Health & Pests
Emergency, Swarm, and Supercedure Cells, Oh My!
I remember seeing the queen in our first ever hive and thinking to myself, “I’ll never find supercedure cells since I’m going to do all I can to keep her alive forever.” Of course, that’s not the reality of beekeeping.
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Why Do My Colonies Keep Swarming?
I have three hives started last year and all three swarmed in the last week. Now, they are swarming again — the same colonies. Why do the same colonies keep swarming every few days?
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Why Are There So Many Bee Droppings on the Outside of my Hives?
I am an urban beekeeper in Cleveland. We over-wintered our bees in two deeps. The bees largely remained in the top box all winter. We have had a cold wet, snowy spring. I have been noticing bee poop pretty much all over the outside of the hive.
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Why Did My Newly Installed Bees Make a Queen Cell?
Mary writes … Today was inspection day and I found what appears to be a queen cell … yikes!
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Catch and Release Powdered Sugar Roll Varroa Mite Test
Knowing what a hive’s mite load is can mean the difference between a hive surviving the winter in a healthy state ready to tackle the next honey season and an almost guaranteed untimely death from the viruses and diseases contributed to high varroa loads.
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Do My Honey Bees Have Nosema?
I was inspecting my hive today for the first time this season and noticed the bees were not very interested in sugar syrup. It made me wonder if they had Nosema. A friend who knows more bee science than I do mentioned it, but I’ve never had it before and don’t really know what to look for.
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Why Did My Bees Leave the Hive? What is NOT a Swarm!
Cartoons and movies give us an (incorrect) idea of what swarming bees look like. So when the time to ask questions came up in my first beekeeping class, I asked, “Why might my bees leave the hive?”
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Growing Your Apiary: All About Splitting a Hive
Splitting the colony is a natural part of the honeybee’s reproductive life cycle—in nature we call this action “swarming.” Why do bees swarm? With increased hours in daylight, the queen bee begins to lay her eggs and grow the hive’s population.
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Feeding Honey Bees Successfully
When I participated in the Northern Colorado Beekeepers Association beginning beekeeping class, I was exposed to more than 15 hours of education. Needless to say, much of it was new to my brain and I felt regularly surprised (in a good way!) by what I learned.
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What Happens When the Queen Bee Dies?
Raising honeybees is a challenge. One day your hive looks good and a few days later you wonder if it’s going to live.
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