Winter here. Charlotte NC.

I’ve pushed some of my hives together, thinking the proximity might help with maintaining heat. The problem is this creates shading, so less solar gain.

What is better… sun on hives or insulation and putting hives together?

[California, 8b] Lost my beehive on its first winter, still trying to figure out the cause. Am I still able to harvest honey? I have 2 full capped frames above excluder and quite a few clean capped honey frames under the excluder.

Would you harvest either?

I mainly use my honey for hot tea and coffee. I’ve seen many different opinions on which is more healthy, specifically for hot beverages. I have heard that raw honey loses all its benefits when in contact with hot water, while pure honey doesn’t since it’s already been heated. Apologies if this isn’t the right sub to post this question.

I'm a first year beekeeper in PA and I just realized I forgot to put on a mouse guard when I prepped for winter. I have one, but Im afraid to put it on right now in case there's already a mouse in there, but it's too cold to open the hive up. Any ideas on how I can check? Or is it OK to leave it off for the winter?

I attend a class in Ireland that’s run from an old stone shed (over 200 years old). Over the last couple of months, we started seeing one or two bees or wasps, we couldn’t tell. Tonight, we got to see them better as there were so many, and they were bees. It was like they were coming out of a hive in the walls or something? They kept swarming around the fluorescent light on the ceiling and it looked like they were pooing everywhere—squirts of yellow liquid shooting out of them all over the place. I’ve never seen anything like it before! Can anyone explain this? I wondered if they had been coming out of hibernation because it’s not as cold as it usually is at this time of year, plus we had a heater running. But I can’t imagine what all the peeing/pooing was—there was a LOT of it!

I am new bee keeper and live in Portland. There are a few companies that sell bees and was wondering if anyone had any insight into a good one to choose for starting my hive. It's a top bad. I know there are local groups to join, just seeing if anyone has any recommendations for places that carry top bar nucs. Thank you.

Im looking into more volunteer work and I reached out to this company. They got back to me so I’m researching them a bit more. Honestly their organization seems a little inactive right now but it might just be that they have an outdated website. I just wanted to know if their name sounded familiar.

I am in North Alabama and had a major mite is issue this fall where the mites were so bad capped brood was dying. I treated with with formic pro and that got them to threshold for winter but still a few mites. So I decided to hit them with a dose of OAV. The packaging says multiple multiple treatments for high brood periods but doesn’t define high brood. Should I have done more treatments?

I want to treat them agin in before February when they begin buildup and don’t know if I need to apply multiple times. Or if I am better off using formic again. Does anyone use OAV all year since it’s honey safe?

Formic pro unfortunately is not ideal for my double nuc because you can’t follow the directions perfectly due to the divider. So I really prefer using OAV for them but it is possible for me to use apiguard with a queen excluder for them.

I love bees and honey and I have a big farm near my city but I don't know how to start with that. Can you guide me?

I’m new to beekeeping (in Texas) this will be my first year, and I can’t for the life of me find two people saying the same thing about how to properly assemble frames. One guy says you have to have special glue nails, another says use staples, another says use brads. So what do I use? I’m thinking about driving nails through the front the side bars rather than the top, any objections?

Hello, I live in coastal Washington state, Grays Harbor County to be more specific. Last year we put a hive on top of a shed we have and caught a swarm. It currently is still on the shed. We want to move it to a significantly better spot. The bees are alive and well, and have not left the hive because it is winter.

This is my second hive, the first one died of mites before the Apivar arrived, so I’m still a beginner.

My question is, do I move them now, while they are not going out of the hive, or do I wait until they start coming out in the spring? Will it confuse them if I move them now?

Any help is appreciated, thank you!

I lost one of my hives this winter and there's a considerable amount of honey in the brood chamber. However there's a chance that there's a small amount of amitraz from when I treated the hive still there. My question is that if I pasteurized the honey would it be safe enough to consume?

(USA)

I live in a fairly active city area and a bunch of honeybees appear to have moved in underneath a manhole cover next to the sidewalk. I don’t want the bees to be harmed or for someone doing maintenance to get a nasty surprise. But obviously this is not my property. Is there someone I should contact for the possible relocation of the hive? Or just leave it bee?

Edit/update: Thanks everyone for the suggestions! I have contacted a local beekeeper, and if that falls through I will probably let the city know, but I’m concerned for the welfare of the bees.

Hi everyone. Has anyone used the ANEL RFID tag? If so, can you use it sort of as a tracking device? Like, if someone steals your hive could you use the tag to find it?

Thanks.

I own two different properties with separate addresses. These properties are next to each other and share a border.

Property A already has an exemption for hay and cattle. The exemption I have covers all but 2 acres of property A. Property B does not have an exemption but I need one to cover 3-8 acres.

I’m trying to remedy this with bees. For my county 5 beehives will cover 5 acres. 7 hives cover 10.

My question is since I own both properties and they are adjacent to each other does it matter where I put the bees / can both properties share the bees for agg exemption purposes?

I am starting my journey this spring in western Tennessee. I have two langstroth hives each with 2 deep brood boxes and 2 medium supers. I have plastic frames pre wax coated. I also have amish feeders for each. I plan to brush some extra wax on my frames. I am picking up 2 nucs mid may. They will have been treated for varroa. I plan to pit the nucs in the hives 24 hours after we get home and i will feed them sugar water with a protein supplement for a few weeks. My plan is to leave them alone for 2 weeks and then do monthly varroa testing with alcohol. How does this all sound? What mistakes am i gonna make. What do you wish you knew when you were me? Thanks. Im super excited yet also freaking out. I dont want to kill my bees.

In Virginia and Heading on vacation and nights are very frigid next week. I don't have time to buy anything but wrapped my hive with a yoga mat. I assume it is an adequate alternative since it shouldn't absorb moisture like a blanket. Anyone done this?

Loosening up these frames we've had in storage, space is too cool and dry! So far this is working 💪

SE MI, third year keeper.

SC, first year hive.

My bees are doing remarkably well this winter. I want to expand the hive by adding another layer of box just for food. But also I was thinking of adding another hive box in case they want to split off.

What's the best time of year to do this?

Anyone have any luck or experience with queen isolation to create a capped brood break prior to an OAV treatment?

I'm considering purchasing deep frame isolation cages and isolating my queen on a old brood frame for 14 days. I can then throw away the old frame ( freeze if not a trash frame) and have no capped brood a week or so later in preparation for an OAV treatment.

I would do this around July 1st while pulling honey supers.

Had a bit of a weird experience today. One of my hives is a swarm I caught from my original hive a couple of months ago. Today they decided to swarm again. I managed to get the swarm into a box, all seemed good, they were fanning and most of them went into the box pretty quickly so I assumed I had the queen. I tipped them into a shiny new hive not far from my other hives and waited. Slowly but surely they all left and went back to the original hive! Now they've all gone back and all is calm again!

What to do now? I didn't look inside yet as I figured they'd all be chaotic after swarming and then going back, but realise I need to check inside to see what's going on. If I plan to get in there tomorrow morning what should I be doing?

I had an extra box ready to add to that hive as they were getting full, should I add that and hope for the best, or try to do a split?

I'm thinking I might need to requeen as this hive is a swarm from one of my other hives that then swarmed again, so might have particularly swarmy genetics.

https://preview.redd.it/wo7nlpghuade1.jpg?width=2160&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cf28373424183d0a0d79ec1037ee648971d7c64f

https://preview.redd.it/pvl2drghuade1.jpg?width=2160&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f60c64b54f3be4296cee7bc26784d35d7dcf678b

Swarm going back into the original hive!

If anyone is interested in knowing how to start beekeeping in the Philippines, I have a youtube channel that can help: https://youtube.com/@8fueledbyhoney

I just started 3 years ago, so I am sharing my experiences as a beginner as I go along. Open to answering any questions or comments here regarding beekeeping as well. thanks

Melbourne, Australia.

Just have a question about colony size.

We’ve got a hive with 2 brood boxes and 1 super. Recently found swarm cells and have to split the hive now. Was planning on doing 2 boxes each, 1 full brood box and one empty.

How is it possible to get honey in a super without swarming occurring? I was of the belief that you add a super once the brood boxes are 80% full. But with the queen excluder the queen believes that there’s no more room to grow. So how can you have a super box and not have a swarm occur? Wouldn’t the hive always eventually swarm?

Just trying to work out how we can get honey and maintain colony size. Thanks!

Any recommendations on where I can get equipment cheaper?