First year Beek here, gentle replies are appreciated! Location central Indiana. I borrowed my club's wand with no instructions other than verbal from the club president. I tested it to make sure I got the timing right. The first couple of test runs were on a cold and windy day outside of the hive. Wand worked great- I did 2 test runs to make sure my power source could handle 2 treatments in a row. After both tests, there was just a little white film left on the wand after vaporization which is what I expected. The day after xmas was warm here (48F) and I decided to treat. First hive treatment went well, just like the test. Second hive, the wand reservoir was black after I pulled it from the hive. I'm thinking it was because the wand was too warm at the start of the second treatment. Any thoughts? And the follow up question: how can I clean that wand now that it is all gunk-ified? Hope everyone had a great holiday and your bees are doing well!

I live in east Central Florida and we have hybrid African honey bees in the wild. Normally they are far less aggressive than the original Africanized bees. I did a check today and one of my hives was just defensive, they were straight on hell spawn. In my 10 years of beekeeping, I have never encountered this level of aggression.

They started out their normal grumpy selves, then something triggered them and then they really got pissed. Swarmed my veil and bee suit. Luckily I was wearing welding gloves, stings were all over the gloves. I closed the hive and walked about 50 ft away, still had a decent number on me. So I got the hose and doused myself and knocked most of them off.

I have 1/2 acre and still didn't feel comfortable with these bees. I also know drones will start emerging in a month or so and I didn't want these genetics to continue. I got a few gallons of hot water and dish soap ready. I suited up just in case and opened the hive and poured in the mixture. Instant silence.

I considered requeening, but I am not sure I would be able to get a queen, Africanized bees have a low acceptance rate for a new queen and it would take 6 weeks to get the hive back.

Bummed, but glad I discovered their aggressiveness vs someone else.

I'm getting ready to order up hives and nucs as far as get my name on a list for some local nucs. But I'm looking at ordering about 12 of these hive kits, have 2 hives active and have 2 spare kits to be ready in case of swarms or needing to split eventually at each location. I have about 30 acres here in east Tennessee outside Knoxville, and then my family members have about another 14 acres between two other properties that I'm going to do 2 hives on each property. So I will have a total of 6 hives going from the start. Was wondering what the thoughts are on these Dadant hive kits? I'm going to order up a bee suit, get the smoker, hive tools, I did buy the bee keeping for dummies book and back yard bee keeper book. I'm trying to make a checklist of anything else I'm missing. I'm joining my local bee keeping association, went to their fall intro class and they won't have the 2nd intro class till April. What other items are must haves that I should order up?

Hello,

I have a wooden house and on the second floor the bees have made a huge hive inside the walls and for some reason they love this particular spot.

I have had exterminators try to gas inside the walls, had someone remove the wood from the outside and had a professional remove the (queen, which was supposed to make it so they wouldn't return). They leave for a month and come back and it is extremely bad and potentially dangerous, we have a 10 month old that has been stung a few times because they come inside the house through the air conditioning.

I am thinking maybe there is some sort of sound device or scents I can put near them to get them to go away forever. Can anyone please help?

I’m saving this in my personal honey archive. Such a beautiful jar.

West of Chicago. Two weeks ago fine. Today after OAV treatment there was no activity and this is what I found. Pic 6 starts the bottom deep. The candy board and all the honey stores intact and not eaten. The bottom deep had a small amount of chewed brood. Sporadic eggs in cells. Queen and very small cluster dead on top corner of bottom deep frame. This hive was one I combined another with. It was my strongest hive and had an OAV treatment a week before Thanksgiving. My other four hives received OAV treatments and were active today. I assume mites because it’s always mites. Anything else?

Sorry if this has already been posted. Just saw this article shared on FB today.

Hi there

I am in Santiago, Chile, where it is summer.
One of my hive has a laying worker apparently but I do have a couple of questions about it. Here are some notes from my inspections for some more context, and 2 questions below. Thank you for your help.

Oct 4: No eggs, no recent larvae. Many drones. No queen since mid-September.

Oct 16: Introduced new queen (purchased).

Oct 21: Queen released, first signs of eggs and young larvae observed.

Oct 27: Good progress - eggs, honey, and pollen present.

Nov 6: Strong activity - many larvae, good egg-laying pattern, sufficient honey and pollen reserves. 2 brood boxes and 1 honey super. (I definitely was too optimistic here).

Nov 14: First floor surprisingly empty. Second floor shows only very recent eggs, no older larvae. Normal honey amount but slow development. Very docile bees.

Dec 8: Unusually empty. Eggs present but in small quantities in upper box. Considered removing honey super.

Dec 15: Activity concentrated in upper box. Bottom box: lots of pollen, almost no capped brood, mostly empty frames. Upper box: active brood area with eggs and larvae. Queen spotted: good size, unmarked. Development slower than other hives.

Dec 28: Concerning situation. Multiple eggs per cell observed, larvae appearing to lack royal jelly. No drones present. Suspected laying worker(s) but unusual features for this diagnosis. Hive likely compromised.

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My first question is about the diagnostic. I've read that layer workers often lay eggs on the walls of the cells, which is not the case here. But there are definitely multiple eggs... Can it be something else than a laying worker?

Second question is: how the hell can there be a laying worker when I spotted a queen 2 weeks ago? I'm surprised it can come to this so fast.

Thank you!

60 degrees and sunny in Northern Ohio - it was nice to see my little princesses.

This year alone we have lost 4 hives due to ants moving in. We have tried sheep wool on the legs of the metal tables the hives are on, also the legs are in small water filled buckets cause ants can't swim.... Can they?! Anyone have the cure for the ants? I'm in Mallorca and have had bees now for 5 years but every year the ant problem gets worse

It is my first year of doing beekeeping so pardon me if this seems obvious to yall. I swear i did try to look more into this. Location: South vietnam

When i showed my frames to my mentor he told me to get rid of these frames as theyre full of drones (from 2 different hives). What makes me want to check with yall is because these 2 frames (2 pics of each sides per frame) dont look anything alike? The first frame looks quite like textbook drone cells (i accidently dropped it too whoops) but the second frame just looks like other frames for me, even with some honey in it.

While i get that for beekeeping purposes, drones arent very useful and can be a big mite carrier, should i have kept some? I did get rid of both frames as he advised me to but maybe i shouldnt have done that

Edit: i forgot to mention that he said the bee seems to starve. We just had an off season tropical depression and heavy rain the night before. But do they burn through honey supply that fast?