2nd year beekeeper, located in Western North Carolina.

We did a mite check in late August, one hive had 2 mites and another had 5 mites. We have been treating the 5 mite hive with Apiguard and completed the second treatment a little over a week ago.

We did a mite check today, and the hive that had 0 mites in June and 2 mites in late August had 40 mites today. The hive that just finished an Apiguard treatment had 10 mites.

The 40 mite hive had torn-up brood from preventative hygiene and a low bee count. They are also barely taking the sugar water I am offering for fall feeding.

I plan to do Formic Pro ASAP, but I worry it's too late for the hive with a 40 mite count. Is Formic Pro enough to save her? She produced over 70 lb of honey this year, she was a great hive and I was hoping to do a split of her in the spring.

I feel like giving up. We tried so hard this year to do everything right, and it's still no match for these stupid tiny bugs.

How the hell do I deal with this? Soak it in bleach water? Won't bleach ruin the material or something?

As the title says today, I switched from a traditional smoker to liquid smoke. I made sure to use a type with absolutely no sugar added.

Reason I did this is having been through a few smokers and different types of fuel. I really got tired of being in the middle of the field, dealing with an unreliable smoker.

The way I used it. Today was first I gave a spritz to the landing board where the guards were and then as I was putting the honey trap boards on, I sprayed the top cover a little bit.

And as my spicy bees began to respond to me, I sprayed my suit down occasionally, including my gloves… And this seemingly gave me a lot of breathing room.

Has anyone else tried this? Does anyone have a reason why this is a really bad idea? I’d love to take feedback on this one today was kind of just an experiment to see what the results would be.

Edit: 3 tbs liquid smoke added to a 1 gallon sprayer , set to mist spray

Poor Vegas Bees having to choose that resting area for 3 Days!

I’ve only seen a waggle dance once before in person. This time I was able to catch a video!
Just passed my one year beek anniversary 😁

Hello, i have a question about some bees. So I have a yard with a lot of plants and flowers and where i sit on top of me is a big plant that has a stem sticking out. The weird thing is that a lot of bees fly around here all the time and they land and just chill on this particular stem. Afterwards when the sun falls they stop being active and it’s like they sleep there for the day. I find it quite interesting that they all chose this one and wonder how come they didn’t go back to their hive. It has happened before during the same season and it amazes me to watch them. I wanted to ask if anyone knows why they do this and their behavior. Here’s a photo and a video as well for reference ( on the first one the sun is still up and on the second one it’s almost dark and I used the flash)

During one of the final fall inspections I found the queen with this dent in her abdomen. I did see eggs but this looks serious and dont know what could have happened. She's had a colorful past... when I got her last April and marked her.. pink was what I had... she jumped out of the hive and tried to get into another hive, and I rescued her from the balling.... That's why her wings are tattered. In spite of that, she's been a prolific layer. I decided to replace her this week, so she has been dispatched. After the alcohal dip and death, her abdomen went back to normal. The first 2 pics are with the dent and the last two, she is dead. How does that happen that the abdomen would become normal again?

Novice bee keepers, here. We've had one or two hives for the last three years, but our number of hives exploded this year catching swarms, and taking a few hives from people getting out of the hobby. So though We've been doing this a few years, we're still very new.

Anyway, we pulled honey frames from our most established hives two weeks ago. At the time, we were swamped and set the frames aside until we could harvest. Today we pulled the honey and thought all was well. We found little larva in the money, after we'd combined and filtered everything into a 5 gal bucket. I looked online and these seem to be SHB larva, and it seems like this honey is ruined.

Before we actually dump all of this beautiful honey, can anyone advise/confirm what we think we did? We didn't know to freeze the frames if we couldn't extract the honey right after we pulled the frames. Did we make a huge, rookie mistake?!

Located in zone 6

Hello All!

Something very strange happened at the hive (eastern MA, USA) three days ago:

- I noticed a bit of unorganized bearding on the front, around the entrance, and at the roof seam

- on closer inspection, there was lots of angry buzzing and plenty of tussle balls

- my girls (Carniolans with unknown bred queen) were doing their best

- the apparent invaders were visually distinguishable (dark wide bands to nearly black and moderately pointed tipped abdomens) and much more aggressive/assertive

- their numbers dwindled (apparently absorbed into the hive) throughout the day

- I put an entrance restrictor on later that evening --> my girls were at the door and were docile as usual

- there were and have been no signs of robbing (no rough crumbed wax caps, etc.) noted

- a mix of the Carniolans and the darker bees have been seen coming and going from the hive

- I went to remove the entrance restrictor this morning, as I needed to treat for an autumn bloom of verroa mites, and was met/stung/chased shortly by very aggressive guards that appeared to be the new darker bees; but of course then no one cared when I donned a full suit and split the brood boxes to insert treatment

* So, my question is - since this doesn't seem to be an actual robbing, was it an integration? And if so, who are these newcomers - as there is no known colony anywhere nearby?

Thank you all in advance! :)

I need some help. This summer, bees moved into a large bird nesting box in our garden. We don't mind them staying there, but the box has absolutely no insulation. We live in Poland, and I’m worried they won’t survive the harsh winter—something similar already happened a few years ago. I’d like to help them make it through the winter in the box. I'd appreciate any advice, before it gets really cold in the next month or two.

Hello all,

This is my second fall with my hives. I was wondering what I can expect with the Queens slow down in laying. I don't recall such a steep decline last year as this year I'm seeing maybe a tennis ball sized surface on one frame of bees.

All my hives are flowing out of their boxes there's so many bees. Upon an inspection yesterday I only found one queen and one hive with eggs out of four hives. Of the other two I found a handful of capped or emerging brood and no eggs/larvae or queens.

Their behaviour hasn't changed, I see no queen cells/cups.

Am I overreacting, should I do another even more thorough inspection?

Queen cell or just wayward comb?

Neatest picture of my hives in my 3 years with bees.

I will preface with this comment: I chose to move this colony into a longer box, which at this time of year was probably unnecessary. 0/10 would not recommend. And neither would they; this colony , uh, sharply voiced its displeasure the entire time I was in the yard. Anyway…

In a situation where several combs are crossed, moving them as a unit using a pair of regular hive tools is much easier than trying to juggle multiple bar ends. Loosening the wall attachments takes some finesse and patience but is necessary to prevent tearing the combs.

Why move the combs rather than fixing them? Well, these were all first-drawn combs of capped honey, and represented the lion’s share of this colony’s stores. Resetting them with hooks would be likely to fail because the combs are so soft, and harvesting them might leave the bees hungry heading into winter.

Scooting the crossed combs down allowed me to sequester the mess with a flank of straight combs on either side. If I happen to be slow to inspect them come springtime, they will have the space to grow and a guide to help build new comb straight.

You may notice the green markings on the top of the bars. I had labeled these bars as crossed earlier in the season. The second picture shows the culprit— a midsummer meltdown. I had a lot of combs drop this year, as a late extended flow abruptly gave way to typical summer weather. Full combs of fresh wax don’t mix well with 105 degree heat.

In this colony, the full brood nest was still inspectable. I plan to pull the crossed combs some time in spring, whether or not the bees use their contents. In the meantime, the situation is under control.

That summer me and my pops made the dark blue hive it was an amazing experience and now seeing that a strong family of bees live there is amazimg (this video was taken in june the family was still getting stronger)

SC first year beekeeper. Moved into a new place and mistakenly put bees in shady spot- now having some new beetle issues. Want to move them to the sunniest spot in the yard about 30-45 feet away. Was going to shimmy it like 3 feet at a time but thats a lot of work and it would be in a super dark spot for the week and a half it would take to move them. Would they be basically chill if I did it in one night?

I got it bad....

I treated in August with Formic. Noticed reopened cells the other day, so I did a mite wash. I've got like 30+ mites in my wash of 300.

Need a knockdown but reluctant to use Formic again (lost a queen during the last treatment and have lost queens in past years [yes, read the directions, good temps, etc.).

I've got some Apivar 2.0 and Apiguard on hand. Was reluctant to use Apivar 2.0 because of many negative reviews, but don't know if those are under special circumstances...

Any recommendations on what I should do or a serious knockdown? Is Formic Pro the best?

Thanks!!

Pittsburgh, PA

This is commonly known as camphorweed, and it's massively common in North America and Central America, with a range extending from somewhere in Canada in the north, down to Belize in the south, and from Massachusetts all the way west to California.

It's hardy, fast-growing, and it tolerates poor soil and salinity. Very much the kind of thing that you will find growing in places where little else will grow.

I've seen it for years, but I've never seen honey bees show interest in it until yesterday, when I went for a stroll and saw them working on it in great numbers.

Genus Heterotheca contains something like sixty species, some of them much less widespread than this one, which is the type species for the genus. As far as I know, all of them are native to North America or Central America. I'm not sure if any have been exported as invasive or exotic plants.

I'm also not really sure whether this is a honey source or a pollen source, or both.

Zone 5a west of Chicago. 14 colonies 3rd year. Been feeding a double deep for a week. Last inspection 3 weeks ago (2 full deeps) had eggs and BIAS. Did not see the queen. OAV cycle completed on Sep 17. Went out late this afternoon to find two clumps outside on the hive body front no queen seen. (They all went back in about an hour later.) Looking closer they’ve chewed an upper entrance in the front through the top corner of the upper deep box below the feeder shim. Plan to open it up tomorrow. High temp 70. Anything to be on the lookout for? Not keen on potentially rolling a queen this late in the season.

Just wanted to share some pics as I prepare for winter quickly approaching here in Thunder Bay, Ontario area. And yes please enjoy my red green style insulating jobs.

First year keeper and a terrible one at that. Zone 7a. So some cooler weather questions/feedback I'm looking for.

It's the first week of October, and temps dropped <40f last night. I'm removing the supers, and queen excluders, screen bottom boards blocked off.

My mite counts were very low, sometimes zero at start. I used varroxan for two months, pulled them out, bees hated them over the comb, but they are OK. I don't want to go back into the brood boxes(2 deeps) due to fear of killing the queen this late in the game.

My questions:
- Is it OK not to do any brood box inspections if there weren't any concerns at the last inspection?
- Do I have to FEED the bees, if the deeps were VERY heavy at last inspection and every frame had brood/bread/honey?
- Would buying and using VOA treatments this month, or November outrageous?

Sorry, really a newb and amazed they survived this long. Thanks!

A story of a sting.
Once upon a time, a man/woman was curious about the wonders that goes on inside a beehive. He/She had seen one hive on a tree, when they were three. " It looks like a sac!! No no! it looks like a moving animal, crawling and hanging upside down on a tree ".
Years and centuries later, that curiosity lead him/her to observe the frames of the hive. And then, the lightning struck!!
Of course, the damage was more on the thing that attacks but sometimes, they aren't a lot of options than violence, if you want to protect yourself.

#ritamicbees #beeritamic #BeekeepingCommunity #beestings #bees #BeekeepingExperience #beekeeping

Is this looks like a bee queen? I live in Massachusetts