I'm recently doing some research on purchasing manuka honeys, and I have a few questions.

For context I will be comparing the prices of 3 different brands of manuka honeys with the same UMF rating. All at 1kg as a standard.

For 10+ : Egmont cost $64, WildCape cost $61, MountainHarvest cost $44.

For 15+ : Egmont cost $112, WildCape cost $100, MountainHarvest cost $78.

For 20+ : Egmont cost $226, WildCape cost $214, MountainHarvest cost $180.

For 25+ : Egmont cost $740.

Note that Egmont is advertised as harvested around the Egmond mountain at southwest of the North Island.

Meanwhile WildCape and MountainHarvest are apparently both founded by the same parent company with the same guy called Bill Savage. Both under the exact same UMF and NZ fern license. Both honeys are advertised as harvested from the East Cape. However, WildCape claims that they are only single source of manuka harvested from East Cape which is a bit suspicious.

QUESTION.

1. Why the different prices? Why are brands like Egmont priced consistently MUCH higher across all grades of UMF? What do they have that brands like MountainHarvest doesn't? Is it all just marketing?

2. Does different regions of NZ matter or is it just pure gimmick?

3. For the case of WildCape and MountainHarvest, both are the same company smurfing as different brands, while using the same UMF certification and licenses. Isn't it suspicious? If not, why the different prices when they are probably the same thing from the exact same source?

ADDITIONAL QUESTION

For increasing UMF ratings especially those above 20+, they are priced exponentially higher to the point where it doesn't make any sense. A 25+ manuka from Egmont for instance cost $740, what's stopping a person from purchasing 2 × 15+ manuka which provides roughly the same MGO content at a significantly lower price?

Hi All,

Hope you're well! I have a quick question, I am starting a business and with the business I want to be selling either pure sidr or manuka honey. I have tried looking everywhere and sourcing it in bulk but have been unsuccessful. Am i looking in the wrong places? Please could someone guide me on where I could get either of them in bulk.

Thank you

I’m feeling experimental. I have 4 hives, currently. Two on each bench. I’ve split a single hive 4 times this year, the last failed their first requeen and is about to try again there (virgin queen not yet mated as of a few days ago). I’m just now hitting workforce buildup stage again and forage capacity is growing but not strong yet.

Would it really screw with the foragers on returning, and would it screw with the nurses bees mixing queen pheromones inside, if I took two of them and converted them to a two-queen system? (Supers centered up top)

Central West Virginia. We’ve recently passed our peak flow, sumac is about done, and we are entering the summer slog through clover and wildflowers. The thought is to combine both workforces to hopefully finish out some supers instead of patch filling multiple, never being worth a harvest. Plus I just want to experiment and compare and contrast!

One of my bee hives has swarmed a few weeks ago and now are queenless, no brood, is still strong. It has 2 honey supers on it almost 3/4 capped. I did an alcohol wash yesterday and it has a very high mite count. Can I use Oxalic acid with the honey supers on. Should i be dribbling the acid into the brood chamber only or a little in each super. Or should I go another route. Not sure exactly what to do, thanks for your help.

I couldn't find my hive tool today. After searching for about 30 minutes, I realized where it might be. I had given my bees some older pollen patties a few days ago (before I researched about pollen patty expiration). When I realized it was old and probably no good, I tossed it. Trash day was Tuesday...

NW illinois. Would I trigger robbing if I move a honey super (just needs to be capped) to one of my smaller hives? The hive is not weak, just smaller. I don't want to clear off the bees. The monster hive is getting too tall for me to manage and needs another super.

Hello,

Today I will be doing my first extraction as we reached the end of flow and I need empty frames to enable my families to expand their nests.

I have 5-8 frames fully capped or capped at 70+% and I have about 5 more frames that are less than 25% capped but completeley filled.

I plan to extract directly into glass jars so honey from fully capped frames wont mix with the honey from the uncapped frames.

However I don't want to take out any frames that cointain wet honey which will ferment and I wonder if the shake test method really is a reliable one. I don't have a refractometer so I need some primitive ideas on how to test the honey if it is dry enough.

I am located in Slovenia if this makes any difference.

I have an older Kelly’s 21 frame extractor that is in need of some new bearings. I contacted MannLake about purchasing some new bearings and they said they no longer carry parts for Kelly extractors. Any idea where I can purchase some?

I live in the DFW area of Texas, noticed these bees about 4 months ago in the 2nd story roof over hang above my front door.

Tried reaching out to local bee keepers, but unfortunately the ones I could get in contact with gave me a removal cost of no less than $800.

Can't afford that.

Really don't want to murder them...

What realistically can happen if we leave them be?

I take care of community cats, and the bees have been helping themselves to the water I leave out. To avoid accidental run ins I put up watering stations away from the cats water (complete with ways to get out should the bees fall in) for the bees.

This morning I was leaving one of my yards when I was flagged down by a lady that lives across the street from the bees. Bees are about 300 yards away from her home and mostly out of sight.

The first words out of her mouth were "I hate your bee's". That's when I knew this would be fun. She wanted me to know that she was sick of all the bee poop. Not what I expected to hear.

She went on and on about how my bees were pooping on her vehicles and house and how she was having to pay her cleaners extra because it was so hard to clean off.

Anyone ever have this complaint? And does anyone have a good suggestion for a soap?

I told that there was not anything I could do to prevent where they did their business.

I am still a novice keeper, and I’m seeking advice from those more experienced. I currently have 2 hives, both double-deep brood boxes (location: PNW USA). My typical workflow is remove the lid, set aside upside down. Check frames in the top box, clamshell the top box to look for queen cells/anything weird, then set the top box on the lid slightly offset so there is a gap beneath. Then proceed to inspect the lower box.

Today I did this, and upon reassembly, I saw the queen in the upside down lid!!! Luckily I caught it before accidentally squishing her, and was able to escort her back into the box without issue, but it still worried me. Usually I find the queen upstairs, so it’s kind of hard to avoid moving the top box while she’s in there. I know I don’t always have to inspect the bottom box, but the last time I skipped it I missed queen cells and they swarmed. So I am a little more meticulous now.

How do the pros handle a double brood box inspection? Is there anything I should be doing different to avoid potentially losing the queen when she’s likely in the top box? Thanks for the help!

I'm a beekeeper with 3 carni hives. And I recently found black rot on my Marquette grapevines(on the hill next to hives).

After doing some research on what solutions wouldn't affect my bees but might save my grapes, the solution was sulfur.

Does anyone have experience with spraying sulfur? It's an organic solution that will address the fungal nature of the black rot, though ideally I would have used it in spring. I bought a good 3m P100 and was planning to spray the vines at night or early morning.

My bees don't go on my vines because they don't flower. But they definitely fly through and next to them.

Thanks for the help!

Should I put a queen cage between frames or is being on top of the frames (not between the the inner cover) fine?

Hello everyone,

I'm a New beekeeper and I've just cut plants around the hives as close as I dates but I still have to clean just around the hives.

How do you do it? You just cut everything with your protective suit on? Would it be possible to do it by night with my head lamp? Or will my brushcutter wake them up and they'll attack me like I attack my alarm on monday morning?

Got this nuke May 1st. Been checking it every 2-3 weeks. Checked it today and noticed that my brood frames like the image attached. Basically zero capped brood on any frame, I'm having a hard time telling if there are eggs.

Attached a picture of the top of the frames just to show their are still tons of bees alive. a lot of the frames are filled with bees. 7/8 of the frames in the hive have been filled so far.

Trying to decide if I should be ordering a new Queen. I've never located her, but its my first year and I'm pretty bad in the hive.

Thank you!

https://preview.redd.it/45t6sso1bz8d1.jpg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=09fe2bbe9dfa48895b40a70a745bd54e4f06d404

https://preview.redd.it/2ex7jlo1bz8d1.jpg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1e1471a0fc8870b2323bccb57192b206f55d9049

https://preview.redd.it/g53osrp1bz8d1.jpg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=95def27959decaf91d2a1bebea1d7b5fce87f5d9

We have always had a “busy bee” garden in the Indiana / Kentucky / Ohio area. Several years ago, after a big storm, we discovered that the bees were coming from a wild hive in an old dead part of a tree. The owners cut up the pieces of the tree that had to be removed but left as much as they could in their large natural area. Last year, the bees were as busy as ever. The garden doesn’t seem as busy this year for some reason. (We try to have a bee / pollinator friendly garden - Little to no pesticides, no herbicides, etc.) How can I tell if the bees are healthy and how can I help them the most? What do you as professionals / semiprofessionals wish homeowners and gardeners knew / would do? Thanks!

These were our grafts that we dropped into Nucs last Friday. Top row looks to be hatches. Bottom row looks to be tear downs. Each column (top row to Bottom row) are from the same hive. Now we pray for successful mating.

Hi, I'm a complete newbie in beekeeping (in fact I don't even own my own hives yet) and I have a few questions rewarding long hives. I know that the standard stackables langstroth are by far the most popular, but are they any strong reasons as of why? Is it viable to have a big apiary full of long langstroth hives, is there any? Are stackables more productive?

Hi, I hope this is ok to post here. I stepped on a bee barefoot, chasing a run away kid a week ago today. I came inside, couldn’t see a stinger, soaked my foot and then applied a baking soda paste until the pain had mostly subsided. It was a little achy but I’ve had worse. I noticed some very mild itching on the toe where it had stung me but then last night it became extremely itchy on the toe and on top of my foot a bit as well, and also has some tiny bumps. Ice and hydrocortisone helped and it may feel a tiny bit better today but is still quite itchy and slightly sore again. I’m wondering if there’s any other tricks I can try to speed healing since I figure you all have probably had your share of stings and probably know some tricks I don’t!

Fellow beekeepers! I'm a masters CS student trying to build a system that can predict swarming in my beehives well in advance using some clever Machine Learning algorithms and remote sensing. The specific data types I'm hunting for need humidity, temperature, and acoustic data, and the labelled swarming events in the datasets.

If anyone could signpost me to relevant datasets, I'd be ever so grateful. Especially from those data science/research focused beekeepers here in the sub! If they are UK based that would be even better. Many many thanks in advance :)