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You started beekeeping 10 months ago and have 29 colonies! Wow!

Is it possible to raise the colony off the ground? If so, you can raise it on wooden posts and either cover the posts in petroleum jelly, sticky tape, or put the posts in a large can and fill the can...

I can answer a few of these:

A magnifying glass does help, you're looking for a small, white, egg in the center of the cell. It will look like a grain of rice. If you tilt the frame back into the...

It's funny, I use these when handling live bees individually in the lab and I find (though have no data to back this up; maybe I can do this later...) that they prefer not to sting the nitrile...

It looks like crystallized honey.

I am searching for two observation colonies each 4 frames tall. If anyone has one, or knows where to find one, please let me know.

Mites are attracted to drone brood, and I've linked to a study by Yves Le Conte below. You coudl try and attract mites to a bottom board using the compounds suggested by Le Conte--particularly methyl...

Just sign in for the aquappnics and Tim O'neill will send a link for all webinars in an email after you confirm.

Welcome! I look forward to the posts/pictures!

Thanks, Michael. Great resource there.

Could you point me in the direction of these studies?

Sorry, I should have mentioned... it's the Golden Rod I am discussing (it's an Asteracea). We have a huge Golden Rod bloom at the end of the season, which subsequently crystallizes. Sounds like you...

I can confirm this is crystallized honey. We had this problem last year with our bees. There was a great nectar flow just before the end of the season, but the nectar was from Asteraceae, which I've...

Have fun and good luck!

It depends and it varies widely. Jaffe et al (2009) estimate between 1.5-10.5 colonies/km^2 but this estimate depends on temperature, management regime, and location. Further, there are subspecies...

If you want only the most recent videos do the following:

1) Go to youtube.com
2) type in your search term (e.g. "Beekeeping") and search
3) On the results page (e.g....

From US winter losses survey:

"Preliminary survey results indicate that 30% of managed honey bee colonies in the United States were lost during the 2010/2011 winter. The percentage of losses have...

I like the cages, and have used them myself, but I'm curious if you had any workers "digging" underneath them to get into the cage. If so, how did you deal with that? I found it a bit frustrating.

Unfortunately, both are workers. Here are some good side-by-side shots of drones and workers:


Worker, Queen and Drone:
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman/3caste.jpg

Drone in the...

This isn't necessarily true. I will use your methylation example. If a gene is methylated it will increase expression, but only in the methylated cell. A single cell. If methylation occurred during...

Drone comb and you remove the pupae or a "drone trap" at the hive entrance catching them as the come/go.

In this case, I think you mean cultural or environmental inheritance and not epigenetics. Bees, if left in the same environment as their predecessors inherit that environment. If the environment is...

Before folks jump into Lamarkism and epigenetics, I think we should be clear on something. Epigenetics does change the expression of genes in the genome, but it does so not across the organism, but...

The pin prick and freezing a frame of brood are both excellent for testing hygienic behaviour, if you don't have access to liquid N2. Actually Marla Spivak's original hygiene test involved cutting...

Essential oils are popular treatments for bees, but I know of only one study investigating the effects of garlic. Porrini et al (2011) fed bees varying concentrations of plant extract (10% or 1%...