Second in a multi-series Depending on where you are in your beekeeping adventure, you may have completely opposing views from other beekeepers concerning hive inspections. New beekeepers inspect hives to learn AND to manage the hives as they learn. Experienced...
You've worked hard, spent money, maybe made a bit of honey, but now your hive looks terrible. There aren't many bees, the wax moths are starting to move in, and robber bees are stealing what honey is left. When is it time to give up on a hive vs. trying to save it? The graph on the next two pages is designed to help you with that decision. Whether a hive is worth saving or not depends a bit on the time of year, and the history of the hive. As you can see on the chart, a hive with 3 frames of bees going into winter has virtually no chance of survival.
Roughly 10% of the brood in a hive is typically drone brood. Since drones require a larger cell to develop in than workers, the bees must build special cells that are larger in diameter than worker cells. They typically do...
Drones are a normal and healthy part of every hive. Hives will usually remove drones from the hive in the late fall and begin raising them again in early spring. From early spring through late fall, about 10% of the...
This is largely a question of preference. It doesn’t generally hurt a queen to get her marked, but it does cost extra, since beekeepers have to find a queen, pick her up, and mark her. It is far easier to...
The Bees' Miracle Mud! Have you ever wondered what that gunky stuff is that glues our bee boxes together making it “pop” when we break the seal? That's propolis! Not really high-tech stuff – basically just the “ooze” that drips...