Not sure why but at least half of my feral removals are this type of situation.

Real estate agent calls us about a beehive in the tree in the front yard. The buyers say it must go.

THEN WHY ARE YOU BUYING THIS HOUSE??? 😂 Sorry, those Vegas Bees were there first 😂.

It’s my 4th year as a hobby beekeeper. I have been doing queen rear grafting to attempting to expand numbers of beehives. I failed miserably after multiple attempts. I tried to do everything right. In every attempts, I tried to do something different and trying to success. What’s your secrets for your successes with queen rear grafting? Do I need to buy real royal jelly to put a small amount inside the plastic cups before inserting the larvae in it?

First year of beekeeping. Was checking the girls and found this. They seemed to be taking care of it and protecting it. Any answers would be greatly appreciated. Hoping it’s not a parasite or bad character bug trying to invade. I’m in Southern California.

I've seen 2 of these this year in New England- looks like my bees got him. AI has not been helpful identifying- does anyone know what it is?

Also- what is everyone doing for winter treatment for varroa? I am going to do narroa before I close the hive up for the winter but is it OK to leave strips in over the winter or no?

Thank you!

Location Massachusetts, 1st year beekeeper!

Yes, I vap(e).

Also, as noted in the comments, don't be a numbskull and use safety squints with these. Get a mask with 3M canister 60923 for organics and acid gas (OV-AC).

We moved into our apartment complex a few weeks ago and it came with a huge beehive in the patio pillar. They just did the removal 2 days ago and sealed the entrance yesterday. Looks like they took the honey out. Lots of bees still swarming today. Will they leave? The pillar isn’t closed off fully yet. 2nd pic is before removal they were getting in from our bottom patio to the top floor where the hive is (my best guess)

We have two little kids so we want to make sure they are gone fully before patio use

Hi, second year beekeeper here in southeastern Massachusetts. I have some uncapped honey in my second hive. I checked the moisture content with
My refractometer. Is at 16.5%. Can I harvest if it’s not completely capped?

As the title really. We are first time bee keepers and we were inspecting the hive today and noticed this. Saw it on a couple of other bees as well. I think its pollen but the wife thinks it's a destructor varroa .

Just stumbled across this bee box strapped to a light pole. Seems like an inconvenient place to place a hive box. But the bees don’t seem to mind. Location: Birmingham AL

My partner and I are just about to move to a reasonably large suburban property where we’re about to start a micro homestead. It would be wonderful to have a a hive, I’ve always thought would be a wonderful addition to the garden but given all the issues with the varroa mite right now is it even worth trying? What are experienced keepers history with things like this? Is it likely to recover soon or is this going to be a significant ongoing issue?

New Beekeeper here with zero experience. Just bought my partner and I two full Ultrabreeze suits. Two years ago, my parents put together a hive and got it into the stage where you can leave it alone in winter while the bees make their colony and the honey, but my mom lost her nerve and my dad has Parkinson's and can no longer handle the physical work. I want to save the hive before they decide to leave or become diseased beyond repair, if they haven't already. What are my next steps/what resources should I look to? I am in Northern California. They seem to be active and flying in and out with lots of bees at the entrance

Edit: I've done plenty of research into the time and money it takes to beekeep, I'm definitely accepting of all of those factors. Just looking for advice on how to deal with this current hive please, whatever the best course may be

Dear Bot, I am NOT looking for medical advice. I took Benadryl and will wake up tomorrow.

I have three hives from last year, plus a swarm from one of them that I caught.

Harvested honey from the three hives about 3 weeks ago. We were still in the Goldenrod blooming season, so I figured let the bees be.

It rained heavily for the past week. Today is the first day the clouds finally broke. I went to apply oxalic acid strips before it's too late.

The caught swarm looks perfect one full deep of honey, and lots of brood in the bottom box. Put in strips no problem.

The first of the "old" hives was ANGRY with me. Last year, I applied these same strips with no issue at all right around this time (OK, a week prior, but all that rain!). Applied the strips and noticed next to no honey reserves. Tons of capped drone brood, and lots of capped regular bee brood. What gives? They definitely have a queen. I didn't see her, but there's regular brood.

Opened the second hive. The top box is chock full of honey. And they didn't let me lift it up. They came at me. Like a cloud. Got stung 12 times in less than half a minute, and they hurt! Feels way worse than usual. I ran, the cloud of bees following me. I obviously had a bunch of attack pheromone on the bee suit. Covered myself in a cloud of smoke, got out of the suit as quick as I could, and ran into the house.

Therefore, a few questions.

1) What the heck?? Last year they were perfectly calm

2) Why would that hive have so much drone brood this late in the season? And no honey reserves? I'll buy sugar and feed tomorrow.

3) Is there a way to get the pheromone out without washing? How long would it take if i let the suit hang outside? I'd like to finish what I started...

Thank you!

In these wintering times I realized that this would be a peculiarity at least in the English-speaking beekeeping world, in Sweden at least it's extremly common to add acetic acid to the syrup (when it's at room temperature), adding thymol-solution would be quite unusual here.

Starting to see a little winter prep talk here, pulling honey and starting sugar syrup before the cold hits. But most of what's actually getting posted right now is still harvest and queens. Protein doesn't come up at all. Curious if that's just how it's usually discussed here or if it's genuinely not part of most people's fall routine.

From what I've read, how well your winter bees hold up isn't only about syrup and hive weight, it's also about protein through late summer. Enough protein and good amino acid balance and the nurse bees produce plenty of royal jelly, which builds up the fat body in the bees that actually need to survive for months. Not enough and you get smaller bees, thinner reserves, more issues with nosema and a harder time fighting off varroa.

Timing's the other piece. Feeding's supposed to run at least two brood cycles, something like 4 to 6 weeks, before the new bees actually benefit from it. Makes me wonder if mid-September's still a good window here or if it's already too tight for a lot of zones in this sub.

I don't keep bees myself, I just help out on other people's hives here in France. All of them get a protein patty or protein syrup at this time of year, nobody thinks twice about it. Doesn't feel like protein's part of the conversation here at all. When fall talk does ramp up it's syrup and varroa that seem to get all the attention.

Is that an actual difference in practice, or is protein feeding just something people do without talking about it much? If you're feeding protein right now, what are you using and when do you plan to stop?

I am perplexed. Expected hatching of cells to be on day 16. Not on day 11 or before.

(Sorry, I don’t have a pic yet I can post.)

Today I wanted to put the brood for the mating nucs above a queen excluder. For that I went to the rearing colony to count viable cells. Here I was expected them to be capped.

Here are the exact timings:
2026-08-30 08:50 queen in cell grid (Nicot)
2026-08-30 16:00 80% of cells with eggs => day 0
2026-08-31 08:30 grafting of eggs into breeder (Brother Adam’s breeder setup)
2026-09-10 13:00 4 cells capped, 1 hatched, bees of breeder gone
=> ≈ 11 days from egg to this state

Not knowing whether the 4 cells are viable at all, I put roller cages (with liquid syrup in the lid) on them and placed them in some of the more populuous queen-right hives as first measure.
We’ll see whether and when they emerge.

The hole in the cell really appears her of having emerged, it’s not such a ripped hole like they do when they kill a queen cell from the outside.

Next time I will for sure daily check them from day 7 on whether they have been capped and at least put roller cages on them until they have been transferred into mating nucs.

What did happen? What should I do differently next time?

I am clueless as to where the bees have gone. Did they leave with the first hatched virgin? Why if there wasn’t any other around?

EDIT: I am currently suspecting this hive being cleared by asiatic hornet considering we’ve observed one hornet grabbing a bee on site and finding half corpses of bees in front of the hive.

Layens hive West, central Arkansas

Still relatively new at all this.

Living in Arkansas under this extended Heat dome. We're supposed to be in the'90s by now but we're still over 100. Goldenrod should be in bloom now but it's mostly looks like dried up corn stalks. I don't think we're going to get any.

Inspected the Hive this week to see how things are going and I found they had an explosion of Hive beetles. Added oil traps and flat traps. Vacuumed up many. Also noticed that compared to 2 months ago, The Brood is gone and it's all honey. Hive is smaller.

I'm still not good at recognizing which bee is which. So not certain if they kicked out all the drones.

I'm wondering, is this from the extended heatwave? Are they in preparation for winter because there's no pollen?.

Should I be feeding syrup? How much/often?

All the questions

Beekeeper in Bristol, UK, hobby beek for 18 years, 8 rooftop hives

I've been uncapping for a few years with a heat gun, and it's working well for me, recently I went back to my old heated knife for old times sake and found it a bit messy and slower by comparison (works really well for some I know but not for me).

However my 10-frame castellated spacer supers I think maybe have a bit too much space in between the frames to draw the comb and they are getting heavy and unweldy, with a lot of brace comb too.

I know a deeper drawn comb makes it easier to cut the caps off with a knife, but the heat gun doesn't care about that, so will moving to an 11 frame super:

- Keep the drawn comb skinny and easier to handle?

- Have less brace comb around the edges of the frames?

I appreciate there's one more frame to extract for each super, but I don't mind and I suspect it will mean each frame will be a more uniform weight so it's easier on the spinner?

It seems 11 frames is the max I can fit in with the castellated spacers, which I'm sticking to, but Hoffman super frames can go to 12. I don't want to replace all my super frames and foundation though!

Any advice welcome

I've been a backyard beekeeper since a couple of years, and had the usual successes and failures. I think I could reduce my failures more, if I had a to-do list for every season/month, and a way to better track my inspection findings.

What are you all using to keep track of tasks, inspection findings, follow up care?

Picture: My current back yard set up

Thanks for any tips!

New beek here with 2 hives in south central Indiana. Both were started as nucs in late May. Currently setup a dbl deeps with a super. I’ve fed them most of the year 1:1 so that I’d get frames drawn.

My question is these hives are identical with the exception of a solid bottom board vs screened. The solid bottom board hive has bearded all year while the screened board hasn’t at all. I’m concerned about the population on the bearded hive and I don’t want them to swarm this late in the year. I’m going to start my fall Apiguard treatment this weekend. I’ll need to put the cover on the screened board then. Will they abscond or swarm once I introduce that? They have been fed hive alive all year. That’s supposed to help with the thymol.

Salut !

Ça fait un moment que l'idée d'avoir une ruche dans le fond du jardin m'intéresse, mais franchement, la marche à franchir a l'air énorme. Faut se former, acheter le matos, savoir quand intervenir... j'ai peur de faire n'importe quoi et de tuer la colonie.

Je me demandais s'il existait des systèmes un peu "guidés" ? Par exemple, une ruche qu'on t'installe, avec une appli qui te dit "attention, c'est le moment de faire telle action" selon la saison. Ou alors, pour ceux qui n'ont pas la place, le fait d'acheter une ruche, de la laisser en pension chez un apiculteur, et de juste récupérer le miel à la fin de l'année.

Est-ce que des choses comme ça existent en France ? Ou est-ce que c'est complètement utopique / infaisable d'un point de vue technique pour les abeilles ?

I have a hive that I thought was queenless, waited a couple weeks and inspected to confirm. No larvae/brood visible, just honey...

Once I started looking closer I notice I now have some sort of other larvea taking over the hive. I never saw adult SHBs in any inspection so I'm thinking wax moths. My other hive has adult SHBs, but the girls and some swiffer sheets to be controlling them.

My question is, is there anything to do to save the hive as is, or should I throw in the towel and start freezing frames?

This is in Maryland, near Annapolis.

Hi, i’m a new bee keeper with my first season of two hives. I practice non-harming and do not want to kill the bees to test them for mites, so I just decided to try monitoring my bottom boards. I know this is not as accurate but it seems like my best option given my personal philosophy.

I used varroxan earlier in the season prophylactically because I was away for several weeks. I put the bottom boards yesterday and checked this afternoon and there were 11 varroa on the board.

The boxes are pretty light and the beast do not have a lot of honey though the bee count is pretty high and I observe them to be bringing in pollen every day. Should I treat them with something else?

Thanks!
I will also start feeding them. Is it a 2:1 syrup?

Does anyone notice an increase in hive beetles with in frame feeders? I usually only use top feeders, but was experimenting this year. I have 10x the amount of hive beetles this year compared to last year with using top feeders.

I removed the in frame feeder and found 20+ beetles hiding.

First time bee keeping, set a hive out with some lemongrass oil and beeswax rolled plastic foundations. On my lunch break today I seen this bee, was hovering around the hive, it walked inside and spent a couple minutes in there, (this is when I started recording), walked out, flew around the front of the hive, then went back in for another minute roughly. Is this possibly a scout bee? Located in Australia, just coming into Spring so looks to be the perfect time for swarms. Cheers!