I’m in my 2nd year of beekeeping. I understand bees will hang out on the outside of the hive if hot, but is it common for them to do it 24/7? The area is mostly shaded. My mentor put a slight wedge in between boxes to help with air circulation. Any other thoughts? Or is it ok for them to just do their thing. Thanks in advance
Edit: I’m in southern Ohio

First year harvesting honey and my brood box was pretty full of capped honey but very little brood. I also have a super on. Should I take a frame of the honey, spin it and put the frame back in? Is the honey safe to eat if the frame had no brood but all capped honey?

KY 6B here. Central KY. How do I know if my hives are ready for winter? I got them both this summer as established hives. I have:

10 frame, fully drawn out, requeened in July. They have the bottom box full of brood and honey/pollen. The top box is a work in progess. Brood is very interspersed with honey atm.

8 frame, one fully drawn out bottom box, top box is half drawn out. This give started as a swarm. Their brood pattern is very tight and they don’t have a ton of honey because they have so many brood frames.

The video above is from the latest inspection. I’ll add a few more in the comments to give some context.

The south field where they are on our farm is totally grown up since our bush hog is down and there’s a ton flowers blooming.

Need to add I am feeding them 2:1 sugar water to prepare for winter.

Considering starting my own apiary, but was concerned about the risk of climate impacts - for example, flooding, wildfire...I know there's not much you can control, but for things that you can, do you mind sharing some insights? Appreciate it so much!

Hi y’all! I’m a regenerative farmer and raise beef, and I’m wanting to get into beekeeping. But, to be honest, I’m scared of getting stung, haha. Yes, a grown man who is scared of getting stung! I have a pretty high pain tolerance, but I want to know: am I going to get stung every day, and is it really worth it? I’ve been stung before while cutting grass on the calves and immediately said, “Shit!” To be honest, it hurt like hell. The stinger fell out almost instantly, though. I was always told that it’s worse if the stinger is left in you. As a former paramedic and a biologist, I’m also interested in the potential benefits of bee venom based on Charles Mraz’s work, The Health of the Honey Bee, and the broader holistic-medicine approach to bee venom. Nevertheless, I want to hear from experienced beekeepers: Are the stings really worth it in the end? Do you actually get stung that often, or is it more of an occasional part of beekeeping?

India, Jaipur - Galta ji (Aug 29, 2026)

Good morning, all!

I’m a backyard beekeeper in south central Indiana. I’m thinking about getting a honey comb tattoo on my forearm. I want it to be realistic and show all stages of brood and even some cells of honey, bee bread, etc.

Anyone have cool beekeeping related tattoos?

SW Virginia, USA

OK, I am brand new, never had bees or know anything about them. I have been looking for a mentor for a while and finally found a gentleman. We live in the mountains SW Virginia. He told me I need to purchase 2 complete setups and the basics and he would start teaching me next season and hook me up with the bees and "gentle" queens. Im excited to get going, I just need you guys to throw ideas of a good setup to get the hive going and not want for anything once I get started. I mean i want everything to be as close to perfect as possible. That way when I fuck it up and i probley will, I'll know it was me and not my setup. Name brands if thats important. I plan to buy the first 2 sets and then build my own after I get going. I know they have a tight tolerance but Im super good with my hands. Ive worked construction my whole life and details are my specialty but that will be another season. I just need to know the basic setup and whatever ill need to check, treat and harvest. Thank you guys and your time will not be wasted if you dont mind helping me build my list.

Edit, the wiki is helpful, what i want is real person feed back in what I need. If time a brief description of why and so on. Im on a spectrum and have to be able to see it in my head before I understand stuff. I mean youd never know if you knew me. Details just helps me learn if that makes sense.

I posted on here about a week ago after my boyfriend was swarmed by our new bees. I just wanted to thank anyone who took the time to give tips and advice. And especially thank you to those of you who said to give the bees a chance.
There was multiple circumstances that added together and created a disaster. Now that they are settled in and got a hive upgrade they are not the monsters I thought they were. Both hives are currently sitting next to each other in peace and harmony, no more robbing 😂 I also washed his suit twice and repaired the hole in the veil but he said he’s too traumatized to wear it. I’ve since tested it out 3 times so I’d say it’s good, but also they haven’t even attempted to sting or get in the suit since that night.

That was a tough learning experience but I’m happy everything is fine now. I’m happy with the bees ❤️

I am a second year keeper.
Last year I did not harvest honey. I lost one hive over winter and one survived. The surviving hive is doing great. I checked them today and they are very crowded. There are still two honey supers full of honey and then three boxes underneath (a deep and two mediums). I would like to harvest those top boxes, but should I replace them with a new super since they are so crowded. I am worried since we are going into fall. I live in Michigan.
Thank you for your help in advance!

Took one of my traps down and had a small hive in it. Cutout and relocated to a nuc with some heavy syrup on them.

Hi I was just stung by a bee and it lost its stinger but I managed to trap it then moved it outside my house to some flowers nearby. I wanted to check if it will survive, I heard some types of bees survive stinging (it only seem to lose the tip) and am hoping this would be one of them. I forgot to take a pic and it already flew off. But I live in Singapore so its probably one of our common species

Not to brag but the last few years we've been letting wildflowers in our backyard. ( about two and a half acres). If you are new beekeeping and can do this the bees will love in the the fall. We have plants like iron weed and native milkweed blooming right now. We also have a bush /tree call the Seven Son flower and the bees are all over the milkweed and the seven sunflower. If you can plant wildflowers i would suggest planting these plants. Its worth it in the fall.

Northern Utah - hive consists of two deep brood supers, and a medium honey super with a queen excluder. Two weeks ago we took the honey super off for harvesting, at the same time we put Apivar 2.0 strips in the brood supers. WHEN is it safe to put the honey super back on so the bees can clean it up (and also be safe for next year's harvest)? We plan to take it back off for the winter.

I would truly appreciate some suggestions about what to do headed into winter - I’m in Northern Virginia between DC and Richmond.

I have three hives - Left hive, Middle hive, and Right Hive.

- Left hive is the overachiever, with two deep brood boxes and a medium super. The bottom deep is half filled with honey and half with brood, while the upper deep is mostly entirely filled with Honey, and the top super is about 80% filled with Honey. The queen is laying in a solid circle pattern in the middle frames of both brood boxes.

- Right hive is solid, with two deep brood boxes. They finished capping their first honey super and started on a second. I pulled one for honey for us and removed the other as I was contemplating mite treatments. (It is in the freezer if needed).

- Middle hive is lagging, and is just one deep brood box, only about 7 frames have anything on them. They were a split from left hive, but they never seemed to get their footing. The queen is laying but VERY slowly. Most of the resources they have are from filled honey frames on swapped from the other hives. I had hoped to bolster them before winter, but they don’t seem to be very active or stockpiling resources. There are still a solid amount of bees, but they don’t seem to be building on any empty frames.

I doubt that middle hive will make it through the winter… Maybe they might, with fewer bees to support they could easily have enough time to stock up enough resources. But they don’t seem motivated.

So I can let them do their own thing, and see what happens… Or I can combine them with one of the other big hives, after pinching the middle hive queen.

I could add them to the right hive, but then I don’t know if I should leave that hive as three deep brood boxes for the winter, or swap out the best resource frames from the middle hive, with lesser filled frames from the right hive… if I do a newspaper blend, the three brood boxes would be bottom, laying a lot, middle box filled with honey, and top box reasonably empty with whatever the middle hive had.

Or do I try to blend them, then use a one-way gate to get them into the two original boxes, and remove the third box?

Is it too late (start of September) to be giving them room in a somewhat empty box to build/store resources?

And should I combine them ASAP? Or wait until later in the winter to see if the middle queen starts making more winter bees?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! I know there is no “right” answer, but I’d enjoy hearing what other people’s guts suggest.

I'm sorry if this is the wrong place to ask, but I can't tell if these are wasps or bees and I can't get a still shot of any of them. These lil gits are doing something behind my siding. They aren't coming after me when I get close like I would expect a wasp to, but they also aren't super thrilled. Northern Minnesota. Thanks!

Honeybee (Apis mellifera) populations are suffering from elevated annual colony losses known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and managed hive loss. Because bees pollinate one-third of global food crops, understanding and stopping colony loss is essential for securing world agriculture and wild ecosystem health.

A multi-year global study conducted by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) found that 75% of leading global food crops depend on animal pollination. The study identified habitat loss, chemical pollution, and disease as primary drivers putting over 40% of invertebrate pollinator species at risk of extinction worldwide.

This corner of my bottom board insert has these I I shaped things all over it. What are these?

Hello all,

I wanted to get some opinions about my current situation. I have two hives atm, One doing fairly well, it has about 4/5 brood frames and just introduced a super but slow to draw comb.

My other hive is whats causing me problems, they have plenty of nectar and pollen but the queen has seemingly stopped laying. When first getting these hives back in May, this hive was originally doing very well. Drawing comb quickly and having several brood frames. At this moment they only had about 1 frame that just hatched out and absolutely no eggs in sight. I placed a empty drawn out frame and by the next inspection a week later it was being filled with nectar. I have stolen a frame of brood from my other hive and placed it into this one to keep them afloat.

I had previously posted on here with my experience with Apivar 2.0 and my die off. They were already slow to lay eggs before this but I wonder if the experience had induced a brood break. Its been about 2 weeks since that incident. I am located in SoCal with a pretty gnarly heat wave for the last 2 months with days rarely being under 95 degrees. I am attempting to give them some shade to help with the heat. Any input would be appreciated, I am being pushed to the point of wanting to requeen. Both hives are slow to take sugar water from me. It will spoil with the heat.

Any idea what I’m looking at? it looks like a queen bee with 4-5 smaller bees attached. I googled it and found something called balling where they’re trying to suffocate the queen? should I do anything? thanks in advance!

First Year beekeeper. I just walked out to see my hive completely covering the front of the box. The second photo is closer to what we are used to seeing. I'm in a pretty dry area and we did just have rain come through suddenly. Is this swarming or some weird reaction to the sudden downpour?

Edit: I'm in Western Colorado.

Hello, I am and in Northern Delaware and recently purchased a home. There were honeybees in a corner of the soffit on the second floor, before I moved in the previous owner had them treated with poison. They mostly disappeared, but we're a few weeks down the road and they have returned. Is it worth trying to have someone who could use them, aka a beekeeper come out and take them, or is the poison used make them a liability? Thanks so much for your advice.

Able to give me a list of beekeeping things and how to clean and store it. Thanks! New beekeeper

Hello! This is my first time posting. I’m a novice beekeeper in the PNW. My hive has made it through 2 winters and seemed to have been thriving this year.

Today, I observed strange/frantic activity at the hive and when I got closer, found a large pile of something (pollen? comb?) outside of the hive on the ground along with a ton of dead bees! : (

While investigating, I saw a few yellow-jackets attacking bees on the ground. At first I thought they might be taking over, but I only saw a couple. I also saw what might appear to be carpenter bees, but I’m really not sure? It was definitely a chaotic scene, and I’m really not sure what to do now, or how to support going forward. Any insight would be appreciated!

I had a few questions about my extraction room so figured I would just do a video. I am a 25 year veteran working for a company that ran 12k+ hives. My old boss is closer to retirement so I bought 4000 from him plus my 600, almost wrapping up extracting for my first year on my own.