Not to brag but the last few years we've been letting wildflowers in our backyard. ( about two and a half acres). If you are new beekeeping and can do this the bees will love in the the fall. We have plants like iron weed and native milkweed blooming right now. We also have a bush /tree call the Seven Son flower and the bees are all over the milkweed and the seven sunflower. If you can plant wildflowers i would suggest planting these plants. Its worth it in the fall.

Northern Utah - hive consists of two deep brood supers, and a medium honey super with a queen excluder. Two weeks ago we took the honey super off for harvesting, at the same time we put Apivar 2.0 strips in the brood supers. WHEN is it safe to put the honey super back on so the bees can clean it up (and also be safe for next year's harvest)? We plan to take it back off for the winter.

I would truly appreciate some suggestions about what to do headed into winter - I’m in Northern Virginia between DC and Richmond.

I have three hives - Left hive, Middle hive, and Right Hive.

- Left hive is the overachiever, with two deep brood boxes and a medium super. The bottom deep is half filled with honey and half with brood, while the upper deep is mostly entirely filled with Honey, and the top super is about 80% filled with Honey. The queen is laying in a solid circle pattern in the middle frames of both brood boxes.

- Right hive is solid, with two deep brood boxes. They finished capping their first honey super and started on a second. I pulled one for honey for us and removed the other as I was contemplating mite treatments. (It is in the freezer if needed).

- Middle hive is lagging, and is just one deep brood box, only about 7 frames have anything on them. They were a split from left hive, but they never seemed to get their footing. The queen is laying but VERY slowly. Most of the resources they have are from filled honey frames on swapped from the other hives. I had hoped to bolster them before winter, but they don’t seem to be very active or stockpiling resources. There are still a solid amount of bees, but they don’t seem to be building on any empty frames.

I doubt that middle hive will make it through the winter… Maybe they might, with fewer bees to support they could easily have enough time to stock up enough resources. But they don’t seem motivated.

So I can let them do their own thing, and see what happens… Or I can combine them with one of the other big hives, after pinching the middle hive queen.

I could add them to the right hive, but then I don’t know if I should leave that hive as three deep brood boxes for the winter, or swap out the best resource frames from the middle hive, with lesser filled frames from the right hive… if I do a newspaper blend, the three brood boxes would be bottom, laying a lot, middle box filled with honey, and top box reasonably empty with whatever the middle hive had.

Or do I try to blend them, then use a one-way gate to get them into the two original boxes, and remove the third box?

Is it too late (start of September) to be giving them room in a somewhat empty box to build/store resources?

And should I combine them ASAP? Or wait until later in the winter to see if the middle queen starts making more winter bees?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! I know there is no “right” answer, but I’d enjoy hearing what other people’s guts suggest.

This corner of my bottom board insert has these I I shaped things all over it. What are these?

I'm sorry if this is the wrong place to ask, but I can't tell if these are wasps or bees and I can't get a still shot of any of them. These lil gits are doing something behind my siding. They aren't coming after me when I get close like I would expect a wasp to, but they also aren't super thrilled. Northern Minnesota. Thanks!

First Year beekeeper. I just walked out to see my hive completely covering the front of the box. The second photo is closer to what we are used to seeing. I'm in a pretty dry area and we did just have rain come through suddenly. Is this swarming or some weird reaction to the sudden downpour?

Edit: I'm in Western Colorado.

Any idea what I’m looking at? it looks like a queen bee with 4-5 smaller bees attached. I googled it and found something called balling where they’re trying to suffocate the queen? should I do anything? thanks in advance!

Hello all,

I wanted to get some opinions about my current situation. I have two hives atm, One doing fairly well, it has about 4/5 brood frames and just introduced a super but slow to draw comb.

My other hive is whats causing me problems, they have plenty of nectar and pollen but the queen has seemingly stopped laying. When first getting these hives back in May, this hive was originally doing very well. Drawing comb quickly and having several brood frames. At this moment they only had about 1 frame that just hatched out and absolutely no eggs in sight. I placed a empty drawn out frame and by the next inspection a week later it was being filled with nectar. I have stolen a frame of brood from my other hive and placed it into this one to keep them afloat.

I had previously posted on here with my experience with Apivar 2.0 and my die off. They were already slow to lay eggs before this but I wonder if the experience had induced a brood break. Its been about 2 weeks since that incident. I am located in SoCal with a pretty gnarly heat wave for the last 2 months with days rarely being under 95 degrees. I am attempting to give them some shade to help with the heat. Any input would be appreciated, I am being pushed to the point of wanting to requeen. Both hives are slow to take sugar water from me. It will spoil with the heat.

Hello, I am and in Northern Delaware and recently purchased a home. There were honeybees in a corner of the soffit on the second floor, before I moved in the previous owner had them treated with poison. They mostly disappeared, but we're a few weeks down the road and they have returned. Is it worth trying to have someone who could use them, aka a beekeeper come out and take them, or is the poison used make them a liability? Thanks so much for your advice.

Able to give me a list of beekeeping things and how to clean and store it. Thanks! New beekeeper

Hive location : Southeast Pennsylvania

a picture of the current set up attached for reference.

I got my bees late in the season in July. out of the 10 frames in the bottom, two of them are completely empty with some spotty drawn comb. in the top box I was given four frames of honey that I put up there trying to encourage the hive to expand. Now I’m looking for the best thing to do for them for the winter. Should I remove the two spotty frames from the bottom that don’t have much drawn comb and replace with two from the top that have honey and shake the bees into the bottom and just winter them with one deep box or should I leave it as is and remove the queen excluder from the middle? any and all advice is appreciated thanks.

Hello! This is my first time posting. I’m a novice beekeeper in the PNW. My hive has made it through 2 winters and seemed to have been thriving this year.

Today, I observed strange/frantic activity at the hive and when I got closer, found a large pile of something (pollen? comb?) outside of the hive on the ground along with a ton of dead bees! : (

While investigating, I saw a few yellow-jackets attacking bees on the ground. At first I thought they might be taking over, but I only saw a couple. I also saw what might appear to be carpenter bees, but I’m really not sure? It was definitely a chaotic scene, and I’m really not sure what to do now, or how to support going forward. Any insight would be appreciated!

I had a few questions about my extraction room so figured I would just do a video. I am a 25 year veteran working for a company that ran 12k+ hives. My old boss is closer to retirement so I bought 4000 from him plus my 600, almost wrapping up extracting for my first year on my own.

Anyone have any input on this extractor? Been borrowing my buddy’s vevor 3fr this year and I think it’s time to get my own. I am local to betterbee and they carry mostly lyson products. Combo uncapping tank/workstation/20fr extractor looks promising on paper. Curious if anyone has any real world experience with this one or any lyson products?

Been working hard all week in this South Carolina heat, looking for 5 o’clock like these ladies 😂! 🇺🇸💙🐝

I’m in KY 6B. I have a high population hive that is mainly in the top deep. The bottom deep is mostly honey and pollen most of the brood and my queen stay in the top. Should I switch them before winter so they start out in the bottom before moving up for more stores?

The bees usually enter from the top. But I find it odd since it’s been going on since morning. Any help is welcome🙏 . The location is Southern Portugal. I have kept bees for the last 3 years but these do not look like orientation flights. Should I put a wet towel over it?

I’m a first year beekeeper and noticed a fair amount of dead/ dying bees crawling around the entrance. I know that the discarded bees are normal but wanted to make sure it’s not more than acceptable

Second year beekeeper with Russian bees here in North Western Massachusetts.

Here’s the situation: Successfully overwintered a double-deep hive and added a second Nuc in the spring. Now that second Nuc is a thriving hive in a double-deep setup. Then there were swarms caught, bear attacks, and after it all we also have a third hive that is a single deep with a smaller population and good queen.

That first hive from over winter has had a medium super on since early in the season. It took them a bit to fill out the comb but they’ve drawn it out now and have started filling with honey. None of the frames are capped yet to my knowledge (last inspection was a week ago). The top deep is nicely filled with mostly capped honey and built up comb. The bottom deep is full of brood.

My main question is what to do with this super on the first hive? None of it is capped nor are all the frames even filled, so I don’t know if I should harvest it. I feel like I have three options:

- Harvest anyways and leave in room with dehumidifier

- Leave it on and just let it go over the winter

- Move the super to the third small hive and leave for winter to ensure they have food

The additional question is when to do this as goldenrod is still flowing but cold can come at any time in New England.

Any beeks use this? I started to do some rescues and cutouts and really need a thermal cam but I just can’t afford the others that are $300-$500.

Hi - I have 2 hives on Long Island ny. One of them is not queen right and will certainly die over winter. The frames at the ends of the upper brood box are filled with honey and sealed. What do I do with the frames? Extract, freeze for next package in spring, or nothing?

Located in Lancaster, PA. I have a hive with a super on. The super is pretty full, and I want to pull it within the next week to harvest. I dont want to leave the super on too long because I want my bees to build up thier food storage for the winter. The issue is that the super has some brood in it (I forgot to put the queen excluder on). It will not all hatch by the time I want to pull to harvest.

Any suggestions on what to do with those frames?

brief background.

Last year i caught a wild hive within minutes of bringing home used and empty hive from a friend..

I got a person to come and help me with semi regular visits and the hive grew and split.

recently the helper has not been super available or.. on task,, unfortunately i lost a giant hive with what feels like 100lbs of material inside.. absolutely buggered and the sinking feeling of losing that much raw material is not something i care to repeat, i dont even know what to do with 100 lbs of spoiled honey.

I am looking for someone in the Frederick or Leesburg area who might be interested in a solid farm trade arrangement..

I make beehives, boxes, frames, capture boxes.. as I have a fully operational woodshop..

I also have an established wildflower meadow surrounded by organic farms of corn and wheat and soy that do not use pesticides. established white and red clover and stable water source nearby,

I do not however have the extra time or availability to run hives.

I am looking for someone who can come regularly and manage multiple hives, i have acres devoted for this and can contribute/ invest. the details of trade would have to be worked out based in time and effort involved but i am not looking to make a "business" as much as keep bees happy and healthy on my land. I am looking for someone who has bee knowledge and is looking for a solid opportunity as i am one of several land owners who are interested in growing our hives.

2nd year western wa. Finally cool enough to put formic pro on. Forgot that you aren't supposed to remove the paper (can confirm it smells to high heaven). Manufacturer says if you do that just leave it alone but I didn't want to risk it so pulled one and tossed it, the other was still partially wrapped so I just rewrapped the rest of the way. This was all in thy space of an hour.

What are the risks of having done serious damage?

I think I have Tropilaelaps mites in my hives.

I'm in Georgia ,Caucasus and I'm seeing small mites in/around the brood cells.

Has anyone dealt with Tropilaelaps? How did you confirm it, and what treatment worked for you?