlic and cinnamon

I’m a new beekeeper in North NJ. All my other brood frames were completely empty, but this one still has some capped brood. Should I be concerned? Thanks for the feedback!

My wife used oxalic acid to vapor treatment her 17 hives. Despite my concerns she comes into the house in her full bee suit, mask and gloves afterwards. She undresses partially in the hallway, still has the suit tied around her waist and comes into the kitchen to wash her hands. In addition she takes a water cup out with her and leaves it in the area when she vaps. I am concerned she is contaminating herself and the home and not treating the chemical with the respect and caution needed, she thinks Im over reacting, who's right?

I have a hive in Southern California, we had a low-no pollen summer so I’ve been supplementing with pollen patties and syrup a lot. Even with the hive on ant-trap stilts and not touching anything except those stilts, ants have managed to find a way in. Are they living in the wooden boards?? I can’t find an outlet for their trail, it just looks like endless looping around and in the hive. Really stumped. Anyone encountered this before?
I’ve taken a break from supplementing until I can get a handle on the little buggers, which I’m pretty confident are argentine or thief ants, not carpenter ants.

So I have had something new happen in my beekeeping adventure. 2 days ago I went to give all my hives Hive Alive fondant patties. Ive done this every fall for a couple of years now, never had issues. Bees love it. So this year I opened each hive, put in a patty and closed hive.

Well the next day every hive has tried to rob every other hive. Its a free for all out there and I have never seen anything like it. I have witnessed a hive or 2 in get robbed before but not 10.
I even brought out the water hose to simulate a rain shower and that barely slowed any of them down.

Has anyone ever had this happen? I have no outside feeders, everything is internal. Honey stores should be in a good place for all hives and ive never had Hive Alive set any hives off before.

Western North Carolina.

Fellow beeks! I'm a northern California (Marin County) beekeeper with ~16 hives. Its my side-gig, but the gig is mostly honey sales and hive hosting. Have an LLC, but it does not bring in much $$$ selling at the farmers market and retail.

Trying to decide if the NorCal Honeybee Expo is for me. I've watched Kamon and Binnie, but flying out just to see big names is not worth it in my mind. What WOULD be worth it by coming to the expo? I have about 10y beekeeping experience more or less. I can't expand because I have a full time job and limited house space.

I’m interested in improving hive management, making extraction and bottling less of a sticky hostage situation, and learning how to grow without accidentally giving myself a second full-time job.

For those who’ve attended:

• Did you learn things that actually changed how you keep bees or run your business?
• How much of the value was the talks versus vendors and conversations with other beekeepers?
• Is it worthwhile for a small operation, or will I spend three days admiring machinery designed for someone with 2,000 hives and a forklift?
• Would you fly across the country to go again?
• Anything you wish you’d known before your first visit?

I’d love to come home with useful knowledge and a few good connections. I’m concerned I’ll come home with a $3,000 stainless steel object and an explanation that begins, “Okay, hear me out.”

Please help me distinguish professional development from a very elaborate bee-themed shopping trip.

Thanks for helping me decide!

Full Hive + Hot & Humid Night = Big Beautiful Beard

Novice - I’ve been beekeeping 2 years. 

I am in Melbourne Australia. 

Hello, caught this swarm 48 hours ago. Installed plastic ziplock bag top feeder of 1:1 syrup. Not much action first day, as was quite cool (14C). Good action out front today on first warmish day (22C). Figure 8’s, entering and leaving. quick check shows syrup being consumed.

BUT - quite a cluster has spread from back corner across the inside roof cavity.

Questions:

Is that a problem?

Better to leave them so they take to the hive and deal with misplaced comb later?

Or do something now and put an excluder or something across the top (I don’t have a lid handy)?

I had planned to leave them until Monday - 7 days (I’m going away for 7 days after that). Good idea or intervene before?

Thanks :)

I only have 2 hives and plan on taking my top boxes off next week so 20 built out, mostly empty medium frames to store. I am moving next year so not investing in a freezer.

I have read I can wrap with Para-moth and store in garbage bags in a container or use Certan spray to prevent wax moths.

Any suggestions or feedback appreciated

I've always been told it's bad to boil water+sugar while making syrup (but it's ok to boil the water and then remove it from the heat before combining with the sugar). This is how I've been making syrup for a long while, even though it's hard to get 2-1 to dissolve.

1. My bee partner just mixed up a batch of 2-1 for our hives and it was so nicely dissolved. I asked her how she achieved that and she said she boiled it for a little bit. I said WHAAAAAT? Should I toss the syrup? I feel so uncomfortable using it.

2. Why is it ok to bring sugar to 230 degrees or whatever it is, for fondant? I can't remember what it is exactly but it's definitely above the boiling point.

Thanks!!!

Does anyone here keep bees in traditional tree hives? It’s a n old method, and I’m sure you don’t get as much honey as you would from regular beehives, but I think it could be a very rewarding hobby!

If any of you keep bees this way, let me know how it’s going. I’m thinking of building at least two of these tree hives in my forest in Poland during the 2027 season. 🐝🌲

Hello all! Seeking help purchasing straws and the appropriate impulse sealer. BPA free food safe etc. jumbo vs regular size.

Please show me your honey stick setup!

I’m in Marin county, California.

I’m the VP of our local beekeeping association (brown county, Ohio) and we are wanting to compile our own inspection checklist at our fellowship meeting next month. We want this to be included in our youth hive scholarship program that we offer every year to help youngsters use their resources to problem solve if their mentor isn’t present.

What’s your top 3 things that you look for during your inspections that may not be on a generic “checklist”? It feels like the ones I’ve seen online are missing some things (ex: royal jelly present, hive behaviors, etc). I was curious to see what you all look for during inspections to ensure your colony is healthy and doesn’t need fed!

Hi! I’m a beekeeper that works on several different properties which means there are often bees in my car. I’ve noticed twice in the last week that a single bee will be trying to get out near my windshield/on my dash. As soon as I turn the car on, the bee will die almost instantly. It sort of panics for 3-5 seconds and then dies. Why is this? Should I be getting my car checked for a co2 leak? Kinda freaking out about it. Anybody else experience this?
I saw one other really old post on here about this same thing. No one had any answers

I am a new beekeeper, located in Northern Virginia, and currently have three hives that I am preparing for winter.

When I previously conducted a Mike check with my mentor, we found an incredibly high level of mites. Upwards of 50 in our alcohol wash. Rather then, testing all three hives, we decided to treat all of them with oxalic acid via the Instant-Vap. I went through several rounds, treating every five days, enough to get through a standard brood cycle.

I have insulation for the hives, food ready for them, and they seem set on interior resources. So if there is going to be something that will take down my hives, I feel as if might are the highest risk.

Two of my three queens are unmarked, and I am somewhat reluctant to conduct another alcohol wash and take away some winter bees, or potentially screw up the hive based purely on my beginner incompetence.

If OA isn’t considered harmful to the bees (or at least one of the least risky, yet effective, mite strategies) are there any risks to doing another cycle of oxalic acid, just to be sure? It’s inexpensive, easy to do, and I don’t see a downside to doing another cycle… But maybe I am missing something.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I have asked a few local beekeeper, but everyone seems so set in their ways, as if there is one “right” way to do it.

I get that running multiple cycles seems excessive, especially if you have lots of hives… But I only have three, and I really want to do everything possible to get them through the winter and start off strong in the spring.

Hey! I recently moved to a new house and almost immediately I started having fire ants going after my top feeders and would like y’all’s advice on preventing them. This is a first year hive and (to my rookie knowledge) is a fairly strong hive and the ants haven’t entered the hive, they just appear to attack the top feeder.

So far the first attempt yesterday morning I cleared them all out and put a ton of cinnamon on the stand and stand legs before I went to work.

After work last night the cinnamon didn’t work so on my second try I used Vaseline all on the stand legs per someone’s recommendation on a post and cleared the ants again (only thing I had on hand). This morning it didn’t work and there’s about double on the hive than what is pictured the first time.

I’ve ordered tanglefoot online and have been hesitant on chemicals until I research further, but I am curious what other remedies do yall have? Obviously I know first is kill the ant colony but so far I haven’t located them, and would like a remedy that prevents future ant colonies from climbing since I’m in a heavily wooded area and I will always be battling the ants. I’ve also seen bee moats/dog bowls on legs but have been curious on how effective they can be. Any advice is helpful thank yall!

This is in Virginia if it makes a difference at all to anything

Western New York, 6 Years keeping

I had a few fall colony failures this year, one was weak from a failed superceedure and one I don't know, probably varroa then robbing. (I was sick this year and late to treatment).

I let another hive clean out the nectar/honey from the deadouts, but there's still a bunch of pollen in the cells on many frames.

1. If I freeze the frames for three days to kill any pests, should I just leave it over winter in the shed (should stay cool in there) and then give it back to the bees in spring?

2. If I do that, will they utilize the pollen or at least clean out the frames?

3. Is there a way to get the pollen out without sacrificing the drawn comb?

4. Other?

So my second year and the lord has blessed my family and I in many ways. I’ve learned more than I’ve forgotten and forgotten equally as much as I should have (LOTR nerd 🧐)

How do yall clean tools? Specifically things like capping tanks, uncapping knives forks etc? Generally soap and hot/boiling water do most of it for me (after my bees finish everything off of course) but mainly propolis and wax bits? I’m small scale of course so we’re talking household ability here.

Second question, where do yall buy bottles? I prefer 1lb bottles and would like to keep my overhead low. I’ve been buying them from my local farm store that has a SMALL beek section. However my output has outweighed their supply, I’ve got 4 supers in my laundry room right now fanning and only about 30 bottles or so.

I was doing an inspection today. One of the frames had these cells that I haven't seen before.

Fearing the worst, I tried doing a rope test on a few of the cells and they were all the same. Kind of hard and brown on the end of the stick but nothing came out.

What do you do with your excess honey? I would like to get into beekeeping but I am afraid I would end up having many many mason jars full of honey that I would not be able to sell or find a purpose for. I do not have any additional mouths to feed at home and do not consume much by myself.

what does this mean?!?! im so confused and i want to help them but i don’t know if they’re just chilling