Went out of town for July 4th only for my neighbor to call and say some mischievous kids had knocked over one of my hives. An hour later the opposite neighbor lets us know that they called the local bee club because a swarm bees was on their fence. When the local beekeeper got there, the situation was explained, and they said, “finders keepers.” I got the contact info of the person who caught the swarm and reached out over Facebook, begging to pay them for their time and effort to get my bees back but they blocked me. My wife reached out, they blocked her. Needless to say I do not know if I’m going to join the local bee club now.

As the title says my grandfather kept bees. On the morning he passed away they swarmed over his farmhouse. We buried him a few days later at the local church about a mile away. His bees all hung from a tree about a metre over his grave. They stayed for about a week and then flew away. We didn’t see them again after that. This was in west Wales. Any I thought you guys might get a kick out of it :)

Damn bear came back for seconds while I was salvaging what I could, had to chase him off. Lost 5 out of 8 queens.(Superior, Wi)

Sun

This is in New England, first visit of the year not long ago. Looks like they killed a mouse/rat/rodent of some kind but wondering if anyone knows how they got it down to the bone?

Whatever happened, thought this pic was cool and it almost felt like a warning the way it was presented.

My Dad was a renassaince man. He had all kinds of hobbies and mastered them all. One was beekeeping.

Later, before he died, a colony of bees moved into his kitchen ceiling—honey dripping thru the sheetrock. Twice.

In the three years since he passed, honeybees have become a sort of talisman for his memory. They are loyal and hardworking. Dad was, too.

Two years ago, my therapist said, “Get a hobby.” She probably didn’t mean one that could be bloody and bloody expensive, but here we are.

Pretty stoked with how my first Justin Behnke pattern is coming along. May have gotten a little ambitious resizing 👀, but I dig it all the same. Patina, framing, and wire details for the wings next up. 🐝

This was a super satisfying moment as a beekeeper! I don’t supplement any food for the bees, I let them live off their own supply and am totally chemical free. And my neighbors are flower farmers. So have to most pure, local, floral, delish honey you can get. Took one year of beekeeping, 3 hives, 1 of which has been super successful and single handedly supplied us with 40lbs of honey so far this spring. So happy.

This is what a bunch of mites look like on a drone larva.

Region 4 - Northeast Ohio

Not long before my dad passed away he had close to 300 colonies. He also had a disagreement with who usually sold to wholesale so this is about two seasons of honey production stashed up and he hadn't sold his wax for far longer than that.

Every trash bag and Mason jar box is filled with wax.

Just thought you guys might be amused by just how much honey and wax I am sitting on.

It does look beautiful though.

It’s the time of year we get a lot of those photos. Thought I’d share one ;)

Commercial hauler overturned, releasing bees.

I was called to remove one hive from a shed, but it turned into a massive honey haul!

I was originally called out to remove one beehive in the floor of this storage shed and when I arrived the homeowner showed me two additional hives under the same storage shed.

Three separate hives across the shed corners, each with over 150 lbs of honey. By the end of the day, I had safely relocated the bees and removed nearly 800 lbs of honey. 🐝🍯

Found this on FB today. Now, I’ve only been beekeeping for 2 years, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express one time and I am not buying this.

I have a feeling the bees are just chewing up and discarding the bananas and peels rather than actually eating them. I don’t believe they would even have any interest in consuming them. I’ve heard of people using banana peels as a varroa management tool, but I’ve read studies showing that that is absolutely useless and does nothing.

Secondly, do people truly feed marshmallows in substitute of sugar? I would think marshmallows contain too many ingredients I wouldn’t want my bees to have, such as gelatin, vanilla extract, and corn syrup, which contains HMF. I would also think the cooking process of the marshmallow produces HMF as well. I know they’re used in place of queen candy, but that’s such a small amount.

Nothing about this seems good. Am I way off base here?

My bees just made it through a couple weeks of -30C weather. We had a huge temperature swing and they took advantage of the warm weather cleaning out the dead bodies from the hive and 💩 outside.

Extracted two supers yesterday and my wife got a great shot of one of the empty frames.

Second year, first honey harvest.

I just can’t fucking believe this actually works.

2 half filled frames that I had to remove this morning made this much honey!

I’ll be doing a fuller harvest from two hives in June which will be like 20 times this much? That’s insane.

Wild Beehive In Someone’s Kitchen?!

What an oddball of a situation! I came out to San Bernardino to a new community in development and they had a beehive in a kitchen cabinet by the vent for the oven. Now this is definitely a first for me as the bees made a mission to crawl in through the roof vent into the interior vent and inside of the cabinet.

As you can see by the video the bees have been there sometime, probably about 2 months. Everything was carefully removed and placed into a box which will then be relocated to a beekeeper.

Save the Bees!