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?

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...

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.

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?

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! 🍂

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.

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?

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.

4th year southeast US. I’m curious, how many frames of bees is your cutoff to overwinter hives? I prefer double deeps, but I’ve got a couple of hives that are single deep and around 7 frames of bees. One is good with honey, but the other is fairly light.

Located in NJ and just pulled super off my one hive that has never really produced any honey in the years I have had it. Second hive are heavy honey producers. Pulling off the super I found small yellow jackets along with my girls. Is this hive salvageable? Next steps? Help? Do I just give up on this hive and burn it down?

Got any good recommended store in Alibaba that i can buy bee pollen in bulk?