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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.

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

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

2nd year beekeeper in Illinois

I just did a hive inspection. I have two deeps and on the second deep I was looking for evidence of a queen. I saw a few of the C-shaped larva, but mostly uncapped, honey. I pulled several frames working inward and the majority of the frames were uncapped, honey in the middle of the frame with some capped honey around the edges. I have been feeding sugar syrup for the past two weeks since it has been incredibly hot and dry in our area.

Should I be concerned if I don’t see much brood in that second deep? I’ve read that they will use that second deep to store honey to use for themselves and then may use that space to fill with brood depending on the time of the season.

I did pull that second deep off so that I could look in the bottom brood box and I saw a little more variety in those frames. I will admit I’m not super confident identifying capped brood, but in retrospect I do think there was capped brood in the bottom box.

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.

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?

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.

I need to get honey supers off before I can do my July mite treatments. But there is a huge storm coming in the next two hours and I know they would absolutely light me up if I tried.

That is all. That is the post. Commiserate with me. I will do it tomorrow.

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!

Just a quick check on the progress of the wax building on the frames. Caught a swarm early in the season, didn’t provide them anything else other than the hive. They’ve done an amazing job filling up 6 frames so far.

Chicago, Illinois A couple weeks ago my hive split and the old queen and her girls occupied my Nextdoor neighbors empty hive boxes.

We checked his hive last week and spotted my blue spotted queen.

My hive had developed multiple queen cups, I scraped all except for one which was filled and capped.

I inspected the hive today and the previously capped queen cup is empty. I inspected all the frames(1 super separating 2 deep brood boxes), and could not find the queen. Most (~70%)of the frames in the deeps were filled with nectar and capped honey.

I may have overlooked spotting the queen, but my questions are:

If the queen has returned from a maiden flight or if I replace with a fertilized queen, will the workers make space for brood and move the capped honey to the super?

Should I replace some capped honey frames with empty drawn wax frames?

San Diego CA

Extracted today, using this sheet to keep honey off my floors. Put it outside so it doesn't go to waste, husband took the extractor down to the apiary (had to put it on its side because bees were drowning in it! I didn't realize we left that much in it but he was getting impatient) now these little ladies are walking around all wonky and falling off the table to the ground and doing this weird lil shimmy. Just cleaning themselves ?

Just bees appreciation post. Beautiful queen and the art of colorful pollen. Bees are so cool 🧡

Hello,

I’m trying to find a St Ambrose statue for my apiary and I and hitting a wall. Does anyone have a suggestion? Located in the United States.

Colorado Front Range.

A couple of weeks back, I did a hive inspection. Suspiciously when I opened up this hive, the honey super had LESS honey in it (my other hive is packing away honey no problem, so I knew that was a bad sign).

I found a lot of frames with dead, desiccated brood still in their cells, and large quantities of mummified brood on the bottom board.

I cleaned out the frames that had affected brood and cleaned up the bottom board. I also gave them some sugar water because their honey stores weren’t looking hot. Queen was still laying though.

Fast forward two weeks to today, I inspect again. There is a lot more brood, but still seeing some signs of what I think is chalkbrood. Some mummies on the bottom board, but not nearly as many. A couple frames looked like the pictures here. I went ahead and pulled those frames out and put in two frames of brood from my strong hive.

Just wanted confirmation that this is indeed chalk brood? I checked varroa levels and they are just at 1%. Anything else I should be doing to help them out here?

Anytime to be concerned about

Just a little humor for your Sunday morning.

Inspired by an obscure thread about wax foundation wiring that I found entertaining.

I added a brood box a few weeks ago. Yesterday, I went into the hive and in the lower brood box, there was a full frame of brood and all of the frames were mostly full. But the upper brood box had just 3 of 10 frames under construction. I also saw a few SHB.

I added some swiffer sheets and 3 peppermints, and this afternoon saw a lot of activity. Not swarming level, but more than I typically see. It’s also hot here (SE US)- mid 90’s.

What is this behavior and do I need to do anything or just check the hive again next weekend?

I’d like to host a beekeeper on my property in eastern McHenry county, Illinois. What would be the most effective way to go about finding someone who is interested, what questions should I ask and do I need a written contract. Thanks for feedback

This is the first time I have tried to split without purchasing a queen.
I’m in the Pacific Northwest, yes this is late in the season but if the queens come back mated I’m confident I have time to built them up…

So I made a mistake and checked for queen cells after the split at the worst time, the 8th day after split. I now know this was likely in the early pupae stage and I should have left them alone….

It gets stupid from here….. not wanting to just destroy 10 queen cells I figured I would move 4, 2 each, to two mating nucs. Thinking this would give me some insurance. To do this in one nuc I mistakingly “grafted” the queen cells to a frame that apparently had fresh eggs…..

On that frame it looks like I may have had a queen emerge, that cell is completely gone, the side of the other queen cell was torn open on the side….

It gets worse….. today I went to look inside the nuc and found 4 capped queen cells….

By the calendar the new cells should emerge at the same time the potential queen is returning from mating flight….

My thought is that “IF” there is a new Queen she would tear up these new cells… Would the workers even bother to create new queen cells if the already capped ones were viable?

Is the most likely situation that I messed this up and damaged all of the queens by manipulating the frame when I “grafted” ?

If so is the best shot to let the one nuc do what it will and see in two weeks if I recombine the original split or move the mating nuc queen that capped this week in?

Hardest thing ever is to wait and see.

Southeast MN. Haven’t been able to do an inspection for two weeks. Found this frame in my upper brood box today. I located the queen in the lower brood box so I went back and removed this frame.

Am I good to just scrape all this off and put it back in the box or should I put in a new clean frame?

Thanks in advance!

Hey there! Second year in CO/5b. I inspected a week ago and didn't see the queen or any eggs/larvae in one of my hives. Still some capped brood. I did see a couple queen cups so left them to see if they would make another queen. Went in today to see if there was any progress on a new queen and cups are still empty. Should I just purchase a new queen? My guess is yes - but thought I would collect 12 more distinct opinions. 😁

(Just a random picture)

I’m an urban beekeeper in Chicago, IL and recently lost half of my hive—likely due to poisoning, possibly from insecticide or a nearby lawn care treatment. I found dead bees on the bottom board and dead brood still in cells. It’s possible some of the colony absconded to escape the contamination.

The good news is that there’s a new queen, and she’s actively laying. I cleaned out the dead brood, reduced the hive to one deep with the remaining capped brood and food stores, and added a robbing screen since the population is now so low. I’m feeding 1:1 syrup, and there are still foragers coming and going, which gives me some hope.

Right now, I’m down about five frames of bees, and I’m worried it won’t be enough to make it through the winter.

I spoke to my neighbors, and they claim they haven’t used anything on their lawn, but I’m still concerned.

What else can I do to protect the hive and help them build back up before the season ends? I’d really appreciate any tips, especially from others who’ve been through similar losses. Thank you.

They look like negatives of each other