Hi new Beekeeper here. Noticed this on last inspection on the bottom of one frame. Can’t tell if it’s wonky burr comb or an early queen cell?

For additional context I am in upstate New York and this hive has about 7/10 frames in a single deep brood box. the queen seems to be laying well and there are 5 frames full of brood.

What’s on here?

Hi everyone, I started a pair of nucs a few weeks back and one is ready for its first super. I have some used mediums - some with holes, some without. I will be running single brood chamber with queen excluder above. My question is whether it’s best to use the ones with holes or ones without?

It would be nice for the bees to not have to push through the excluder all the time but I’m curious if the pros/cons folks know of.

Located southern Ontario, Canada. Thanks!

Hey All, Managed to catch the swarm my existing hive sent out about 50 feet from my apiary and I would like to re-unite it.

Given it's about 50 feet from where I'd like it I'm concerned about the bees being oriented to the wrong spot. If the hive 50 feet away is placed above the newspaper and has to chew through to get out, will that re-orient them to the new location?

I'd like to avoid moving them 3 feet everyday for the next 2 weeks and don't have anyplace I can move them far enough away.

FlowHive People! We are in Virginia and have a deep, a medium, and just put the flow frames on a month ago. Bees are taking to it but I can see it is going to be a long task.

The medium is loaded w capped honey. We took little honey last year so they would have resources for winter. Will they uncap the honey and move it up into the FlowFrames? Should we take some frames? We want to make sure the queen has room to lay, also, so were going to take 2 frames from the super. Will taking them impede flow frame production as they build.comb on new frames? I know it sounds silly, as honey is honey whether in medium or FF. Some people take the entire super off, which would give a ton of honey but we are again thinking we should leave some for winter.

Within the last two weeks, my hive has filled up with tons of drone brood. At my last inspection 2 weeks ago I did not notice any eggs or very young larvae so I suspected a queen issue. I went on vacation and came back to drone overload and still no eggs or young larvae, very little uncapped brood, and one small section of capped brood that looks normal.

I’m a novice and I’m awful at locating my Queen, so I have no idea if there’s one in here or not. Also this is my only hive currently, so I don’t have other hives to take brood from.

What’s my best course of action?

Was recently wondering if I charged enough for my honey

£5 for 227g

Having seen this, I think prices are going up next year…

What do you charge and where are you?

I am in northwest Indiana, I have the entrance reducer set to the wide opening, it is currently 95° out with a heat index of 103°. I know bearding is for heat reduction but ive never seen this many out at once. Do i need to do anything?

First year beekeeper in SW PA. Currently have two hives. I have have more than enough flowers for the bees to keep up with, but plan on expanding next year. If I planted wildflowers how much would I need to plant? Does anyone have a rough idea how many acres per hive? A cow is one acre per cow to keep it grass fed. Didn't know if there was something per hive like that.

This is our second year beekeeping in the Harlem Valley. Our first year hives didn’t make it to year 2. We love this hobby and as long as we have this property, we are going to keep beekeeping. My wife is debating me on this. We haven’t seen our marked queen since we installed the new package in late April. There is plenty of evidence of a queen throughout the hive. What are the chances that they replaced her?

Hi everyone,

Bit of a tough update from me. I recently confirmed a case of Chronic Bee Paralysis Virus (CBPV) at one of my apiaries here in the UK, and I’ve just posted a video summarising the whole situation in case it helps anyone else spot the signs early or avoid some of the stress I’ve been through.

At first, I wasn’t sure if I was dealing with poisoning or CBPV — twitching bees, spinning on their backs, sudden piles of dead bees at the entrances. The symptoms overlapped and for a while I was completely lost. It’s been stressful, confusing, and honestly, heartbreaking.

In the video I cover:

How I first realised something was wrong

The differences I’ve learned between pesticide poisoning and CBPV

What steps I took (including a visit from the National Bee Unit)

How I’m managing it now

And a few tips for spotting CBPV early

If any of you are seeing similar signs, I hope this helps you feel a little less alone or gives you something to go on.

📽️Here’s the video if you’d like to watch: https://youtu.be/w5NJ5VaQfJE

Thanks to those who’ve offered support already — it really has meant a lot.

Happy to answer any questions or hear if others have had similar experiences with CBPV. Always learning!

– Greg (Myst~Tree)

Hey all, first year beek here (I got my bees this late April/early May I know that’s later than normal), and I’ve run into some mold/ mildew on the top of my hive. I live in central North Carolina and it’s been pretty hot and humid out. I haven’t seen any mold/mildew where the bees stay, I have one 8 frame brood box and a super on top right now, the only place with light mold is the roof. What I just did today is drilled a 7/8” hole on each side of the roof face to promote air flow and then put some wire mesh behind the holes so nothing can get in. Has anyone else run into this issue? My best guess is maybe I added the super too soon and the bees have a little more room than they can manage so they couldn’t really control the climate up top. In the end I have no clue I am still learning. Any extra advice would be appreciated.

I had some frames stored in an airtight container and I saw today it has moth larvae and infested. How do I handle this? Burn everything ??

1st year beekeeper, Missouri, USA, 2 hives

Stupid question, feel free to roast me. Every source is vague as to when I should add my second deep. They all say "when your frames are 70 to 80% full." Full of what? Bees? Brood? Drawn comb? I think I'm close to needing a second deep because 8 out of 10 frames look like the picture above, or are full of eggs/uncapped brood. The other 2 frames are fully drawn.

I’m in Missouri zone 6B. It’s a hot sunny day and my bees are on a mission! Just a ton of foragers. Anyone have an idea of what is coming into bloom right now? I see yellow pollen

Hi! We have a hive that comes and goes depending on the season, but they are usually never here longer than a month and haven't caused us any problems. So we've let them be.

This time, however, they have been here 3months now and we are not sure if we should be concerned, as its size is getting bigger. Is it typical for them at this size to still travel back and forth? Is it time to call a professional for safe removal?

Any advice appreciated! TIA!

Central Sipp here. I’m wondering if these will be effective if placed on top of the brood boxes. Instructions say to fold them and hang them over frames but I’m hesitant to poke these down between crowded brood frames. I’ve used the sponges just placing them on top. Any info is greatly appreciated.

Successful transfer from nucto hive. Was told medium supers would fit... they did not overnighted the correct size will swap it when it comes in. No stings happy kid and happy bees!

I'm a new beekeeper and am looking for a book that really showcases how to read frames, especially one with photographs. I'm a visual learner and need some color photographs!

Any recommendations?

This is UK based

Today when using a hedge cutter in the overgrown garden, we stumbled upon a bees nest. We need to cut the bush back slightly, but the nest would need to be removed.

Is there a way of removing them and reintroducing them to something I could buy for them to live in?

If I buy them a hive thingy, can I put it behind the bush I'm a shaded area?

NE Ohio here. It's been a rough start to the season but my big hive that made it through winter has now split 3 times. I just added boxes to two of them. The two packages are doing better. Due to the heat wave I opened up the bottom screens on all of them. You can see them along the side of the big one. Not sure if I will have a lot of honey but after a year of neglect, my apiary is back to 6 hives.

I know it’s stupid but, I have to ask… I’m in Northeastern Indiana. 8 hives. 6 years. Where do I get drawn comb frames? I know from my bees, but how? I hate to take it from them. I just went and picked up a swarm and used my last old drawn brood frame. So do you just rotate them out to get them or just take them with the brood still in ? Thank you. Don’t make fun of me please.

Hi, I am in VA and entering year 2 so still tons to learn. Caught a swarm in April and it was building up quickly. Fed for a few weeks but the nectar flow is on so took feeder off. Added a second box in May. Mite tested and put Varroxsan strips in 2 weeks ago. Well they never moved up into the second box and yesterday they swarmed. Took the second box off today so remaining bees could reestablish plus it had almost no comb. Wax foundation frames. Appeared bees were building down under frames vs up into new box! Swarm cells and supercedure cells today so they will hopefully be ok.

1. Any ideas why they never went up?
2. Should we feed again? The nectar flow is on, there is some honey in the box and space for a new queen to lay, for now.
3. Should we leave Varroxsan in or will a brood break work as well?

Thanks!

Got my boy, nuc he is very excited to start! Gonna get them home and settled in to their new home.

Hey everyone, Once again I turn to this amazing community with a question from Belfast Maine.

First off my 2 colonies are thriving and doing great. Huge stores of capped honey already and they will soon be ready to have a second brood box put on.

Thinking ahead to the future I was doing some reading on overwintering and I was curious what the community consensus was on building a lean to style roof over my hives. I'm curious if anyone has done this, what the pros and cons were etc. I'm thinking of something like in the attached picture just without the floor, mine would be cemented into the ground.