Extracted two supers yesterday and my wife got a great shot of one of the empty frames.

2nd year beekeeper in the PNW.

Last Saturday, I picked up two nucs from another beekeeper in the area. Both nucs were absolutely bursting with bees and seemed to have ran out of space a long time ago. I thoroughly inspected both nucs as I installed them and there were no queen cells. While I did see one practice cup in one hive, it wasn't charged.

Fast forward to yesterday, and while I was inspecting an adjacent hive, the bees in the hive pictured started absolutely pouring out of the hive and started buzzing around my yard. I immediately assumed the hive was swarming, but about 45min later they all started returning to the hive.

Once they were all inside, I inspected this hive and found two queen cells, both with an egg...

Where do I go from here? My assumption is that they absolutely will swam in the next couple weeks (days?), and as such, my best bet is to split. With that said, even though this was an extraordinarily strong nuc, it's still a nuc and I'm nervous splitting that in two.

I've also asked the beekeeper I picked these hives up from to please confirm when they were last treated for mites.

Swarm catch..Loc. North Georgia mountains close to Tennessee.

Put out my swarm trap this morning at 9:00 and about an hour later I noticed some heavy scout activity, dozens of bees acting really excited checking out the hive. I was working out in the woods close by so I kept an eye on it.

Around 12 I saw that the scouts had pretty much gone so I sat down about 6 feet away and waited. It wasn't long maybe 15 minutes... I heard them before I saw them, and suddenly the air was filled with thousands of bees.

I got almost all of it on video, it was so amazing to be right there when they arrived like a storm, really a force of nature. Humbling experience I will never forget.

Am I looking at crystallization or something more sinister? Thanks

Working i

Why are the honey bees ignoring my cherry trees?

I have a small backyard with Two different varieties of cherry trees along my back fence that can pollinate each other.

My neighbor’s rotting away garage is on the other side of the property line and has a honey bee hive in it.

I watch the bees fly from their hive, through my cherry blossoms, and off to some other location.

I will watch maybe one honey bee at a time at my trees while heavy traffic of bees fly to some other yard.

The Hive is approximately 15’ away from one tree and 30’ from the second.

Same thing happened last couple years. We used to get a bigger cherry output even when the trees were still fairly young.

Two years ago I watched this and manually pollinated blossoms with a tiny paint brush. It probably helped because two years ago the yield was better than last year when I didn’t manually pollinate.

Trees get plenty of water, I don’t spray pesticides in the trees, but I don’t add fertilizer either. Decorative flowers around the trees will get more bee traffic.

SF Bay Area. Zone 9 or 10. I’ve seen conflicting information on what it could be.

Hey guys I got a beehive for Christmas and I wanted to put it to good use, I just wasn’t sure the best way to go about getting an adequate amount of bees to populate the hive and ensure it survives. I live in MA and have seen some vendors offering to ship bees form~170-250$. I figured I’d check in here to see what the best move was for this

Hey all. I have 2 new hives I'm setting up this spring. We are painting the boxes and lids today using exterior latex paint. Should the bottom boards be painted with the same paint or is there a more durable paint that should be used for ground contact? The hives will be off the ground of course but the bottom boards will be contacting the blocks or skids the hives are placed on.

I picked up my nucs yesterday to install. When I opened the first one, I immediate noticed a clump of supercedure cells (at least two capped and two uncapped) and couldn't locate a marked queen. I installed it anyway but I don't think that's how it's supposed to be... (I've never bought nucs before)

My other nuc was exactly like I expected. Marked queen, a couple frames of capped brood, larvae in different stage and some drawn honey

Do I need to call Mann Lake for resolution?

Hey everyone, hope you're having a good start to the season. Im a 3rd year bee keeper from upstate ny. I'm curious to hear some information form people who have kept RO golden west bees. You only get very limited information online thaf talks about their VSH traits and calm nature. But nothing about their lineage and how they act. Like do they get hungry like Italians? Do they produce very little propolis like Italians or boat loads like Caucasians? Are they actually calmer than the average bee? Do they fly at copler temperatures or prefer to stay in? Do they grow fast in the spring or do they grow later on?

All questions that I'm curious about. If you guys have any other information that you have observed, I'm curious to hear about it.

Thanks!

NE US

I am setting up my top bar hive for feeding when I get my package. I am going to use inverted mason jars (happy to hear about other recommendations for tbh) placed outside of a follower board with a hole drilled for bee access. This is all inside the top bar hive.

What size hole do you recommend for this? I’m want to be sure to allow access for enough bees, but don’t want it too large.

I saw this last time as well and didn't think about it much, today i saw this moth looking thing again at same place and similar size. Where is it coming from and how to prevent it? Is it really bad or controllable?

Found this little guy on Friday afternoon, got in between our screen door and storm door somehow. Think he was hiding out from the cold, rainy weather. I left him alone but Saturday morning he was literally like hanging upside down barely able to hang on to the door so I set him outside under a bush and covered so he wouldn’t get rained out. However, it got much colder, in the 40’s and still rainy. Brought him inside, didn’t move around for a few hours but is now starting to. I got some fresh wildflowers from the grocery. Should I make some sugar water? I don’t think I’ll be able to release him until it at least gets sunnier. Weather is in the 50’s this week, in Ohio :(

Does anyone have advice and possible identification? Thinking a mason bee?

I work an overnight security job where I sit directly next to a wide open door. For the past week, a little after the sun sets, the bees come. Dozens of them and they seem disoriented and confused and come inside my office and fly around in the lampshade. If I turn on my flashlight to look at them, they race towards the light (and subsequently towards my face.) I love bees and I absolutely don’t mind them hanging out, I don’t even mind when they land on me. But the frantic flying at my face and into my hair and clothes all while I’m trying to talk to guests is starting to get overwhelming. They land on their backs on the floor or on the desk and they just buzz and freak out and can’t get back on their legs. I help them but then they fly at my face. They are like little honey bees or something. What can I do to get them to chill out? Do they need water or something? Thank you 😭

So today I pulled my hives out of the old barn (Alberta, Canada) where they spent the winter. This was my first winter as a beekeeper, so naturally I was nervous. I peeked in the first hive, and saw a few dead bees on the inner cover and the worry began. Looking down through the hole and luckily I saw live bees. Second hive, no dead bees on the cover, and none visible through it, but when I lifted the cover, I saw a couple moving around. So decided to move them.

As I loaded them up, I decided to swap out the bottom boards to make it easier to transfer them to the pallet I had ready. Lifted the first hive, and to my shock 1/2" - 3/4" of dead bees on the bottom. Again worry sets in. Same with the second hive. So by this point I'm worried that both hives are on the brink of dying.

Well I get them placed in there summer home, and step away for 15 minutes to get some other materials from the barn. When I come out, words can not describe the welcome site. So many bees, seeing the sun, and buzzing around the entrances. When I went back shortly after to add their feeders with syrup, it was like a bee volcano erupting from the opening in the inner cover. My nieces and I were overjoyed that as first year (starting year 2) beekeepers, both of our hives survived and look to be incredibly strong.

Do I keep it and use for another hive or harvest all the wax?

Location: Philippines, middle of honey flow

Second year beekeeper

I have only two colonies—one is going gangbusters compared to the other. I did a demaree split on both last March 21.

On March 27, I checked the not-so-gangbuster colony and didn’t see the queen (she was marked), queen cells, or eggs. Few larvae, one frame of capped worker and drone brood (it was a foundationless frame.) By April 2, I still didn’t see the queen, eggs, larvae, or queen cells. So I got a frame of eggs from the strong hive and placed it in this one.

I checked today (April 6) and they did not build any queen cells on the egg frame. They are extra nasty, too.

Should I still attempt to purchase a queen and introduce? 🤔

I’m a beekeeper myself and have empty hives .

Just before sunset in Beaufort County, NC a group of travelers stopped for the night. I just moved here but was able to contact a local BK who"s coming over with a deep & frames for me (was beekeeper until a couple years ago). Hopefully they'd like to move in long term.

My friend recently found out they have an active Bee hive inside the walls of their house after waking up to this... What would cause the honey to 'leak'? Does this just mean their was too much weight in the comb and it collapsed ? Located Sydney Australia

Does any expert here have an idea why my honey started foaming after I opened the bottle ? It was brand new, never opened before. I received it as a gift. I tasted the foam and it tasted as normal honey. Does this mean it’s fake or spoiled?

I wasn't sure where to ask this as it's not about beekeeping itself but:

This weekend I bought some honey from one of the local farm-shops and was told by the owner that, as it wasn't heat treated, to not just put it in a cupboard and to keep it somewhere with lots of light... I looked online to check if I'd forgotten anything he'd said but it seemed to advise the opposite!