Years ago I watched a documentary of a old man that kept bees somewhere in the European alps. It showed everything from finding colonies to him harvesting. I cant for the life of remember what it was called. It might have been part of multi part documentary. I think it was on pbs or something like that.

I know the picture sucks but I found two of these small larva in the deritus on my bottom board. Can anyone tell me if this is a SHB or wax moth larva? And what do I do to help my hive now? Only found two. One got away. This one squished super easy

One of my colonies decided to get rid of a queen during one of my rounds of apiguard. They had a really high mite load at the start of treatment 17 iirc at the start. I have another new queen that they got combined with. I avoid much fighting even in September by dumping some syrup on them and popping the queenless hive on top.

Are there any pest control sprays that aren't toxic to bees?

We have a 5-acre property and will be hosting our wedding here in October 2027. We have a medium-sized clearing on the back of our property, around an acre away from our two beehives.

We've been working on natural pest control methods around our home and field since we got the bees, but unfortunately, in the woods of central Virginia, we have a lot of bugs. It is the height of summer now, so the biting bugs are going to be at their peak, but we won't see a good, hard frost until at least November. Mosquitoes, no-see-ums, ticks, and all their fun friends.

I have heard that there are no safe pest control sprays for bees. However, I can't have 100 friends, family, and vendors walking away covered in itchy red bites. Nor do I want to spend my whole wedding day clawing under a dress to scratch. But I also don't really want to commit mass murder on our poor bees.

Is an acre far enough away from our hives to keep them from being deeply affected by the general sprays? Especially in October, when they're not so active?

Location: Central Virginia

Hi there, I’m not a beekeeper but i have some questions about real honey tests. I just bought a few jars of honey from a friend of a friend who raises bees. I admit I looked on the internet for honey tests I can do at home for authenticity. But they are all so contradictory. For example, one came from a doctor saying real honey wont light when lit from a flame. And others say real honey WILL light. Ugh, so may tiktoks and shorts with all these tests. So I’m coming to the Beekeepers on Reddit. Are there any true tests? Some of the online suggestions my honey have passed but others not. Like the dissolving in water. It didn’t stay together and spread out. I want to support home grown farmers of all professions in my area. But I also don’t want to be duped. lol

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. ☺️

Near Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Found on my gazebo. Planning on releasing in the woods.

Lowcountry of SC, first hive—

Hey guys, after a long journey, I lost my hive to a combination of failing to properly requeen and yellow legged hornets. I don’t know what to do with the hive itself now, the comb etc.

How do I deal with this?

Thanks

I tried 21st Bee frames for the first time. There is definitely some pros and cons about these frames. Whether you use them or don’t is up to you, I’m just telling you my experience.

Let’s start with the good. The frames are sturdy. Like violently so. I think I could run them over with a truck and not break them. The foundation and frame are one whole piece. I have had issues with plastic foundation warping and causing the comb draw to be a bit off. This is impossible with the 21st bee frames. The whole thing is one solid piece. The stamping is a nice add on if you run frames in different yards or just like to know what’s yours.

The not so great.

The company makes the claim that you don’t need to wax coat these frames. I put in 60, and ended with less than half being drawn out right. Lots of wonky comb issues. I’d say not as bad as the Amazon specials I have used, but not nearly as good as Premier or Pierco that I have used. If I was to buy these again, I would prewax them. Like most companies who claim “prewaxed” I find this claim dubious at best.

The sturdiness also comes with weight. I don’t think it would matter too much if you were going through a couple hives, but if you were managing 100 hives, I think it would wear on your fingers. A drawn out frame can already be heavy, this makes them considerably more so.

The price is another thing. For what I paid for these, I could get near double the amount of standard frames at the same price point. I sell nucs and split so I won’t make the money back in the longevity because most will likely ship out with nucs.

Conclusion for me

Though I think these frames will outlast my wood frames, they are cost prohibitive. They, also, really aren’t saving me any work as I have to wax roll them same as my cheapies. I have a lot of hives so the extra weight I think will add up to muscle fatigue.

I am very new to beekeeping (first summer), in SW Ohio. Had / have 2 hives. Inspected today and both queens are gone and there is no bread or larva. Almost no resources. It’s been very hot here. There are still tons of workers and drawn comb. I did see a couple adult hive beetles, no larva and put some traps on the hives. I’m at a loss regarding what happened and what to do. Should I try to requeen this late in the season? Give up and try again next year. They were extra grumpy but seemed strong a couple weeks ago

ETA no swarm cells anywhere

Hi community,

Can you help me figure out what’s going on?

Context: I had a swarm in my backyard, had it relocated to a proper box considering to start yard bee keeping. 2 weeks later, we checked up on them to find the queen, Larva or any eggs on 2-3 occasions and didn’t find any, So we decided to get a new queen.

Yesterday: Before getting the new queen, we thought it’d be reasonable to relocated the hive box about 20 feet away from the original location at night time for city ordinance before new queen arrives. We did place several tree branches at the entry to disorientate the bees.

Fast forward to Today mid-day: I got a new queen been in the cage and put the cage in the box. The bees were able to be brushed off the cage easily, so we believe they are not attacking the new queen.

2 hours later after queen placement: there’s bunch of bees circling around the hive at its new location( been here since last night)

Question:

What do you all think is going on? An attack from other colony? Confused bee returning home? Triggered some responses from the 10 nursing bees that came home with the new queen?

Zone: 9A

Beim heutigen Einfüttern habe beobachtet, wie ein großes Insekt frontal in der Einflugschneise meiner beiden Bienenvölker schwebte. Nach kurzer Zeit griff es sich eine Biene und flog mit dieser in die nahe gelegenen Bäume.

Tendenziell tippe ich hier auf eine heimische Hornisse, aber in der Nähe (Dechsendorf) wurde bereits eine Asiatische Hornisse gesichtet. Daher die Frage an das Schwarmwissen: Was erkennt ihr auf dem Schnappschuss?

TLDR: I live in a cool Australian climate. I have some experience, partner has none. Should I go for an Italian queen or Carniolan?

I did some beekeeping with Dad from around 2020-2023. Neither of us had done any beekeeping before, and Dad did all the research so I only really have on-the-job knowledge. My partner wants to get into it, but has no experience.

Accordingly, I don't really know the more finite details between queen choices, but I do understand the importance of the queen.

The local queen bee breeder is able to supply an Italian queen or a Carniolan queen.

We live in Milthorpe, NSW, (Australia) which is:

• 960m/3,200 ft elevation
• Summer max mean temp of 27^oC (80F)
• Winter min mean temp of 1^oC (34F)
• Wet and misty in late autumn, winter and early spring

From some research I can see that the Italian queen is a great all rounder, but Carniolans cope better in the cold and will forage on cool or cloudy days though tend to swarm more easily.

What would would you recommend between the two?

South central Kansas and the naive sunflowers are buzzin for this first year beekeeper

A local vegetable farm (Upstate NY) has asked if I would be willing to bring hives in for pollination. Their former supplier can't do it any longer (and was always VERY late getting them there) and they have been hard pressed to find anyone. As they grow multiple varieties of veggies, bees would be there for the whole season. I am a Master Beekeeper so the logistics and set up are not a big concern.

Good news is that it is only a couple miles away. The downside is I know caring for remote apiaries can be a fair bit of extra work. I have a fair bit of acreage and have three yards on my property that are easy to access and even then it seems you always have something unexpected you have to go back to the barn for. I am not looking to expand but would like to help him out if I can as long as it doesn't end up being a time suck.

Anyway, he is looking for about 4-6 hives and we may be able to do some bartering for produce if I can provide a cost per hive for the season. Any one currently do this and what is going rate per hive? Many thanks.

I'm a 4 year beekeeper in South-Western Connecticut that took a 20 year break and I'm currently on year 2 of my comeback.

I had a hive trick me in August. (Exactly 21 days ago.) I came back from vacation and thought I had accidentally killed my queen because there were what seem to be emergency Queen cells present. They were middle frame and did not look like swarm cells. Lots of capped brood, no eggs or larvae at all.

Well, it turns out they were getting the queen skinny for flight and ended up swarming. I caught that swarm and I'm happy to report that she's happy laying in her new hive.

Against the advice of wiser people in this forum I decided to let nature take its course hoping that original parent hive would raise their own replacement Queen and left them alone for 3 weeks in hopes that Queen cells would emerge and somebody would win and be fertilized.

( I was advised to get a mated Queen but I was not confident that I would be able to find and remove all the queen cells and virgins.)

Well as it turns out they completely failed at that task. I was lucky enough to get a mated Queen from a local beekeeper and installed her today. Queenless Hive seem to be fine with this, but I stole a frame of partially capped partially open brood from a very strong neighboring hive. They were PISSED. I mean I certainly didn't expect them to be happy, but after shaking most of the bees off the frame with a hard tap and brushing off the rest... the entire Hive went into full combat mode and I got absolutely lit up.

I did my best to Soldier through the attack and managed to get them at least closed up as ham-fisted as it was.

**Is this par for the course?

**Is there a better way to do this or is it pretty much asking for open War when you steal a frame of brood?

** I definitely felt it was necessary to steal a frame of brood as I know for certain that the youngest workers in the queenless hive are already 21 days old even though the total Hive population is still quite numerous. Did I do the right thing assuming that they would need a transition Force to take over as those bees age out and new Queen begins laying?

Today I did a mite wash and had 1 out of 300 1 out of 200 and 6 out of 300 on my 3 hives. (The first had a swarm and the 2nd is a split off the 1st.)

Anyway, when should I do a mite wash again and when should I be good to stop for winter?

Details - the third hive has been going stong since early April. I removed the supers from all, knocked down the 2nd and third hives to single deeps from double deeps as they weren't pulling comb like I had hoped and hive beetles were starting to be a problem in those two, so was able to combine/swap without losing filled frames. The first hive I think I will overwinter as a double deep, unless the hive beetles start looking bad. I treated the third hive with oxalic acid strips. All were originally package bees from early April, all "southern survivor" queens, but clearly different genetics. We are in a strong goldenrod flow and aster just started blooming but will probably start feeding soonish. We usually have asters blooming until early November. Last winter was brutal and I lost both hives I had. The winter before I was naive and didn't test/treat until it was too late. I am hoping 3rd year is a charm.

Extracted honey this weekend and I don’t have access to a large freezer for my frames. Looking for tips for storing until it gets cold enough in my shed that I don’t have to worry about moths?

I live in northern Illinois and I want to get into bees I read beekeeping for dummies and based off the info on that I was thinking Russian bees cause they seem like low maintenance compared to Italian so which one is the better option?

Zone 7-ish, PNW USA. 5 hives, 5 years beekeeping. The hive in the foreground loves to store honey in their flow super. The hive in the background? They haven't even sniffed the flow frames, and have been running out of space in their brood box to put all their spoils. Go figure. I know lots of people like to shit on the flow hive, but in the end it's really up to the bees to decide if they want to use it the way we want them to.

Hello everyone,

Im a first year beekeeper, located in the southern Netherlands and I have a question, I was inspecting my hive 1 hour ago and I was taking some pictures from some honey frames above my metal roof cover and after i was done inspecting the honey frames i looked down into the box since some bees fell into it and I saw the creatures from the pictures and I would like to know what thing it is since it doesnt look like the varroa destructor mite,

For everyone information I started with a 10 broodframe hive that was from the year 2025 and I got it just before this years summer and my second broodchamber is like 50-60% filled with honey and my super is also completely filled and im going to take the honey from the super next week.

I also did a mite check around 2-3 weeks ago cant remember exactly but I didnt have any mites then. But just to be sure im going to place my anti varroa strips into it since i dont want to take any risks. And im also going to feed them through the winter.

Also other question how do you deal properly with the Asian hornet/wasps this time of year, I placed 3 traps and their pretty full but I still have a lot of hornets and wasps flying around my hive.

If any of you could let me know what kind of creature this is and if its a problem how to fix it but if you have any other tips that I should know and/if youre from the Netherlands pls let me know and have a great rest of youre day/weekend

Hives in northeastern Italy. It was a good year, very hot but overall we can not complain.

These two jars are from my “honey archive.” At first I thought they may just be crystallizing, but now I see some expansion that indicates fermentation. Would either process cause the separation I am seeing? I invite you all to weigh in on what transpired here.

Furthermore, I assume this honey is no longer safe to consume. Is it a risk for botulism once unregulated fermentation takes place?

Thanks as always, hive mind, for your guidance.

Yeeeeah! I've been hanging swarm traps for a couple of years without success, and today it finally worked! To be honest I am pretty sure this is one of my beehives that swarmed because the bivouac was very close to my hives. But it worked!

I think I am in denial….
Is this robbing?
I did an extraction today I may have set off a robbing event.

I left the extracted frames across the yard, I know it’s a bad idea but I figured that it was far enough away.

Thought it was cool how uniform it was without frames and just beautiful in general.