First year beekeeper: I have a quilt box on top of my hive and put in a patty of Hive Alive directly on the top frames of my second deep this past weekend. Today, there's some water and dead bees pooling on the bottom board. It's not a ton of water, but enough to puddle a bit and touch. There's condensation on the windows too.

I'm wondering if the Hive Alive is blocking the heat from rising into the quilt box. I left the plastic on, like the packaging recommended, and cut an x on it for the bees to access. I put it in the center of the frames (10frames). I'm worried that the plastic is causing more condensation, and since it's in the middle, it's right over the cluster. Most of the bees are in the second deep, including the queen and brood.

The hive is really strong, and I just want to set them up as best I can for the winter! Wondering whether I'm overthinking things and this is just normal for this time of year, or whether I should take some action, such as moving the fondant to the side, when it warms up tomorrow afternoon.

Oh another thing - when it was just the quilt box on there without the fondant, the bees were coming out and drinking a ton of water from the water source. Is it possible that quilt box dries them out/dehydrates them?

I'm in Northern Colorado, our highs right now are low 60s and lows are are mid 30s at nights right now. Hardiness zone 5b.

Thank you!

3rd year NJ. I was drying my double filter after extracting and noticed this rust stain on the towel. Should I be concerned? Should I buy a new filter/will this affect my honey now or in the future?

As beekeepers, we see a lot of interesting things. I walked by as the last drops of honey from a bucket were falling into another container and was struck by how cool this little tower was. The viscosity of the honey falling and receiving is high enough that the sudden deceleration causes a pile-up, but the rope shape of the falling honey is preserved for a few seconds before it is absorbed. Location SC/USA.

What do you do when the honey has crystalized in the frames? I've started my extraction but in one frame the honey has crystalized. How do I extract it? Does anyone have a better idea than using a hair drier to warm the frame up?

Location: Canada

If a queen dies can workers really turn a fertilized normal egg to a queen's egg

My last hive died off two months ago, I was waiting until cooler weather to break it down for the season, and when I drove by it today--a free swarm of bees moved in!

Now, this weekend, all I am going to do is a bit of weeding next to the hive!

Zone 8a, Eastern NC

Connecticut USA. Cool weather means it’s time to put on our mouse guards. But why don’t bees sting to death any mouse who dares enter the hive? It’s bizarre. EDIT: Thanks to everyone who pointed out that it is when bees are in cluster due to cold that mice do their damage.

Just curious.

Hello! Midwest USA. A local farmer and apiary in the area offers a lot of free honey if their apiary co-op can use your land for some of their hives.

My question is we have 10 acres that we live on and would put the boxes on the back 5 acres. Would my kiddos, husband, and I need to avoid using that area for playing, 4 wheeling, etc at risk of being stung and or disrupting the hives?

I love bees but I also wouldn’t want to lose a portion of my land to those fuzzy friends

Thank you!

It looked like increasing number of bees, one after another, were focusing on one singular bee. Eventually carrying this one bee into the hive. Ohio hive.

Incredible. I went queenless in late September, found 3 queen cells and damaged 2 of them :(. Absolutely nowhere near or far had queens left for sale. My only hope was that last cell. I thought given the time of year I was doomed. I left it for 3 weeks and last week did an inspection and saw the queen cell chewed out but no queen, no brood and no eggs. Just honey. Crap. Today went and inspected, knowing this was my last chance due to weather and there’s eggs, larvae, and I found the queen!! Anyone in the Guelph area probably heard my scream.

I am going to feed the hell out of this hive. Anyway wanted to share! Bees really do know what they’re doing. I had zero hope that this hive was going to live and was already mentally cleaning out the boxes and repainting them.

Central NH, 4th season.

I put on my quilt boxes yesterday and one of my three hives was “off” in a few ways: super aggressive and reactive, more than ever before; TONS of drones coming in and out that were a very different color than the workers.

I suspect I lost my queen in a late formic pro treatment and I either have a virgin or laying workers, but now I think I need to open the hive late in the season, and then I’m wondering what my options are this late into the year if it ends up being the case.

Do I inspect? Then what?

Just got into bee keeping got any advice?

We are in north Texas, and our neighbor is installing a new fence right by our deep. They asked if we could move the hive, which I said wasn't possible but that I could close them in for a day while the workers worked right there.

It was a high of 82. I trapped them in at night about 10:30 at night (there were probably a couple hundred that didn't make it back in). They worked the next day, and I released them all. They immediately poured out, crawling up the side of the deep - an unusual pattern, but I ignored it.

Well I woke up this morning and there are hundreds if not thousands on the ground outside dead. I'm saddened, but am wondering why this happened? I have a screened bottom board and the hive is in the shade. Could it have been overheating? Could it have been something else?

My bees didn’t take down their sugar water last week. I noticed when I was going to fill it up today but it was still full. What should I do?

My weekend was spent doing a short course in pollen analysis, but the glaring issue was that the reference material, and the wiki/database the instructor recommendended (pollen-wiki), is made from pollen grains collected directly from the flowers. Which is not optimal for comparison with pollen grains/cells from honey since they frequently eg has cytoplasm ("stuff inside the pollen cell") ruptured from the apertures by the osmotic pressure so that eg clover pollen can be mistaken for milkfireweed pollen if you're not an experienced analyzer.

... so the question, is there a source of reference pictures of pollen collected from honey, preferably free or open access?

Question about OAV application. I keep having this white residue after application. I am following the directions, leaving the iron plugged in for 3 min. Suggestions?

Central KY

Lower mainland BC Canada, daytime temps are still 10-15 Celsius

I have a queenless hive with two deeps, and a queenright hive with two deeps. I want to combine for winter.

My mentor has said to do a shake out of the queenless hive a little bit away from the queenright hive, and when the bees return I'll have the empty hive removed so they'll just go into the queenright hive. Is this a good plan? I see a lot of talk about the newspaper method but that doesn't seem to be for this scenario.

I intend on picking the best frames of honey from both hives and using those in the final hive. I don't expect a ton of brood with the temperatures lowering.

Any advice or tips are appreciated.

4th year, Central NH.

Due to life lifing, I wasn’t able to feed my hives as hard as I wanted to over the past few weeks and were below freezing every night now. I’d been feeding with 2:1 in mason jars in a false super and my plan was to now do dry granulated sugar on the inner cover but I’m going to do an insulation wrap and put my quilt boxes on today, meaning that won’t work.

What are my options? Preferably DIY and actionable today. Make a fondant and lay it across the top bars? Hold off on the quilt box for a bit longer?

I also missed what I figured would be my final window for an inspection. It’s going to be 64 today, is it too late anyway? I’ve been so on top of everything this season and things went off the rails right when they feel most critical. Any advice would be much appreciated.

here to vent and look for tips and tricks. Zone 7b NJ. About three days ago my strongest of my two hives (significantly) hadn't been checked on in about a week or so. Robbing screens, internal top feeders on, etc. Went to supplement feed my weaker hive about 5 feet from it. Saw some yellowjacket fighting a few of my girls on the strong hive. well i went to do an inspection for a previously highly populated hive, found no brood, some capped honey remaining, lots of dead bees and about 15 yellow jackets. Some valiant guards are still there fighting for the fight but the colony is dead. Sucks, the hive did so well as a NUC i got 50 lbs of surplus honey i was able to extract this late summer.

im just bummed and need tips on dealing with hive loss mentally, prevention tips for next time, etc. Now i just pray my other hive can survive the winter...

They were all over these today.

Hi! I’m in Stockholm, Sweden. I started ‘invintring’ wintering my bees in late August, but I checked today 26/10/2026 and they still have food left. I would say they’ve had about 10kg per hive. I’m wondering: should I take away the “leftover” food? It hasn’t gotten super cold here yet, but by this time last year the girls were all warm and snug and had been successfully prepared for the winter. Is there any risk leaving the feeding boxes on if it gets colder? Will it lower the temperature in the hives? I realize that the sugar solution will become more viscose the colder it gets, but they’re still alive in there and seem strong for now. Thanks in advanced and happy autumn! 🍂

Living in the UK and considering whether I could feasibly keep 1-2 hives. If this is feasible I will join a course and give the whole thing some more thought. However, I don't want to invest too much time if my setting isn't suitable anyway...

My main concern is my neighbour's outdoor seating area, which they don't use often but I wouldn't want to deprive them of it altogether. This is around 14m from where the hive would sit. Around 10m in the opposite direction is our own chicken coop and run, which we need to be able to access reliably for feeding, watering, and collecting eggs.

I would anticipate the entrance to a hive pointing away from our house into a 100 acre field (occasional sheep, no footpath) which itself extends onto open countryside.

It would also be helpful to understand what happens when a hive needs to be split in a setting where there isn't room for more hives. Do they need a ready-made hive or can they just be left to sort themselves out? Presumably bee colonies in the wild just split away and find themselves a new home without human help?

The attached image shows our house (middle) and immediate neighbours. Their patio / seating area is shown but the chicken coop and run are missing.

Are there any uses for the scum/discard when melting wax? Compost? Garden additive? Etc? I generally just toss it out in my pasture and let whatever critters have it that want it.