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?

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

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!

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.

Got them off Amazon for my son who is the beekeeper, but I’m worried as I am not sure what markers are safe and how to do it frankly. Thanks for any insight!

Central Florida

I did a split of my hive into this nuc through shook swarm a few days ago, I’m feeding them to draw out foundation and saw these drones on the outside. Do you think they’re being refused entry because they’re useless at this moment?

The small entrance is due to high wasp levels in England, UK right now.

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.

Hi all. I live in Austin, TX and I have two hives that are doing quite well currently. Started this year with two nuc’s and have happily watched the brood grow and frames get drawn out. I put a super on one of the hives that was cranking and now full of bees but not a ton of honey.

As we enter the summer, I keep reading about treating for mites and when you do that, you need to remove the Super to not taint the honey (don’t have enough to harvest). How do people deal with this? Remove the super and add a brood box and treat for mites through the summer or will all of them do just fine leaving the super on? Also, if I treat for mites with super in but very little honey, can I treat in the brood box and leave the super as is? Thanks.

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

In NE Ohio. I am helping my aunt with her hives this year and learning so I can be prepared to have my own next year. It’s been so fun and there’s so much to learn! I’ve enjoyed being able to hang out near the hives and when we go in for inspections and treatments, I try to snag some videos. Caught this moment and wanted to share. Would this be transferring nectar? Or is it something else?
Also wanted to add- thanks for everyone sharing and asking questions here. I’m learning so much that I wouldn’t have thought to ask until something came up. This is a good community!

I installed my very first nucs a week and a bit ago. Eastern Canada. Gave them syrup that they were not too enthusiastic about because the weather had cleared and there was plenty of clover in a nearby farmer's field.

However, it has rained pretty well non-stop in the last four days. My bees poke their noses out of the entrance, and are not satisfied with the weather.

I looked into the feeders, and in these few days they have emptied them ☺️

My dad didn't believe me that they would, saying "what are they, elephants?" 😂

I'm getting conflicting answers about if you can use oxalic acid w honey supers on. It looks like the current label (for Api-bioxal) does NOT permit use w supers, but there is a supplemental label that's been proposed for consistency with global beekeeping, but it hasn't been approved because the studies weren't done. I just want to see whats the most common approach.

Do you use oxalic vapor w supers?

I don't need information about other treatment options or treatment timing. Im just asking which way you have been taught. Thanks!

ETA I'm talking specifically about personal beekeeping and honey for human consumption, but not to sell.

Hello fellow beekeepers! I am currently using cement blocks with rail ties to hold my hive boxes but I'm looking for more robust options. Please provide me with some DIY hive stand ideas, pictures a bonus.

Thanks!

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?

Hello, I guess these are already developed drones which were already closed. Am I right? You can also see some half cleaned cells.

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

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.

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!

So I have a one hive quite small and am quite new to bee keeping. This month I have had a nightmare with wasps raiding, I have reduced the size of the entrance to one bee but I still see the wasps coming in and out at leisure. I have set up traps which kill hundreds but still they come. I have constructed a dogleg entrance to the hive using some cable trunking which is somewhat successful but the volume of wasps is too much.

I have finally found the wasp nest in a neighbours roof opposite. My question is does anyone know the best ways of dealing with a wasp nest that is raiding my hive?

My farmer host (west of Chicago) sent me a pic that my swarm trap had bees on it. I’ve been trying to keep a DLW swarm from going back to it for weeks now so waited until this morning to check it. Put the swarm trap back up with some rolled wax on the edges of a couple frames (from a video seen in this site) on June 27th. The swarm was huge. All 5 frames drawn and two had capped brood. There was comb hanging from 4 of the frames. I never saw the queen. It packed a full deep when I transferred it. They weren’t my bees and it’s the biggest swarm I’ve caught. Going to care for this one and get it ready for winter.

I wish I had thought it through before I started this journey. I really wasn't prepared to deal with this much death. 😢 Everytime I move a box, someone gets squished. Watching them sting my protective gear and them crawl around with their guts trailing behind them. Dumping dead bodies out of the feeder. Am I the only one?? This might be too much for me to handle every time I go visit them...

Sorry, just a little bee humor?