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has to do with brood diseases. The state apiarist needs to be able to inspect the frames. Don't see them cutting down bee trees though....

Same with Warre hives. If I have a warre, I have to be...

liked the note about the waggle dance. I assumed something like that. I was vacuuming off a swarm into my bee vac last week, and saw waggle dances all over it. I assumed that could go wrong for...

wait, he's doing his own removals in Africanized territory dressed that way? Wow.

Rob
www.mongrelbees.com

Can't really argue with the points above. However, just because this queen is a lousy layer, it may not be her genetics. If the brood is healthy, and the bees overall are showing the right...

Keep in mind, that the longer you do beekeeping, the easier it will be to spot her. I used to have trouble even finding marked queens it seemed. Your eye will get trained in a subconscious way to...

sounds like it could have been mice, and the bees removed the evidence. A mice nest will take up about that size between frames. Just leave it alone. The bees will fill it in, though you may want...

that's a normal / low amount. Bees can take care of that just fine. Just get used to it. They're probably here to stay. I find them in every single hive I have and the ones I cut out. I've...

Thanks Michael. I actually have Huber's book, which I bought directly from you when you were up here in Richmond. That may be what I was recalling. I did notice that she's got that particular...

Don't bother with Dadant if you need it in time - for this year. I ordered what looked like their best suit back in early April. I have to ask for all the updates, and they still don't know when...

I vaguely remember reading something about new queens getting stuck in a hive due to bad weather, and then start laying drones. I can't remember the source though. I had a situation where I had a...

I had a lady call frantic last year because they were eating her birdhouse. Sure enough, a queen had entered the birdhouse and they started forming comb. The swarm was so big though, they...

Little touch of sarcasm noted there? You can super a top bar if you built it right. :)

If you just want to get a bunch of bees, and leave the tree to bait them in the future, you can wrap aluminum or fiberglass screen and screw it on with short drywalls screws. Then just remove later...

Exactly. I always pack my bee vac for swarms. You just never know. Poor friend of mine tried to collect one from the point of a tent that couldn't collapse or bounce. He actually got stung in the...

I have a couple pointers. Open brood is fine and will help you in a couple ways. If you don't get the queen alive, in a few days when you check on them, they will start raising some emergency queen...

Starting another year of cutouts (2 scheduled already and there was snow on the ground yesterday!). I'm insured, experienced, and I charge. I kept the prices lower in the past because I just wanted...

how does that work? Does it convince the bees after an hour that there really is a forrest fire and they need to leave? Obviously it works, but not sure why....

I had a hive like this last year. I really hated to kill them off, but I have young boys and we couldn't get within 25 feet of them, didn't have another safe place to move them, and had some...

I performed several trapouts last year. I usually try to get the donor hive as close as possible to the old hive. They can smell brood, but it seems that the closer you get, the faster they take to...

Here's a couple tricks. You can use a shop vac. Some guys are going to freak when I say that, but what you have to do is tape off the exhaust. It will cause the motor to get hot, so go in spurts,...

I do a lot of cutouts. There is some risk with honey transferred disease, but I've not seen any disease in any of my hives (other than what Veroa helps out with). Giving them their own honey is a...

Michael: Do you think the unnatural size causes us to be more accustomed to 10 frames in a 10 frame box? I realize that in the wild the bees have sizes all over the map, but when Huber was making...

I will be starting Warre this year. Langstroth I've had for 12 years, TBH for 3. Unless you have several of each, I don't know that you can compare too much. My TBH are the best this year, and...

Thanks Astro. I charge for the cutouts as I do a lot of work to be careful for the site and I restore it to original condition with several measures taken to prevent a future re-infestation. It was...

Don't the bees need to dehydrate the honey? I wonder if you can even get a high humidity in the winter. If there is a condensation surface (cold hive body) doesn't that mean that moisture is going...