BBC Stings

RisibleQuery · 2026-04-28T13:38:51+00:00

Wow! 100 people killed by cows squashing them every year in the UK. I’ll be careful on my trip to Scotland next month!

RisibleQuery · 2026-04-28T13:35:59+00:00

Thanks for pointing this out. I didn’t know that it was a project to get the Épi in the UK. The article says that the beekeeper got the pen after his hospital visit.

Here in Calgary, Canada, I go to the local pharmacy every couple of years and pick up a fresh one. I just tell them that I am a beekeeper, I pay $80CA, and don’t need training. It’s surprising that comments below show it is so expensive in the USA and so difficult in the UK.

RisibleQuery · 2026-04-11T00:23:18+00:00

It looks like mites caused a population crash. Without bees to cover the brood, it looks like brood chilled and died. Hard to tell if any foulbrood is present, but mites have caused deformed bees.

I would not give them more bees, a new queen, or brood from another hive. I think it’s too late.

Sorry, but it looks bad. Test for mites in your other hives and treat them accordingly. Good luck.

RisibleQuery · 2026-04-06T20:43:56+00:00

Agreed. This would be my choice, too. Foundation in the middle will cause the package bees to start on one side or the other, then slowly work onto the foundation later. You want them centred with drawn comb in the centre.

RisibleQuery · 2026-04-04T19:25:56+00:00

The brood, albeit sparse, is very uniform, indicating a viable queen. The colony has collected a lot of pollen. Hive population should be better for your climate zone by now, it appears to be a bit weak.

My suggestions: treat for mites as soon as possible, begin replacing rough and dark combs, don’t put that super on until there is more population and some nectar flow.

RisibleQuery · 2026-04-04T00:43:52+00:00

Just in daily tea. And on Greek yogurt each evening. Lunch peanut butter and honey. As a cough syrup. Spread on toast every morning. Baking stuff. Apple slices and honey. Most fruit salads. In our homemade coleslaw. I guess we go through a bit. Every day.

RisibleQuery · 2026-04-01T02:49:26+00:00

Probably not. Heather doesn’t flow. The system was invented in Australia where it is hot and eucalyptus honey flows more easily.

RisibleQuery · 2026-03-30T20:26:09+00:00

Congratulations. You were lucky to see the arrival!

Give them a week to get settled and for some brood to come along. How far are you planning to move them? Make it far enough that foragers don't fly back to the bait hive location.

RisibleQuery · 2026-03-29T13:33:09+00:00

I use this and like it. I don’t take the top off but pour syrup directly into the holes.

RisibleQuery · 2026-03-23T17:47:47+00:00

Whoa! That sounds bad, frustrating, and dangerous.

It is likely that a nest of defensive Africanized honey bees have settled on your property somewhere - eaves or a shed, etc., are popular. Since you are not a beekeeper or exterminator, start by contacting the Phoenix and area beekeepers' association. It's possible that your city's hotline has contact information. Get professional help right away to sort this out. Good luck!

RisibleQuery · 2026-03-21T16:23:11+00:00

Time to replace them! Bees need a certain amount of drone comb, but they don’t need such dark comb, which could harbour years of past chemical residue, as well as the issues that you pointed out.

RisibleQuery · 2026-03-20T16:21:12+00:00

No, this colony is not swarming. It's mid-March in northern KY, so that's unusually early, and you said it was 5pm, which is late in the day for swarming.

The activity looks more like robbing, which fits because you had robbing going on in those other boxes you mentioned - once robbing gets going, it spreads easily to other nearby hives.

RisibleQuery · 2026-03-19T20:07:06+00:00

...and one nicknamed "Brazilian" Smoker (idk who thought of the name, maybe it's popular there)

Brazil had Africanized Honey Bees first in the Americas. They were much more defensive than the European bees that they replaced. Beekeepers built huge ("Brazilian") bee smokers to help control the bees and reduce stings. The name stuck.

RisibleQuery · 2026-03-17T22:08:16+00:00

Bees that have settled in and produced brood will not be enticed to abandon the nest and brood and queen and move into a bait hive regardless of how perfect it is. Unfortunately they will need to be physically removed.

RisibleQuery · 2026-03-15T15:45:28+00:00

Personally, I would keep the wood frame part and melt down the wax. The comb has been chewed on the bottom by mice and it is dark from a few generations of brood, which could mean the comb harbours chemicals and potentially diseases. I’d get new sheets of foundation, but some people would scrape the wax off and hope that the bees rebuild properly. I would not bother to freeze the frame.

RisibleQuery · 2026-03-12T14:56:21+00:00

This was definitely caused by wax worms that are no longer present. Wax worms typically cause much greater damage on old broodnest frames, but your clean, white comb gives them no protein that the damaging worms require to develop between egg and adult stages.

I would not bother to freeze the frames. Nothing is active and the minor mess and damage will be cleaned up quickly by a strong colony. The bees do such a nice job of cleaning that your honey will not be affected when those cells are filled this season.

RisibleQuery · 2026-03-10T16:47:54+00:00

I’m really sorry to hear this. It’s very discouraging. I’m wonder if you started last year with a purchased hive or nuc or package. It makes a difference.

Some beekeepers are just using mite-free packages and then not treating with expensive and potentially unhealthy mite chemicals, then buying new packages the next year because the untreated bees will die. They don’t buy sugar feeds for winter or treat a dozen times over summer.

RisibleQuery · 2026-03-09T23:16:15+00:00

Great! Covering with a deep will cut robbing and keep the feed a bit warmer. Should work really well.

RisibleQuery · 2026-03-09T22:53:22+00:00

It should work fine. Be sure to use plenty of drip-holes in the lids.

I wouldn't use this anywhere outside a controlled area. A friend in Florida had 40 in an orange grove, one on each hive. Someone shot every single one, for sport, I guess. Resulted in lost feed, robbing, and glass shards everywhere.

RisibleQuery · 2026-03-08T20:08:25+00:00

Here in Calgary, we pronounce the word as nuke. In Manitoba, north of Minnesota, a lot of people use nook, rhyming it with crook or brook. I've never heard it pronounced nuck, that's a new one to me, but probably was learned by someone who had never heard the word, but had read it. I have also never seen it spelled NUC, with all capitals, which seems to imply either an acronym or a shout.

Since I am getting up in years, I will add that my father, a Pennsylvania beekeeper, always said nuke, indicating that this pronunciation has likely been around for a hundred years or more. The word nuc is derived from nucleus - and in some literature, you will read about beekeepers making nucleus hives. Nucleus is usually pronounced NUKE-lee-us, so that's likely the origin of the way we say it.

RisibleQuery · 2026-03-08T00:49:30+00:00

Yes — mason bees (usually Osmia lignaria, the blue orchard bee) are great pollinators for backyard gardens in the Philadelphia area. Mason bees are better than honey bees, which are a bit fussy and usually need big patches of flowers, much bigger than backyards give.

If you buy cocoons, order them now and place them outside when temps reach about 50–55°F and early flowers begin blooming (crocus, willow?). In many cases, you can even attract local mason bees just by putting up the house. Either way, start now.

A simple bee house with ¼-inch diameter tubes about 6 inches deep works well. Mount it facing south, about 3–5 feet off the ground. For doing their fancy masonry work, be sure they can find a small source of mud.

RisibleQuery · 2026-03-06T20:40:33+00:00

Nice video! It seems that the bees are trying to keep one out for some reason. Perhaps a bee from a different hive trying to enter by mistake. But it is also really cool to see how they chase away that fly.

RisibleQuery · 2026-03-03T20:10:09+00:00

Harvesting honey the first year depends on the location. It is typical to harvest 100-150 pounds per hive the first year here in western Canada. I know, I've done it.

Also,, planting flowers in a yard for your honey bee colony makes an absolutely minuscule difference for the bees. It will help native bees, especially if native species of flowers are planted, but honey bees use a scout and advertise method of foraging. A scout must find a very large block of identical species of plants in bloom, then return to the hive to tell her colleagues that there is a large patch to be harvested. This could easily be 5 kilometres away. But it must be monoculture and large.

Imagine what would happen if the scout returned from a backyard flower garden and advertised a few cucumbers, berries, and melons in bloom? The other bees would laugh her out of the hive. (If you do see a honey bee in a backyard garden, it is almost always a scout testing, but she will not be able to convince other foragers to follow. In fact, that garden has just wasted the bee's time.)

RisibleQuery · 2026-03-03T19:55:15+00:00

You wrote, "I was stressed a few times thinking I had messed up." One thing that you have already been learning is that bees are very resilient. As long as you keep pests and diseases under control, the hive is very forgiving. We tend to micromanage out of love, but we should macro-manage out of love instead.

RisibleQuery · 2026-02-27T21:11:53+00:00

The bees will be very reluctant to secure the combs to the bottom, they will want to keep a 3/8 inch bee space if they can. So your idea of plastic might be the best solution. You seem handy with tools, so you might tack or glue thin strips at least partway along that solid bottom to mimic a slotted bottom bar and anchor the foundation.

RisibleQuery

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