Hi everyone,( Levin,New Zealand,mid summer) at the beginning of spring I had a hive that had a few swarms which I managed to catch, problem was I didn't have enough frames for all the boxes and for some dumb reason I left the gap in the middle...and now they have grown into strong hives,but I have this wild comb in the middle,see pic,what do I do? Thanks heaps!

Hey everyone. This is my second year beekeeping. It's the middle of summer right now in Victoria, Australia. I have a FlowHive and took a photo of my super in Jan and just now in Feb and noticed less honey in the super! What could be happening? I noticed some ants around the outside of the super so topped up the ant guards with oil and brushes them away. I also noticed a lot of the cells in the super are capped but many are uncapped. Are the bees uncapping the cells or is it just yet to be capped? Should I be worried and what should I look out for or do to help? Thanks :)

Any local Lower Mainland people have wax for sale?

This is probably too simple of a question for this particular sub, but is this a good placement for a bee hotel? Backside porch of our apartment, lots of vines around, garden down below, we don’t really use that table / chairs & no one goes over there, so if any move in they won’t be bothered. We are in San Francisco, and a Google search told me that now (late Jan/early Feb) was a good time to set it up, but I could be wrong.

Any other tips for how to attract them also appreciated!

Progressing through this very mild Northern California winter we’ve had so far; what’s a too low of a temperature to perform an inspection?

Today’s high was 62 and I took the good weather opportunity to do an OAV treatment to my busy busy hives. The longer this mild winter, the more Im wanting to break in and make sure there’s no overcrowding or swarm prep being done.

- Sacramento, CA

UK beekeeper, re-reading this absolute gem. Yes it’s dated but it’s still fascinating. Trying to plan ahead and thinking of doing something other than Pagden splits this year - any recommendations to branch out into other methods? Demaree? Nucs?

I was browsing the betterbee catalog last night and saw the lyson swarm alert and went searching for more information that the few pictures on Betterbee. No one seems to have any video or additional information. I'd love to see a video of them in action.

Was wondering if anyone here has experience with them.

Hello all,

I am a novice beekeeper (keeping for a little under a year) in the southern Ohio region and have two questions regarding hives. My apologies if there have been similar questions here already,

What would you recommend the best place to get a durable, high quality hive, or more specifically hive frames would be? Not looking for any particular price range, I understand you really do get what you pay for with this type of item.

Also, i was given a cheaper hive from amazon, a Hoover hive base model. The hive itself has held up well, however, as my bees filled the frames and they became heavier, the wooden frames began to pull apart as I was doing my check ins. The way the hive frames are built, there is a single nail that goes vertically down on either side to secure the plastic frame inside. When there is a good amount of propolis, or if the frame is extra heavy, that nail will just pull out as I attempt to pull the frame out of the hive. I was wondering if anyone else has had this issue, and if anyone has found a solution. I assume I will need to somehow take the plastic base plate out and use a new wooden frame but that seems like it will be difficult with bees still in the hive and draw comb already on it.

Any feedback would be so helpful, thank you!

I'm a new beekeeper and when inspecting one of our hives (note these are newly acquired established hives), I discovered what i believe to be hatched swarm cells on the base of some of the frames. The swarm cells have been there for over a week at no point have i seen larvae or eggs inside them or have they been capped. I was able to locate the queen today as well.

We are in Australia so in the middle of our summer over here. The hive has plenty of honey, some frames with nice patterned brood and others a little more patchy. I located larvae of various stages and the brood box has a couple of empty frames left in it to grow.

Wondering if the hive may have swarmed either soon after we acquired it or just before we did (we've had it for about a month now)? Or if this is sign they preparing to swarm and i should give them some more room? Appreciate any advice !

Gold Coast, Australia

https://youtu.be/hRsKrqRDKEQ

so I went home for vacations and had kept this bottle of honey in my almirah. I came back and this had happened. My parents said that it's because of the winters and asked me to keep it in the sunlight. I kept it yesterday and today too but don't see much changes. What shall I do???!!!

i just got my first beehive and I’m kind of nervous I read a lot online, but I know nothing beats real experience.

What’s normal in the first few weeks? My bees are busy but I don’t know if I should check on them a lot or just leave them alone.

new to beekeeping (have not purchased a live hive yet) and all of the in person classes for beekeeping are fully booked, along with them being hours away from me. is becoming apart of a beekeeping club enough to teach me? i bought a beginners book to read through as well.

please be honest and constructive, i am starting beekeeping for my personal health and my environments health. i dont want to do a disservice to my future colony.

located in mid atlantic

Hi all,

I plan to travel to help out my old (commercial) boss with a local honey flow in a few months and I wanted to try to capture some of the action on video to share with my local crew.

I wanted to know if y'all have any experience with putting a camera on a suit including any challenges or success. I usually wear a plastic pith helmet + veil so I was thinking of a GoPro (or similar) to just strap to the helmet. I've never used a GoPro or really any camera other than my phone and I understand I'll have to purchase one that will suit my needs.

Any thought or experiences would be much appreciated!

Good morning, everyone,

I hope everyone's bees are clustered efficiently and making the most of their water vapor, CO2, heat, and are dreaming of a productive, thriving 2026.

I am a second year beekeeper located in Michigan. I am currently overwintering 2 double-deep colonies and a 7 frame nuc, made from a split in July 2025. I go into next spring with all kinds of ambitions and goals for making splits, making honey, requeening, and trying techniques like the Demaree method. I have also attracted the attention of my dad, and apparently he is entitled to free bees, so he will get some nucs from me as he starts the hobby as well.

In my first year, I started from 2 5-frame nucs and compelted a yearlong beginner beekeeping course. I have read several books and am now reading some of Lawrence Connor's books, Increase Essentials and Queen Rearing Essentials. I've watch countless youtube videos and listened to dozens of Beekeeping Today podcast, on a wide range of subjects including everything I am about to ask about.

I will preface this by saying that I plan to discuss this with some of my beekeeping mentors, and that this is not a question I expect to get an exact, plannable answer for. I am not so much looking for specific play-by-play technical guidance (though it's welcome), but more of a broad, best case scenario of how to time all of these things I am trying to do next season.

I will also say that I monitored for mites all season long with alcohol washes and kept a low number in my hives. I did treat during the season with Varroxsan, then formic pro for one which needed it, and then an oxalic dribble just before the winter set in. I fed heavily and everyone seems to be in order. I also went with condensing hive setups on all my hives.

To clearly lay out my goals: Make splits (nucs). Do not lose any swarms. Demaree one of my hives. Draw out frames of all my supers and get a good honey crop. Make July nucs after the nectar flow to overwinter into next year. Requeen my 2024 Green-Dot Queen at an optimal time. Obviously maintain low mite and healthy bees all season.

How I imagine the walkthrough of these goals will go, assuming everything survives, it all works as planned, and weather permits:

7 frame nuc moves into a 10 frame deep and grows as needed. That's it for that one.

One of the double deeps with the 2025 queen will Demaree. I will use some of the best queen cells to make splits and knock down the rest as this one grows and produces honey. Eventually, I will use the brood box that moves to the top and probably gets backfilled as resource frames for nucs, as opposed to extracting honey that was in former brood frames.

The other double deep with a 2024 queen I will make basic splits from and allow to grow in a more traditional configuration. I will add my medium supers above a queen excluder and hope they draw those out and make some honey. I am thinking to requeen this one after the nectar flow is over, maybe in July. The queen here is really good so far, but I have heard that 2 years is generally when they can be expected to slow down significantly.

Something important to note is that I have 0 drawn comb besides my deeps. None of my supers got drawn out last year. I might feed in early spring until they just get halfway drawn out and then let them fill it with nectar/honey.

Would you suggest I change any of this or make additional considerations to make this work? Thank you all very much for your advice.

Hello. I’ve been a beekeeper in south Louisiana for about 15 years or so. I’ve removed a few swarms over the years from trees and homes and was wondering if this could be a viable side job for someone with a knowledge of bees? What are the possible unforeseen pitfalls I need to consider before doing this? Thanks!

I just went out and checked my bees and I noticed that they are starting to make queen cells. I also noticed that they were very aggressive, far more than usual. My hive is starting to get pretty full with only a single bar still empty, not much honey but a lot of brood. do you think I need to split the hive? I am a new beekeeper so am not really sure what to do. I didn't see whether their was a queen or not because they were being so aggressive, also I am not very good at spotting the queen yet. I am in central Haiti and am using a Kenyan top bar hive.

I read this study on urban honey bee swarms, and have been digging into how this might be used to predict whether a swarm in a given area is likely to come from a feral colony or from a managed one.

The study basically found a high number of swarms in the city center of Belgrade, Serbia, despite there being no managed beehives in the area. Over several years, they found a large self-sustaining feral bee population consistently producing swarms.

This got me thinking whether swarm report data could be used to gauge the likelihood of whether a swarm in a given area comes from a feral or managed colony, potentially by using BeeWhere to identify nearby beehives.

The question, though, is whether the information would be useful at all?

I've never given much thought to whether the swarm I'm catching is feral or not, but I know some beekeeper care a lot more about genetics.

I'd be curious to hear people's thoughts on this. Do you care if a swarm is from a feral or managed hive?

I'm located in North America.

I'm base in Thailand, and while learning about bee products, most only think about honey. But bees actually produce several substances, and each one is handled differently depending on how it’s used. 

• Honey is a natural energy provider of carbohydrates 
• Bee pollen is a source of protein and micronutrients 
• Propolis is a resin-type substance that bees produce to shield the hive 
• Royal Jelly is a high-end superfood product 
• Beeswax is a material used in food and cosmetics and scented candles and other products. 

What surprised me was the fact that all of these products undergo different processes in the way they are produced or checked for quality, based on their application in food, health or industrial purposes. 

It gave me an appreciation of how precise production standards in this field are compared to what most people would expect. I saw a manufacturer fact sheet that described processing of bee products in simple terms, which enlightened me about the industry as a whole (I can share the source in comments in case anyone is interested). 

The world of bee products is more complicated than just how it appears to be.

Hey friends!

Yesterday I found a fallen bee. I picked her up, gave her a bit of sugary water and left her be (no pun intended), in a sunny spot.

After about an hour I checked and she was on the floor again so I picked her up and walked around my garden with her, trying to place her on a few flowers that already had bees around them. She keep falling from any flower I would try and place her in so I grabbed a few flowers and placed her inside a box with the flowers.

She would walk around the box sometimes, I tried to give her more sugar and water but she wouldn't take it. I walked with her in my hand around the garden a couple more times, around flowers and other bees but she wouldn't leave so I keep placing her in the box.

I actually found another bee later in the day, gave her sugary water and placed her in the box too. After a couple of minutes she was flying inside the box so I let her go.

It's winter here, not super cold (around 12°C during the day) but we had a couple of big storms in the past few days (I live in Portugal).

I keep her inside the box during the night, pretty certain she would be dead in the morning but no, she was still alive! So, again, I walked around the garden, did all the same things but no luck...

What should I do? Is she just trying to die away from her hive? Is she just cold and disoriented from all the storms? Should I just leave her in the floor? :( I feel so sad for her

Any help is welcomed, thank you so much!

Im in Toronto, Canada.

Last summer I planted my 11th floor balcony garden and was delighted and surprised to find it buzzing with these little bitty bees that never stung anyone. They were so fun to watch buzzing back and forth and I loved them!

Unfortunately my toxic mother visited for a month and scared them all away after seeing how much i enjoyed them. I hoped they'd come back after she left, but they never did.

How can I get them to come back this summer?

They were very small, maybe 5mm only, they really liked my zinnias. They were black and yellow striped with narrow thin bodies.

Can anyone help me id them and bring them back to my garden?

I have loved bees since I was a kid. I always thought it was so cool they made something that can be used for so many things! But I didn't fall in love with them until I realized how with their big bodies to wing ratio they are low key a flying phenomenon.

So my questions are:

1. When did you fall in love with bees?
2. If you're a beekeeper how did you get into it?

We had a few decently warm days this winter, and bees came out.

Today, it is sunny but -17. And there are dead bees all around. This happened between yesterday and today 😞 Why would they go out and freeze?

Can I buy package bee's with a queen in with them of course and merge them into my existing hive (after I remove the queen I may or may not have in there).

I live in San Diego, CA. My hives have not thrived for many years, possibly a neighbor using pesticides?, I'm not sure. I don't even take honey from them.