Featured Stories

Can I Do a Late-Summer Split?

A split in late-summer is possible, although tricky. You need good-sized populations and lots of food stores and you may need to buy a queen.

Read More
Win a Membership to Backyard Beekeeping
August 1, 2021 · · Giveaways

Enter to win a Digital Plus Membership to Backyard Beekeeping — $54.97 value. We’ll pick 4 winners, a new winner each week through August 29!

Read More
Brood in Honey; No Queen Excluder — What Now?

Many people don’t like the idea of queen excluders until they get to this point. Brood in the honey supers is a difficult problem to solve, and the solutions are not ideal.

Read More
How Long Can I Keep a Caged Queen Bee Alive?
July 27, 2021 · · Ask the Expert

Caged queens can be kept a week to 10 days, and perhaps a day or two longer. But queens lose quality when they are kept from laying for long periods, and the quality of their pheromones decreases, so always keep the storage time as short as possible.

Read More
Why Did My Bees Remove the Frame Foundation?

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.

Read More
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.

Read More
You’re Invited to Become a Member of Backyard Beekeeping

We have some EXCITING news to share! There is something new in our community … introducing the brand-new Backyard Beekeeping Membership and Magazine!

Read More
On a Frame of Emerged and Capped Queen Cells, Will the Workers Destroy the Capped Cells?

On a frame that has emerged queen cells and capped queen cells, is it most likely that the capped cell contents have been killed and of no use in trying to raise a queen in a nuc? Are these cells eventually torn down by the workers?

Read More
Should I Split if I See Queen Cells on Three Frames?

If I have queen cells on three different frames, and I know they are going to swarm. This is a new colony from a nuc. Could I make a split from this situation?

Read More
My Swarm Returned to Where I Found it. Now What?

If I have queen cells on three different frames, and I know they are going to swarm. This is a new colony from a nuc. Could I make a split from this situation?

Read More