Health & Pests
Wax Moth Treatment to Help Your Bees Win the Battle
Add to Favorites All hives, even healthy ones, will have wax moths. I didn’t understand this when we first started beekeeping. I thought that if we were good beekeepers our …
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Can I Eliminate Hive Beetles by Moving to a Sunnier Location?
How well hive beetles do once they move in has a lot to do with the soil type. At a certain point, the larvae leave the hive and drop to the soil beneath the hive. Here, they burrow into the soil and pupate before becoming adults.
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Creating the Best Water Sources for Bees
Like all animals, honey bees need a dependable source of water year round. The best water sources for bees are ones that won’t go dry in the summer, won’t drown the bees, and won’t be shared with livestock or pets. Although honey bees adore a nice salt water pool, it’s a good idea to establish your water source before your bees begin chasing away the sunbathers.
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Can I Put Out Extracted Supers Without Encouraging Robbing?
Finding a source of ready-made honey excites the bees, almost to the point of frenzy. So providing wet supers gets the bees agitated and more willing, it seems, to attempt robbing.
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Can I Check Honey Supers While Treating with Formic Pro Mite Treatment?
I’m treating my hives with Formic Pro at this time. I know you shouldn’t manipulate the hive during treatment, but what about checking honey supers and adding or taking them away?
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Should I Perform Beehive Inspections with Supers On?
As a general rule, I try not to go into the brood boxes when the honey supers are on. There are a few reasons for this. Here are three reasons.
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Hive Robbing: Keeping Your Colony Safe
Honey bee robbing is an almost desperate commitment, en masse, to maximizing a resource. Here’s why it happens, how to prevent it, and how to stop it when you see it.
Read MoreWere My Bees Poisoned?
I believe one of my hives was poisoned. There is a pile in front of the hive. This colony was a combination of two weak splits waiting for a queen. (I used the newspaper method to combine them. ) My first impression was that my combination of the two hives had caused the dissonance and the death of the bees in front of the hive. After further investigation, I found that most of the dead bees had tongues hanging out. I realized it might be a pesticide. Now my question is how can I protect the other five hives? None of them had the pile of bees in front.
Read MoreHow Do I Encourage My Bees to Cap the Frames in the Super?
The bees simply bite off a chunk of wax, mix it with their own saliva, chew it into the right consistency, and then build new comb with it somewhere else in the hive. If later in the season they want to use the frames they borrowed from, they will repair the entire thing such that you can barely see what they did.
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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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