r/Beekeeping

Near Scranton Pa.

Second year beekeeper. Newly formed nuc.

The question is, is this robbery? Sealed the entrance so they can't get in.

It was quiet-ish this morning. Now this. Metro-west boston. Is it a slew of orientation flights or robbing? I consider it a strong hive and I know the honey super has 6 full frames i haven’t pulled yet. I didn’t have it open in the past few days. Thoughts? How can I know.

Edit: 7 year beekeeper. It’s been wicked hot and today finally high seventies so not sure if the hive is just more active or what.

Edit 2: thanks for all the insight. It’s kinda slowed down a little. I was mainly curious because just a few hours earlier it was quiet. I don’t see any fighting and no one is trying to get in through the top hole. I’ll keep and eye on it and reduce the entrance if it seems to get crazy.

Hello everyone! New beekeeper as of this year near Athens Georgia. Ill try not to keep it too long but kind of at a loss on next steps/ what to do next. I feel like I’ve done a good bit of research and have a good understanding of most things at my level in beekeeping (but I know I have a ton more to learn) but nothing like real world experience to shake that faith haha. So I have 3 hives I’ve started all from nucs, from April- May. All progressing at different rates which is fine and expected. So been doing inspections each week like usual and can’t tell if we’re in a dearth about to be in a dearth or what? I saw a little bit of pollen today but they seem to be slowing down on production of honey, and filling brood boxes with honey pollen and nectar. I still see a good amount of brood and eggs in each hive as well. So my questions I have and where I’m stuck is as follows

But first a few random questions I have:

1. What else can I do about hive beetles I have 2 traps per box and still see a good many. Reduce space? Swiffer sheets as well.

2. I test for mites (alcohol wash per 300) and in hive 1 I had 3, hive 2 8, hive 3 6. Definitely know I need to treat but should I do OA vapor, varoxsan strips, or apiguard (I have all 3) I’ve done research on all three so well versed just need validation and confirmation on what to use.

3. I’ve noticed my bees have started to fill each bottom deep with a good bit of honey nectar and bee bread. Is this normal this time a year? Still decent brood as well.

4. When we’re in a dearth or approaching a dearth how much do we feed and how long? Should I worry the bees backfill everything if I keep feeding or should I put a super on and let them fill that thing full for the winter in a dearth? (Using inside the hive feeder to prevent robbing)

Hive 1 (newest nuc or last to be installed): -2 full deeps building good and all frames have been drawn or touched. Since we’re approaching a dearth (or in one anyone local please let me know) should I add a super or hold off? Worried about room/ space and don’t want them to swarm I just know in a dearth they stop laying and reduce population so don’t want to give them to much space and give beetles take over (currently dealing with a good many hive beetles right now as well).

Hive 2: this hive I got as a medium frame nuc so I started it out as that and transitioned it to two deeps then swapped them and put the medium on top of the two deeps and added a 2nd super which is where it currently is at. The medium I originally had it in still has brood in it with a queen excluder under it.
Upon inspection today I found a charged swarm cell near the bottom. It had royal jelly in it but it was the only one in the entire hive. I cut it away because I found plenty of eggs in my 2nd brood box. Why would they swarm to close to the dearth? Did I not give them enough room. Their 2nd honey super is all drawn out and barely has nectar in it. Should I take it off as well since we’re close? Like I said I was trying to transition my medium I got them in originally into the two deep and use that as a honey super for fall but still had brood and just last week found the queen to put a excluder on. Could the swarm cell just be since it was originally a brood box the bees may have thought they need to swarm or maybe they needed a queen? Like I said I saw eggs today so she’s been in there the past three days and laying good. Should I be thinking of a split soon? Also what would my next steps be here?

Hive 3 (2 deeps and 2 honey supers)
so this hive has been my strongest and most productive hive I got 4 frames of honey today. So I have a hive beetle problem I think I opened it up on the 2nd honey super (top) and immediately killed 12 running around this super isn’t all the way drawn out they seem to have stopped which is why I pulled a few frames and figured I’d take it off the keep the space tighter to control the beetles better. Was this a smart move? I left them I’d say a good amount of honey almost a full super I feel like they will finish filling by next week or I can feed to help them. I plan on leaving 2 deeps and a honey super for them. My question for this hive is like above they were filling th bottom brood full of nectar bee bread, packed nectar and honey and still laying good but definitely not every frame should I throw the 2nd super back on or let them do their thing I’m just worried about not doing anything and they expand and want to swarm. Also could be overthinking things since it’s my first year and not many years of experience.
So all in all kind of stuck on what to do next with the above and in general what goes on this time of the year I know it’s the dearth and I need to treat but timeline wise should I go to every two weeks for inspections and let them do their thing until the fall flow and preparing them for winter? I have a bee club meeting tomorrow so talking to a bunch of people there but wanted to ask your opinions as well. I know it was a lot but thank you for taking the time to read and help a fellow beekeeper out!

Third time harvesting honey this year. Today 24 kg mostly from one hive. Wales, Cardiff.

I have the frames currently soaking some sun to make the wax and pollen more pliable to take off with a toothpicks. It's still very time consuming though, so are there other quicker methods people use to clean old frames?

I've been told to just put the frames as is into the hive, but I don't want to do that as some frames have mold (see third picture).

In Kentucky just NE of Lexington. Bees are a year old bought a 10 frame hive. Been feeding sugar water mix to help them along. It felt as though I found 3 different queens but not sure. Thank you in advance.

Nordreisa, troms, norway, europa, world, milkeyway. 1st year beekeeper.

One hive has turned insideout, and we desided to open the lid, and scoope em back home.... seems to work.. but?! This is swarming???

Good warm day after many a fouthnight with overcast and smal drips from the sky....

It tok us tree hours and they then seem to sattle down, we added a super and just moment after the lid was on the rain fell down again. So happy they are safe... them rascals..

Now will they do another run like this, all the bees you see is from one hive, and they sat on the others with there ass up and wafting with there wings??

And now wierd sounds from another hive??

https://youtube.com/shorts/Z1pQBoRVxxQ?is=VZ7gMi3cfydxMOmD

I'm a 2nd year beekeeper in Ontario, Canada.

Are these drones being opened on purpose or is it the chalkbrood that is afflicting them?

This colony has chalkbrood and will get over it eventually and I saw a large chalk mummy.

There were no bad smells coming from the hive either. Smelled like a hive and honey.

Just did inspections July 1st and the left hive is growing but not crazy fast. Didn't see the queen but there was capped brood and they're building well into the 2nd deep so I added the medium. The right hive was super busy, filled the middle 3-4 deep frames and well into the sides so I added the medium (it's all I had ready).

This morning, 67°f, I noticed the right hive is absolutely packed and out into the landing pad. My question is does this seem too packed? Do I need to add another deep? I have 2 more deeps ready to go ATM. The opening is larger on the white hive, about 2" high but they haven't filled it like this before so I wouldn't think that's causing this.

Edit: 1st back into beekeeping. Had hives years ago.

Link to original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Beekeeping/s/eLKzum94XG

I went to open my hive today to add a pollen patty and realized the bees were gone. I’m still not sure why they absconded. It seemed like every time I checked on the bees their population looked smaller. There wasn’t any robber bees either so they must’ve recently absconded. They had capped honey, nectar, and pollen as well as eggs, brood, and larvae present in the comb. There were no dead bees on the bottom. There was some evidence of wax moths and some ants so maybe they were too stressed? Also the four pictures I attached were the only frames they built/ were using (it was a very small swarm). Maybe the 8 frame deep was too big for them to control the temperature?

If anyone has any ideas why they might’ve absconded I’d love to know so I can avoid this happening again in the future. Pretty sad they left.

Location: Oregon

I have two hives, got the NUCS a few weeks back and just out the second brood box on both hives. The picture attached is from one of the hives frames that I moved from the bottom box to the top next to the sugar water. Everything seems looking good and they are starting to build ip the empty frames. Today was fairly hot and they definitely were trying to cool down but there was a slight funky smell from this one hive but my wife said she didn’t smell anything weird.

Wondering how this frame is looking and if there is anything that looks out of place?

First year bee keeper with two hives located in parkland county, Alberta Canada.

Added Norroa a few hours ago and came out to this. Only one of two hives is like this. I opened the entrance and made sure the packet wasn't blocking.

I'm in Texas and it is in the 90s but have never seen this many out

UPDATE: Added another deep and removed entrance reducer.

Maryland, USA (101°F). Collected a few frames of honey and took the opportunity to drop in some VarroxSan strips.

No real tips or tricks here but it was the closest appropriate flair. Just sharing that persistence and learning work. I'm in my second full year with bees (well third, I tried 45 years ago when I was a boy), and after a successful first year and overwintering I decided to add a second hive this spring. For reference I'm located in SE PA west of Philly. The photo is my small bee yard located in a native plant meadow area we planted on our property to eliminate a small sea of grass.

I shared here how I ran into some troubles along the way--or just the usual bee stuff, but challenging in the first year. My overwintering hive struggled while my nuc from GA really took off gangbusters. The old queen in my overwintered hive was not laying well and the hive numbers were low, so I took a gamble and replaced her. Well, they killed the new queen. Meanwhile the nuc was crowded and I discovered swarm cells, so I split them to try and prevent a swarm. Less than two weeks later I learned I failed to give the nuc enough room in time and they swarmed. I am convinced I missed a first swarm while I was away for a weekend, as the swarm I caught about ten days later clearly had a virgin queen (it was a cast swarm). The nuc now was queenless, but there were about half a dozen supercedure cells still left so I left three in that hive and moved the other frame with queen cups to the hive that killed their purchased queen.

This left me about six weeks ago with four hives, only one of which had a queen, two with sealed queen cups, and the split which I bought a queen for. So three hives all needing new queens and virgin queen from my swarm. My options were limited so I had to just trust that the queens would mate and start laying. I left them all alone for two weeks to give the queens time to hatch and mate and start laying. Two weeks ago I checked and the virgin swarmed queen was laying and so was the split with the purchased queen--there was plenty of visible larvae and lots of cells with shining jelly at the bottom. The other two had signs of laying with tiny bits of white royal jelly in a lot of cells--without my reading glasses I couldn't see any eggs!

Today I checked and all of the hives are doing great. The nuc is built back up and storing away honey in the frames I extracted a few weeks ago. The re-queened hive from last year is going gangbusters and also putting away honey. The split with the purchased queen has good numbers finally and is pulling out most of the frames in their deep, so I added a second one for growth room and to help with this heat wave. Finally the cast swarm has really taken off, she seems to be a great queen. They've pulled all of the lower deep frames and laid up some honey and in the second deep about three quarters of the frames have been started to be pulled with lots of honey and some brood in the lower parts of a few middle frames.

The moral of the story is...just keep at it! Manage the bees the best you can and then trust them to do what's best and raise new queens. Obviously I had to step in to limit the number of queen cells, and swapping them between hives helped me get more queen-right hives. Right now I'm at where I wanted to be next year, with four hives all of which are doing well. I am now thinking I might add two more next spring!