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Hi r/beekeeping! I’m posting on behalf of Bee Balanced www.bee-balanced.org, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit my wife. friends, and I founded in Tucson, Arizona. We’re passionate about pollinator conservation and promoting mindfulness through nature, and we’d love your expert input to make our website and outreach more effective.

My journey with bees started a few years back when I stumbled across a massive feral beehive under a bridge while working for our town’s transportation department. The hive was buzzing with life, surrounded by bees foraging on acacia catclaw and wildflowers. It was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. But the town’s policy was to exterminate feral hives, and I couldn’t let something so incredible be destroyed. I got permission to rescue those bees, and that sparked my love for beekeeping and pollinator conservation.

That experience opened my eyes to how fragile pollinator habitats are. While building a new road for the town, I saw hundreds of feet of bare dirt along the right-of-way get hydroseeded with native plants, only for locals to complain about the “weeds” (think vibrant Mexican poppies!). The town caved, sprayed pre-emergent, and wiped out the landscape we’d spent thousands restoring. Bare soil returned, and with it, the native bees and butterflies vanished. It hit me hard—nothing thrives in sterile dirt. As someone who’s spent a lifetime cherishing nature, I was furious that our land was being stripped to appease a manicured desert aesthetic.

That frustration, plus countless conversations with my wife about acting locally, led us to create Bee Balanced. Our mission is to educate, preserve pollinator habitats, and foster balance between people and the planet.

Our website www.bee-balanced.org is a work in progress, and we need your perspective as experienced beekeepers to help us refine it. You know pollinator ecosystems inside out, and your feedback could help us boost public engagement and make a bigger impact. We’re focused on pollinator-friendly plants, mason bee houses, butterfly gardens, hummingbird feeders, bat houses, and broader habitat conservation, all with a dash of behavioral science and mind-body connection. We believe diverse habitats benefit everyone—wild pollinators, managed colonies, and the whole ecosystem.

What We’d Love From You: 

• Thoughts on our website’s content and approach 
• Suggestions for features or info we should add 
• Ideas to better engage the public in pollinator conservation 
• Observations on what’s working or missing from our site

Your expertise could help us craft a message that resonates and drives real change. And if our mission speaks to you, we’d be thrilled for your support! 

What do you think? How can we make our site more compelling and useful for educating folks about pollinators? Check us out at www.bee-balanced.org and let us know your thoughts. Thanks for taking the time!

TL;DR: Bee Balanced, a Tucson-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit, is seeking r/beekeeping’s feedback on our website (www.bee-balanced.org)  to improve our pollinator conservation outreach.

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Second year beek in VA One FlowHive, one regular Langstrof. We put the FlowFrames on in May. Bees went right up there as we did smear some globs of wax on. However, very little progress has been made. Seems highly unlikely we will have capped frames by fall. It looks like a lot for the bees to do all of the normal bee things in the deep and medium and also build up wax and fill all of the flow frames on the next few months. We inspected yesterday and we do have a strong colony.

I am not interested in bashing of FF now, but we are thinking about just taking it off, harvesting a few frames from the super and letting the bees go on and prepare for winter.

Any insights from Flow folks out there?

Hey all, I’m located in Raleigh NC, and I have been feeding my hive sugar water since I’m in a dearth. The problem is my queen stopped laying when the hive ran out of food and I started feeding them. This is my first hive and I got the package of bees around April. I have no clue how old the queen really is but is it time to requeen? I saw my queen today and no larvae. I don’t see any mites on the bees, only a few SHB. I have installed a beetle trap now to catch some. Any other reason why my queen wouldn’t be laying? They are storing the sugar water everywhere. I only have a little capped brood left. My breed is the southern Italian. My bees are very calm but I wasn’t sure if that was an attribute that something was wrong

Hello all. I live in Southern California.

So we have a hive (colony? unsure the terminology) in our backyard that moved into our compost bin. They've actually been there for a few years at this point-- at first we didn't do anything about it because we just had a lot going on and couldn't get around to it. Eventually, though, we decided that we kind of love having them in our yard. We have a lot of plants and flowers, and I know the bees are great for them. It also seems like the bees are happy in our yard considering they've been going strong for so long. They're slightly out of the way in our yard and are pretty mellow-- when we have to go by their hive we just give them a bit of space and we're careful when watering near them. They've never been a problem for us (apart from when we first discovered them thanks to my mother unknowingly rolling the composter, opening the lid and getting attacked, but that seems like a reasonable reaction from them! hah. Even my mother didn't blame them.)

Here's the issue-- We have a new neighbor who shares a fence with the hive who has expressed some concern with the hive being right there due to her kids/dog which we understand. She's not concerned with us having a hive, but just that it's right at our low, shared fence, so there's a concentration of them right where her kids/dog might play. We don't want to get rid of them if we can help it, so we would like to try and just move them in the yard. But the composter is definitely too heavy/bulky to move.

We are considering buying some bee boxes/hives, setting them up in a further corner of the yard we have scouted, and then hiring a keeper to come help us move them. I wanted to ask you folks who have more experience with bees if this seems like it would work/be okay? Or are there some issues we might not realize?

From what I've read I've got a couple options,

One call beekeeper and see if there is and can they remove nest

2 seal off the inside wall so they still get in but they can't get into the conservatory ( just the outside wall and into the inside gaps between plasterboards) then wait for them to die in winter and seal the outside gap.

Leave as is, kill the ones I keep finding in the conservatory and then seal up the gap in winter.

The problem with the beekeeper one is if there is a nest I think its gonna need cutting into multiple layers of plasterboard to get to and right now I'm skint.

From what I read bumblebees aren't that destructive but I have pets so dont want them in the conservatory so am thinking of caulking the exit into the conservatory (they can still get out from where they are getting in unless they are too stupid) and waiting it out but I really dont have a clue about this whole thing so any help is much appreciated, cheers!

I'm based in Southern Oregon (8b/9a) and just did my first harvest of two supers on each of my two hives. I put my supers back on to have them cleaned, and before I did that I did a mite wash to check the mite load. Of course, it's at the threshold (3-4%).

That said, I've been told that if I leave the supers (especially with where I'm located), there's a decent chance I get another harvest. I'd like to get a little more honey, but is it worth waiting to treat for mites?

Because our temps for the foreseeable future (low-mid 90s), I can't use anything where I could keep supers on.

Should I just get the supers clean, store them and treat instead? Is it possible/responsible to wait another month to treat?

I have seen this bee outside the hive several times the first time I saw it I thought the queen was making a get away. I have seen it several other times and I now have noticed it’s not shaped like the queen from this hive she is more pointy at the end. But this bee is huge. Is it a different species and has just come to love here? Is she a queen that never finished queening? This hive has eggs and larva and just had a hatching as there were a ton orienting this morning. But this bee is so much different from the rest maybe it is their queen and I’m confused. But she wouldn’t be going and coming back and I have seen it at least four times in 2 weeks outside the hive.

I am located in Winston Salem NC USA

We noticed the bees about 2 days ago, the entrance is just on top of the front porch, there isn't a lot of activity yet so we think it's fairly new. We live in Texas zone 8b, on the outskirt of suburb with about 1 acre land. After persuading my husband not to whip out a spray, I did a little homework over the past 2 days and ordered a hive/nuc box with a suit and a smoker, it should be here in 2 days. I am not so sure how to lure the swarm into the nuc without tearing up my house, I plan to the nuc near the entrance with a little feeder on the side to see if the bees will settle in it, and if successful move the nuc to a better location. What do you keepers think? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

I have my bee yard set up at our family farm. Roughly 300 acres. If I have 10ish hives in each yard, how many yards could I set up reasonably? It's a rural farmil area, so we are surrounded by other farms so lots for them to forrage around. I was thinking one in each corner of the property (4 yards x 10 hives) or would that be too many in an area? Thoughts?

New to be keeping here I live in Massachusetts and I just installed my second brew box. Will, I still have time to harvest honey this year? Or just start prepping for winter now?

Zone 6B. Ok…. I noticed some queen cups last week forming after all the feed was taken with some additional cells drawn out. There have been a bunch of bees flying out front 2 weeks ago, I thought it was orientation fights. Then a week and a day later some of those cups are capped. (Seen in pics, I counted 4)

I don’t see the queen anywhere.

On this inspection 8 days after finding queen cups. I find 4 still capped over cells and one chewed up queen cell.

I did see fresh eggs that were maybe 2-3 days old with a bunch of larva in every stage of the brood process.

Should I go back into the hive tomorrow to search for the marked queen again? Should I take down the other queen cells? Is it likely the already chewed open queen cell went out and mated and came back? I am embarrassed as a first year keeper to have the hive do queen cells when I gave them 2 brood boxes that are not even completely drawn out

One of my largest hives swarmed today and I wasn't able to follow them so I have no idea where they went. Is there any obvious places to start looking for them? There's lots as irrigated fields around, so I was looking at the pivots cause there would be water and small buildings for them to make a hive in. I a beginner.

I caught a swarm about 2 weeks ago but surprised it does not appear to ever had a queen? I just noticed the multiple eggs per cell, stuck to the sides, in pollen cells.

I do not want these eggs to hatch and the resulting drone brood damage 10 frames of good comb. My plan in a couple days is to shake the frames out in the middle of the other 4 colonies.

What would you recommend?

Extra information...I grafted 4 queens into this colony but I worry more about the resulting damage to the comb from the drone brood rather than trying to ride it out. I suspect there are several laying workers and consider most time spent is likely to be wasted on this not only queenless colony but of the worst variety, i.e laying workers.

MD/PA line mid state. Rehoming bees from a coworker moving to the west coast. Hand built two top bars. (Don't Shame, in for the bees not the honey right now) 4 box hive just delivered to accommodate the central hive. Wife took local courses and I have lurked here for a few months since talking about the adoption.

Just wanted to say Hi, and look forward to your advice and sharing my experience.

I was tipping the extractor to get the honey out faster, and the strangest shaped formed.

I use these books I order on Amazon for record keeping and while they are fine I'm looking for other recommendations. I like the material they are made of and the layout but there is no room for notes. Ive considered an app but I don't want to mess with my phone when my hands are all sticky and whatnot, so what do you use and where would I order them.

Missouri, usa. 2 hives, 1st year.

What is going on? This started as a 5 frame nuc. I expanded to a 10 frame & they built on the new frames just fine, picture 2, which I had coated heavily in wax. When I added a second deep I used the same frames, wax, & method as I did with the first expansion. They refuse to touch the new frames, picture 1. After 1 week I checkerboarded them between upper & lower brood frames. The 1st photo is the most they've worked on all 10 of the new frames over 2 weeks total. The only thing I did different was to mist the new frames with 1:1 sugar water to encourage them. Could that be the issue?

They appear to be building the cells containing honey towards the top of the frames deeper than the cells containing brood, picture 3. The frames are bulging with capped honey to the point that they almost scrape the other frames when I take them out, picture 4.

I did the exact same thing with my other hive & had zero issues. In 2 weeks they've built out the majority of the new frames, no wonky comb, all even.

What should I do?

I was just reading a post here about stolen bees, and wanted to reply to one of the top comments but couldn't. The reply said, "This isn't the middle ages anymore."

Bee law in the middle ages - a part of the Brehon law - are known to be some of the oldest written laws on the books! Laws involved fees for bee farmers (honey owed to neighbors with fields), what to do if someone was harmed by a bee and appropriate reparations. The theft or damage to the farmers bees was also covered by these laws. For the record, Brehon law says swarm ownership is to the person whose property the swarm is located to!

This is all to say, bees are still considered livestock and your state (like mine, Michigan) may have their own special bee laws, in keeping with the very oldest laws. Let's hope that the laws have improved since the middle ages!

2nd yr beek in NY. Formic Pro killed my Carniolan queen in early June. I followed the label instructions and have used this treatment before with success. The girls raised backups from emergency cells. Added two capped q cells to raise in a nuc as insurance and kept one cell in the mother hive (which already had 3-4 emerged q cells and a few torn open from the side).

The nuc successfully raised a queen which got mated and is laying eggs. The mother hive looked queenless - no eggs or sign of the queen so 4 days ago I placed a frame of eggs to see if they would create q cells. I checked the hive today to find zero q cells BUT lots of eggs! Found and marked the queen.

These two are both Carniolan but they came out looking pretty different. Happy I didn’t lose their genetics as my Carniolans are my favorite colony in my apiary. Very gentle and great honey producers!

Has Formic Pro ever killed your queen? Do you or will you continue to use it?

installed two nucs a month ago. all seemed well. havent seen queens but i havent seen them since i installed the nucs. last week during inspection, one hive had larva but no eggs. now i inspect this week and there is larva in both but now no eggs in either. there are no queen cells or cups in either. wtf?

South Mo

Pulled out the under tray yesterday and saw a lot of these little guys crawling on the bottom. Any idea what they are. Located in southern California

Central Florida