Beekeeping News

Tropilaelaps in Turkey, recent studies of the complexity of the waggle dance, and (yet more studies on) the influence of queen cup size on the size of the resulting queens. Bigger is not always better.

Why choose fondant, where to buy it, and how to use it. Save money by using fondant to feed your bees in autumn, and — perhaps more important — make your beekeeping easier.

When, why and how to take pre- and post-treatment mite counts, and what to do with the numbers. Is it routinely needed, and when should you definitely do it? And if you thought that was confusing, when do miticides work but not work?

A variety of late-season queen-related topics; finding, missing, marking, judging, and clipping them … together with discussions of some DIY 'mods' that make all these things easier. All that, plus the sad news that the season is pretty-much over 😞.

Licensed miticides, used correctly, are very effective at controlling mite infestations which would otherwise kill the colony. However, the manufacturer’s instructions for miticide use are often poorly worded, confusing or contradictory. Could they be improved?

Thymol-containing miticides offer many advantages (no mite resistance or wax-soluble residues) but must be used properly to be effective. Temperatures are critical, and high brood levels may negatively influence treatment efficacy. If you're going to use them, understand their limitations.

Slow-release oxalic acid (OA) strips are for use on colonies rearing brood, in contrast to one-shot trickled or vaporised OA. Are they an effective solution for winter treatment when predicting broodlessness can be tricky, and when climate change is making it increasingly rare?

Everything you wanted to know about honey supers but were afraid to ask. Adding, managing, removing, lifting, extracting, nadiring, storing … along with anything else I can think of.

Why tolerate poor quality bees? Simple positive and negative selection strategies can produce significant improvements in colony behaviour. However, increased productivity and pathogen resistance (e.g. to mites and viruses) appear harder to reproducibly achieve.

Do viruses really prefer virus-contaminated syrup? How much worse are viral coinfections of honey bees? Does miticide treatment kill mites, but leave virus levels damagingly high? Three recent papers on deformed wing virus, and their relevance to practical beekeeping.

Midseason activities include managing late-swarming, rearing queens for overwintering in nucs, and making the best of the summer nectar flows … and, if that wasn't enough, there's the winter ahead to start preparing for. And now isn't too soon.

Laying workers, and the distinct but functionally similar rebel workers, are a curse in hopelessly queenless hives. Why and when do they occur, how can you prevent them from appearing, and how to fix things if they do.

The 'June gap' and brood breaks; does the queen stop laying, or are the larvae cannibalised? Probably both, and more. Plus some brief comments on hayfever and honey, and determining when OSR/canola honey is ready for extraction (it's earlier than you might think).

There are differences in the chemical and physical properties of wax in queen cells and worker comb. This is attributed to a specific group of young worker bees; the queen cell builders. What lessons are there for beekeeping from the identification of these bees and differences in the wax?

The weather has a profound influence on bees and beekeeping; some thoughts on coping with extreme heat, the ideal conditions for queen mating, and predicting the onset of swarming.

Miticides kill Varroa. They also have detrimental side effects for the brood, workers, drones, and queen. Some of these side effects are more damaging than others, but many can be avoided (or at least mitigated) with proper colony management.

The vagaries of the weather, compounded by unexpected events, are what make beekeeping so endlessly fascinating … and challenging. Don't get flustered. Just keep calm and carry on and things should be OK.

Bees spend more of their short lives learning about the environment during orientation flights than they spend foraging. Why are these flights so important, when do they start, and are bees that have yet to take them really 'non-flying bees'?

Some observations on the impact of low overnight temperatures on colony development and spring swarming, and the use of Taranov swarm control to partition the flying and 'non-flying' bees to prevent swarming.

Queenright queen rearing using the 'Ben Harden system' is an ideal way to produce queens without the need for huge cell raising colonies, or compromising honey production. A 'little and often' approach helps mitigate adverse conditions, and mistakes made when learning. Try it!

Bait hives, ley lines, exotic parasitic mites and formic acid treatments … a spring medley of good and bad beekeeping topics.

Winter DIY projects to make my beekeeping this year a little easier. Things for frames, mini-nucs, supers, finding bees, vaporisers, and queens. Some are novel, some are improvements, and some are poor facsimiles. All kept me entertained, and may help you in the months ahead.

What's the best method of swarm control? Some would judge this in terms of equipment needs, or lifting involved, or the number of return visits. However, if you also consider the population of bees in the colony, I'd argue there's one clear winner.

A recent study suggests that a beeswax Jenter-like system produces bigger, better queens than are reared by conventional grafting. Does this offer a worthwhile alternative approach to the current expensive (plastic) commercial queen rearing systems?

A pick'n'mix collection of swarm-related information this week. The planning and equipment needed for swarm control, and hiving bivouacked swarms. Some preliminary results on absconding swarms and re-hiving distances, and another over-confident prediction of when swarming will start.

Early hive inspections — and why you shouldn't — some thoughts on variable spring weather and progress in predicting swarming, and how the accuracy of the waggle dance varies depending on who is watching.

Colonies are highly selective when choosing larvae to rear queen. Standard (grafting-based) queen rearing methods are not. In this post I briefly discuss the science of larval selection, and then present two easy practical methods that take advantage of our current understanding of the process.

Do wet winters kill bees? Winter losses in '25/'26 appear to be unusually high. Inevitably, the miserable winter rain is blamed. However, I suspect the problem may be due to the earlier drought, a shortage of pollen, and the timing of winter bee production.

The financial outlay you need to make when starting beekeeping is less than the commitment the catalogues imply you should make. Buy wisely with compatibility and longevity in mind, but also invest in a couple of luxuries that will make your beekeeping easier.

Colonies can starve in early spring. It takes just a few days of adverse weather for colonies to run out of stores. This week I discuss preventing starvation in managed colonies, together with some observations on the survival of, and finding, overwintered free-living bees.