Last fall/ spring of this year I’ve been experimenting with plastic frames.

I add a few coats of wax I collect from the 2-3 cutouts I do in the spring.

The bees generally have no problem drawing the frames and using them like wooden ones.

However my draw back is the small “void” space left at the edge of the frames. Small enough a bee can’t get in but they seem to be great hiding spots for SHB.

Has anyone else noticed this? If so is there a work around?

As far as SHB management I generally just use swiffer sheets that I’ll swap out ever 2-3 weeks and the small plastic traps with DE. However my bees like to propolis the hell out of them.

Zone 5b, north central IL. This hive was the last swarm I caught in April. I thought it had a virgin queen. It looked like she was laying eggs. I left it through June and when I opened it on June 23rd or so and the numbers were down and the brood was very spotty. I treated it with OAV and put a frame of brood and eggs in about the 5th of July. (I forgot to write it down) today I opened it up and there seems to be more bees (maybe another frame for 5 total) and what appears to be eggs and young larvae. No capped worker brood to speak of and spotty drone brood. The eggs seem to be centered but I never found a queen. I’m a little perplexed. As is the frog in another inner cover.

des centaines de langues ou de pattes qui attendent d’être servies ?

je remarque une grosse goutte au milieu , est-ce du miel qui coule ? de l’évaporation ?

france , dans le sud

Hey everyone,

I wanted to share a free website I've been working on that tells you whats blooming and when for your zip code. It also provides recommendations for what plants would bloom during dearth in your zip.

You can access the tool here: https://mybeecalendar.com

Hope you like it, note that new zips it hasn't seen before take about a minute to load for the first time... let me known if you all have any suggestions or run into any issues.

Northeast Ohio. This honey was harvested in 2024. It was left in storage in our basement and I found it today. The rest of our honey has crystallized normally…. But this looks crystallized on the bottom and normal on the top. Has anyone else had their old honey separate like this? Is it safe to use?

Is it just me, or does everybody think emerging bees are just the cutest?

Conference of Eastern Apicultural Society is next week in Shepherdsville KY.

I signed up the day registration opened.

I signed up as a volunteer to usher speakers and help out with vendors.

But I neglected to find myself a place to sleep. Hehe this is kinda typical of me I guess, but that belongs in another sub

So if you have a place would want a roommate for the week for a fair $split, lmk please, I'll pull the trigger on this AirBNB today if not.

48M, clean, sober, apolitical, odd but not creepy. know some card games beyond go fish. good breakfast cook. a little scattered but clean.

Shepherdsville KY

Zone 6b, Indiana. 3rd year beekeeper. Got a call yesterday at work that my bees were up in a tree. Luckily I was able to leave and clock out for 2 hours to see if I could salvage them, thought it was going to storm and was scared they would move on. Climbed the tree and tried scooping then shaking (should have put sheet on the ground) I looked but still not positive I got the queen. This was my first time having to do this so made some mistakes.

Investigated hive they left and smelled like yeast, with lots of runny, watery nectar that was bubbly and even the brood looked wet. Tons of SHB larvae. Am devastated that they worked so hard and now they have nothing. Maybe not even a queen. They were in a sunny location, had a beetle trap. On a layer of thick mulch that was placed on cardboard. Was a strong Nuc from May and did not see this problem 3 weeks ago. It happened fast! I did reach out to my mentors yesterday. Thinking I need to join the local club because feeling like the worst beekeeper ever. Here is the steps I am taking today:

2 give them resources from my freezer, comb and honey (once at a good temp)

3 inspect my other hive and feed them

4 I am tossing a few of the worst frames and going to freeze and wash the rest ( power wash? Wash in large tub? Just water? Not sure what is best) then sun dry

Anything else? Should I take a frame of brood from the other hive if they look strong?

How do others keep their records?

My hive inspection sheets get wet/sticky over time and tend to be blown away as some of my hives are on top of a roof.

Best practice i found is using plastic sleeves that are open on 2 sides to avoid honey/moisture. They still blow away often or get mixed up.

I dont like apps; i beekeep to get less screentime. I need to make notes as i inspect, as telling myself " I'm sure i won't forget this time" surprisingly hasnt been reliable. I dont like recordkeeping so im very brief in my comments and have set it up to be done quick.

Funny thing I saw at the golf course bee yard today.

I got a call for a bee removal from a boulder lined window well. The caller sent a picture. They were honey bees, maybe around 200. I didn’t think there were enough to indicate the presence of a hive. It was only half a mile out of my way on the commute home so I swung by. The bees were gathering water that was seeping around the rocks. He’s got a broken sprinkler line, and if it cuts loose he’s going to fill the window well and end up with a flooded basement. I told him at least he can hand dig to fix that line. If there had been a hive I would have had to get my friend’s mini-ex to get those boulders out, and that would have been expensive. A slight bummer for me, I’ve borrowed that mini-ex before and it’s fun as hell.

I am in Cleveland, Ohio. I found these bees up in a tree in my backyard. They’re not too high up, high enough though that I cannot get to them. How could I lure them down?

Hey everyone,

I am located in Oregon. My neighbor has around 30+ bee boxes about 1000ft from my house, you can see my blue pool in the background of one of the pictures. They have been there for a couple years and we have never had a problem. Today was 97 degrees and my house got surrounded, had to of been a couple thousand all over my pool, damp plants, mud in the driveway, on the sprinkler. I live in the country surrounded by hay fields so there is going to be some bees but this seems excessive. My wife went out to her car and got stung 4 times and had to go to the ER. There doesnt look to be a water source near the boxes. What can I do? Am I attracting them somehow? Are they being neglected?

I have a hive that recently swarmed. About two weeks ago. I had been about to get into it, but put it off after they swarmed as I heard that could make the new queen (assuming there is a new one) abandon the hive if done too quickly after a swarm.

Today, it hit high temps in the yard, somewhere north of 90 F. We found a queen bee wandering around in the dirt around 10 feet from the hive. I've captured her and offered her sugar water (which she has so far ignored). She seems lively enough.

What should I do? I don't know if there is a queen in the hive or not and I'm not great at finding them (I'm still pretty new to this). The hive has a healthy number of bees in it judging by the activity.

Should I open up the hive and try to find another queen and if not try to put this one back in? I don't have one of those candy traps where the bees take a while to get to the queen, so I'm not sure of the best/safest way to do that. I can try and open up the hive, but if I miss spotting an existing queen and try and introduce this one, I'm guessing there will be issues.

Any advice is welcome.

Edit: My location is the near Fremont, CA, and I've been a beekeeper for a coming up on 3 years, but my hive died off during winter of the first year and I didn't get it going again for 6 months, so it's not really a full three years of experience. Also, I'll freely admin I'm not always great at getting into the hive on a regular basis.

This is our second year be keeping in the Pacific Northwest Washington. Is this beard or should I be concerned?

Edit: picture 11 I think with the queen too!

Can you see any larvae? Zone 9a south texas 1st year. I think I’m seeing brood and lots of drones but the last 2 months I checked I can’t find any larvae. Nectar spills out when I lift frames. Anything else you notice I should address?

I took an intro beekeeping course with a master beekeeper. I see brood (pretty sure) but no evidence of larvae on any frame. Tons of honey and pollen and the hive has doubled. No queen cells I saw. I added a second deep after a month of acquiring the mix. I’m feeding them 1:1 and starting pollen substitute next week to super charge them for a split before winter. Zone 9a with fields of flowers, but it’s getting a bit dry.

They were super angry two weeks ago when I went to feed them and stung my suit more than 50 times, today no stings.

Added the second deep for growth and to save them time doing air conditioning work.

My natural hive is still chugging along fine.

Hi! I’m a relatively new beekeeper located in the Midwest. Over the weekend my husband and I got into the hive and found what we are calling a “zomBEE”. This bee’s abdomen was completely hollow and it was crawling around, just like a zombie.

We asked our local bee community but no one seems to know what this is! Any advice would be amazing.

Short version: what's a good quality, dependable suit that I can use with feisty bees without getting stung an unreasonable amount?

Long version: First year beekeeper here. Southwest Ohio (outside Cincinnati). Started with a package this spring. They replaced their queen not long after I installed them, and they've been incredibly productive, but they've also been very feisty. It may be partly that I haven't learned the tricks of handling them, but I am being careful and using smoke etc. They go into attack mode quite quickly when I start working with them. The problem is that the suite I have is pretty cheap - part of one of those beekeeping kits that my wife picked up of Facebook marketplace, and I've been stung quite a few times through the suite. I know that that's a thing that can happen, but it's happening enough that beekeeping is becoming not very fun. Like the other day I got five or six stings on my wrist - through the glove and the sleeve within five minutes of starting to work with them, and one snuck into the veil and got stuck in my beard!

So as I said up front, I need a better suit. I'm planning to requeen, which will hopefully calm the hives down, but the suit I have is not really effective, so I want to get a new one anyhow. I'd like one that I can be pretty confident in, no matter how aggressive the bees are. I don't mind an occasional sting, but I don't want to be constantly worrying about it.

Noticed these guys flying into my crawl space when I was mowing. May be a dumb question but are these bees or something else?

I’m a second year beekeeper. I can go use the extractor at my local college. I have two supers on now. The bottom one has about 5 capped frames and I’d say the rest are about 70%. It’s gonna be nice the rest of the week and the bees are super busy finding more nectar. We had a weird late spring and there are a ton of flowers still blooming. The upper super is filled with uncapped nectar and getting heavier. The reason I put two on is because I was on vacation for 3 weeks.

Should I wait til the lower super is fully capped to extract ? Don’t want waste nectar if it’s still uncapped

Zone 5 northern Illinois

These bees are from Hartville, Ohio. I got them last season and they made it through the winter successfully. I have six Randy Oliver hives currently.

This is a storage container from Lowe's that I painted white and then purchased a $9 solar pump kit off Amazon. A little bit of plastic tubing, drywall sponges cut in half, drilled some holes and we have a fountain!

It's been running for about 2 weeks and I check it every afternoon and it's covered in bees! I think next year I'll try it on a bigger container because I don't have a hose nearby.. I have to haul buckets.

I'm seeing almost no bees in my pool and they have abandoned my sprinkler heads. I did sprinkle compost and salt in the lid so it mucked up the water a bit, they seem to love it. 🥰🐝

Great idea from this sub, thank you!

Location: Eastern Washington State

Sacramento Area... off and on 10 years Beek. I am growing a bit, but also realizing that my zeal for free stuff is often coming back to bite me... Fighting a spider web pile of free stuff to find 20% of it that is useable.... I am working towards buy once cry once.

Bottom Boards.... Super hot summers where I am, so I run screened bottom boards. They are complex to make compared to lids etc... so not something I am going to spend time on to make. I make simple stuff, assemble my own boxes and paint etc... But the ones with the sliding coro board etc. is a lot of cuts and prep to just make a couple... not worth it. SO... I am looking at buying them. Mann Lake with no drawer is $65. I have this store by me. Dadant with oil drawer is $47.

I am looking at the Maxima bottom board at Hillco. https://www.hillco.buzz/products/maxima-plastic-bottom-board?_pos=2&_sid=34933bb4b&_ss=r

$28. It has a great modular entry system that has mouse, reducer AND closer built in. Good tray that can be mite monitor or beetle oil.... and a "lifetime warranty".

Love to hear some thoughts if anyone has this unit... Or another option/source for quality gear! Thanks!

I’m in southeastern PA and I just inherited five hives from my brother, he hasn’t had the time this year to mess with so they are very neglected. I opened up three yesterday evening. One he said a few weeks ago was a swarm, it has 5-6 drawn out and filled frames with brood. So it has a queen. I’m going to be adding some sugar water tonight at a 2:1 ratio. The second has a honey super and a queen excluder and the honey super is full, it also has two deep boxes that I didn’t look into. My plan is to remove the queen excluder and essentially let these bees be until I get some blankets out for winter. The third is a single deep that is slammed. I’m assuming honey bound. My plan is to add a second deep box that has a few drawn out frames on top and probably give sugar water this weekend. Give them time to get used to it first. Does this make sense and am I missing anything. I’m gonna check the other hives tonight as well if it’s not raining.