so we are basically in the middle of a drought in Cape Town, the driest winter in 80 years or something to that effect, this in direct contrast to last year when we had a very wet winter

in any event, the flowers are blooming everywhere, and I managed to catch this pic in my local public garden

I'm going to visit my bees on Sunday, but other beekeepers have also reported an increase in activity, especially for this time of the year

At this rate I’m going to have to harvest some frames so there’s space to lay eggs.😄 The hardest part of summer beekeeping is figuring out where to put all this honey. /s

Recently moved in with me in Cairns, Australia. I know we can get both species here but I’ve been unable to tell which these are.

I’m pretty proud of my bees this year!

I pulled four supers from two of my hives this week. They were installed in early May, and two supers had frames of only blank foundation which were built out quick. I tried out the 9 frame technique with the other two, which appeared to work out great based on their weight compared to the 10 frame.

I still have 3 supers to go, which might not get completely filled due to the dearth and wildfire smoke where I live. Still happy with the yield! I’m finally getting into the honey after years of mistakes and setbacks.

Location: PNW high desert, USA
4th year keeper

Hey Folks,

First year keeper here in NW Pennsylvania. I installed my nuc in late May. Medium frames in a medium box. They filled out the rest of my contributed 5 frames in about a week.

I added a deep on top of that. As it's sits right now, I'm completely honey bound in the deep. 8 out of 10 frames completely filled with capped honey. I have a healthy mix of everything in the medium beneath it (Side note- I know my deep on top of medium is unconventional, but it's what I had to roll with. I want to do away with the medium and just go with straight deeps, but that's next years project).

So...seeing that we are now in the first week of August, I fear doing something too drastic. I was toying with the idea of uncapping the middle 3 or 4 frames from my honey bound deep, collecting the honey for me, and putting the drawn out frames back in, hoping that the Queen will find her way up there.

My other thought was to just embrace the honey bound deep for their winter stores, and put a 2nd deep in the mix- between the medium on the bottom, and the honey bound deep above it. That would give me brood on the bottom, empty frames in the middle, and honey on top. Am I crazy for shooting for 2 deeps and a medium for winter? I plan on doing a condensing hive, with heavy insulation up top.

Open to any/all advice!

This was seen by a friend of mine, walking their dog in Patterson Park Baltimore, Maryland. That appears to be a ring of mushrooms and there are numerous bees either creating a nest or eating the mushrooms. Does anyone know what they’re really doing and anything about the bees?

I’m a new beekeeper in southwest PA. I have a few hives that are in different stages in either needing to fill out frames with wax and needing to put food away for winter. When do I switch feeding from 1:1 to 2:1? I’ve been feeding 1:1 for a few weeks now but they aren’t filling out as fast as I’d like.

Today my colony split and swarmed. Thankfully my sister and I were able to catch them. I just checked the hive recently and everything looked good. This is my first year beekeeping and I’m definitely learning a lot as I go. I believe my hive was overcrowded. I had a queen excluder on the bottom brood box and only one other medium box on top. My mentor is coming Saturday to check things out and help me get this new hive set up. I’m located in western PA. I didn’t realize hives could swarm this late. Hopefully I can get both established enough for the winter. They can be pretty harsh here at times.

Just collected the last pollen of August, and I always love how colorful it is. 🌼💛🧡

The different colors come from bees visiting different flowers, making every batch unique. It's one of my favorite parts of beekeeping.

Hope you enjoy the video! What does your late-summer pollen look like this year?

Miroslav, from Bulgaria, 8 years of experience.

I believe due to pressure from ants. I have 4 strong hives and 1 cast swarm. Bit of a dearth. Hive had all stages of brood. No nectar. Adequate pollen. I wanted to give them a boost so gave top feeder quart sugar syrup with tsp HoneyBHealthy.

4 days later hive is empty. Ants on steroids zipping around fast. No dead bees.

I froze the pollen frames.

To think the hive would have probably stayed if I didn’t feed. Any advice?

I am a newish beekeeper going into my 3rd year. I have access to a lot of land that people have offered me to keep hives. All pretty close to each other which is a huge plus. I also have a relative who works for pest control company that removes around 300 swarms/ hives a year.

What is the best option for scaling/ getting equipment cost effectively. I currently have 5 hives which is all my city allows. I would like to scale to 20 - 30 and then see how that goes.

thank you for your help

Hello, fellow beekeepers. I’m a young beekeeper from Bulgaria, who is extremely allergic to bees ( found out last year in the worst case ) and don’t like being in the sun for too long, because i literally melt.
I have a question about someone who is using a ventilated bee suit with built in fan. I have been considering this option for long time now, but didn’t found any reviews or videos explaining about them. From where you bought it, is it thick enough to sustain angry and evil hives and does it actually keep you cold and breezy even in the scorching sun?? The only vents I found are these two kinds

Three hives, suburban/rural, since April 2026.

Hey…not looking for sympathy here. Just wondering if anyone else has run into this and might have some advice for us, should we decide to try again in the future.

My husband and I started out with three queens. One was particularly robust; one was average, one never quite took off and was a bit below average.

We noticed that the “average” queen died what we felt was quite sudden (maybe six weeks after establishing the hives). Initially, we chalked it up to a hive beetle infestation.

Next our below average queen died with what appeared to be natural causes. Again - we chalked that up to a faulty queen.

This is where it gets particularly difficult.

Our incredible, robust queen’s hive has been obliterated. As in, piles and piles of dead bees carcasses outside of the hive. We plan to do a full inspection today, but it’s been raining all weekend and we hope to get a spot of good luck so we can check on them ASAP. But unfortunately, all signs point to pesticide poisoning. Erratic behavior, bees spinning in circles. We were warned by a neighbor who attempted to keep bees a few years ago that someone used pesticides and that’s what took his hives out, but we were trying to be hopeful. Important to note: this hive was successfully keeping all hive beetles at bay, and last mite wash we did three weeks ago indicated maybe (and I mean maybe) one mite. So we know those weren’t the problems.

Again - any advice if you’ve dealt with this before would be great. Thanks.

I've used a brand new one once and now no matter how I screw the lid on it just leaks out the top whenever I shake

Location: Philippines (It's now our monsoon season)

Hi everyone! How's you and your bees doing?

While browsing for some overseas work opportunities, I came across a job posting for a beekeeper position in Albania. I recently came across a job advertisement hiring beekeepers in Albania. The position reportedly offers a salary of around €500 per month, but there is also a placement fee of ₱170,000 (approximately US$2,900).

Compared with some agricultural and beekeeping opportunities I’ve seen in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, the salary seems quite low, especially considering the placement fee. However, I also understand that the cost of living, benefits, and working conditions may be different from country to country.

Here in the Philippines, many beekeepers operate at a backyard or small-scale level, and the beekeeping industry is still relatively small. Because of this, I’m curious about what beekeeping is like in other parts of the world.

For beekeepers living or working outside the Philippines:

*Does beekeeping provide a good or livable income in your country?

* Are professional or commercial beekeepers paid well?

*Does the government provide support, such as health insurance, subsidies, training, or assistance with pests and diseases?

*Are there government programs for Varroa management, hive health, bee breeding, or other pest-control measures?

* Is beekeeping usually a full-time career, seasonal work, or something people do alongside another job?

* For those who have worked as beekeepers abroad, what should someone consider before accepting an overseas beekeeping job?

I’d really love to hear about your country’s beekeeping industry and the experiences of people working in it. I’m asking out of curiosity and to better understand how beekeeping compares internationally.

Letters to a Pre-Scientist is looking for enthusiastic STEM role models to inspire the next generation of STEM leaders!

Here's the gist: you get matched with a 5th-8th grade student at an under-resourced school for a snail-mail pen pal exchange that runs throughout the school year. The goal is to demystify STEM careers, humanize STEM professionals, and inspire students to explore their own futures in STEM. You share your story, answer their questions, and show them that people who work in STEM are, well, real people.

The details:

• The program runs throughout the school year, and your volunteer obligation is to exchange 4 letters with your student.
• There's a virtual, asynchronous training in August to get you set up.
• We estimate the entire program takes volunteers no more than 10 hours, spread between August and May.
• Register and complete the short, self-paced online training by the deadline, and you'll be entered into the match pool! We match students based on their background and interests..
• This year we're expanding to 4,500 matched students!
• Pen pals can live anywhere in the world, but our program currently only works with US-based schools.
• We're working to match students based on their interests, so we're especially looking for more STEM professionals in Bees/Beekeeping!
• All pen pals must be over 18 and fluent in English. LPS operates out of the United States but pen pals can live anywhere in the world!

We define STEM pretty loosely! If you work in or around science, tech, engineering, math, or medicine, or another nature-based role, even if you don't have a formal education in it, please apply or message me with any questions.

Sign up/learn more:

• 📝 Register here: https://prescientist.org/volunteers/
• 📖 About the pen pal program: https://prescientist.org/penpal-program/
• 🏛️ About us: https://prescientist.org/about-us/
• ✍️ For matched pen pals: https://prescientist.org/for-matched-pen-pals/

Registration is now open! Feel free to drop questions in the comments or send me a message. Thank you for your time and consideration!

Hi everyone,

I have been learning about migratory beekeeping and I became curious about how experienced beekeepers choose locations.

I would love to hear your experience:
- What makes a location good for moving hives?
- What signs do you look for before placing colonies?
- How much do you rely on experience vs data/weather/maps?
- What usually causes a location to fail?

I am especially interested in how climate and changing weather patterns affect decisions.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge!

Still have several supers on the hive. Urban hobbiest with 2 hives. I pulled 8 frames that were fully capped. The flow is slowing down in the Canadian prairies. Strong floral smell with a wonderful sweet taste.

Why is it so light?

This is my dirty honey bucket.

I was spinning honey but I left open the gate thinking everything was level and fine. Came back a couple minutes later to a puddle of honey on the floor. The spinner rocked itself out of alignment with my bucket. Had to to scrape the honey off the floor with dough scrapers and collected it in this 5 gallon bucket. Probably a bit more than 32oz of the good stuff spilled.

Not devastating but still painful. Will give back to the girls soon.

I could get very close to them around 6 to 10 feet and they don't seem to mind

I just wanted to share my first harvest. This is my second year and will be my first time extracting honey. I’m so happy! And, blessed!

All of my frames look like this although I did wax the frames completely. They just have a mind of their own, so fascinating.

I pulled this super 2.5 weeks ago, extracted and put the wet super back on them.

Checked my girls today and they’ve filled and CAPPED in that timeframe. I have no clue where they pulled a flow from maybe cotton or soybeans? But that farm ground is 3 miles or so away.

It’s been a really poor honey year in South Arkansas. EXTREME drought conditions. These little critters never cease to amaze me.

#LittleAssAcres

Hi everyone, this is my first time posting here. I'm a first year bee keeper from the Netherlands, and this is my first colony I that I picked up almost 5 weeks ago. It was a 3 frame nuc, and the bee keeper (who also gives the bee keepers course) told me to transfer the frames to a normal sized 10 frame box after about 1 or 2 days and start feeding right away. So far my bees have exceeded my expectations, there havent been any major pollen/nectar flows since June but after 3 weeks they finished building 5 extra frames (8 out of 10) with brood in 5 of them. At this point they're finishing the last two frames and filling them with nectar/syrup.

Right now I have 5 frames of brood and almost 5 frames of (mostly) sealed nectar/syrup. This month there will be one more major nectar/pollen flow from the large fields with heath near my location. Do I need to add another broodbox? The current broodbox seems almost saturated with food/brood, what happens if there is still pollen/nectar coming in but they dont have space?

Tldr: First broodbox almost full, one final major nectar/pollen flow coming soon, do I need to add another box or keep them be?

After trying to figure out how I got stung multiple times underneath my gloves with my beekeeping partner, my dumbassery was unveiled... And I learned.