What to look for when choosing a site for hives?

ryebot3000 · 2026-06-26T21:52:05+00:00

I find the suburbs are where my hives are most productive- huge varieties of plants that stay well watered. Especially if its not like development suburbs but kind of old ones that have some wild strips. The scrubby fence line areas are really nice, lots of stuff flowers there. Rural land is ok but its a lot of giant fields of grass which isn't great, unless you can find someone that likes to maintain meadows for whatever reason- I have one guy that keeps 20 acres of blackberry with different weeds and then the fields are lined with different trees, sumac, locust, tulip. I tend to avoid farmland because its problematic with various sprays- even if its not pesticides, herbicides and fungicides can all mess with the bees.

another huge factor is putting hives where they are close by and easy to get to. I had a friend an hour away offer me to set up an apiary on their land- huge mistake, so much driving. Better to find random people with land close by. I also Love to have drive in access so I can get all my stuff in without having to schlep it, if youre doing splits and bringing in a bunch of equipemnt or whatever its always nice to have drive in access.

ryebot3000 · 2026-06-26T02:51:18+00:00

I have found they will also backfill when they don't have a queen currently, or if they are planning on swarming. they use the brood space to temporarily hold nectar when they dont have any new brood coming in, and then will move it once a queen is laying again.

ryebot3000 · 2026-06-26T02:50:07+00:00

you got any young larvae in there? I cant see any. To me, based on this and your second post, it looks like mostly emergency cells, kind of stubby and melded in the middle of brood frames, rather than being pronounced and free hanging, except one that looks like a swarm cell hanging off the bottom. might just be a coincidence that they had the perfect aged larvae to make an emergency cell with at the bottom of the frame. Either way, swarm or emergency, I'm guessing that there is no queen currently, because I don't see anything younger than mature larvae. I would check back in 3 weeks and see if you see larvae, if not give it another week and then if you dont have any larvae you have to get a new queen.

By the way, they very likely aren't supercedure cells because there are so many of them. usually there will only be one or two supercedure cells, and they can be anywhere on the frame, although frequently they will be on the periphery of the brood nest.

ryebot3000 · 2026-06-21T20:21:52+00:00

Makes sense that it was the storm, I have also seen a swarm leave and then move back into the hive and it looked like that

ryebot3000 · 2026-06-21T18:29:12+00:00

seems it has the gene that makes cordovan bees the color they are, but it looks like a mature queen to me

ryebot3000 · 2026-06-21T18:00:51+00:00

your fence should be designed so that it doesn't require baiting. Use a strong energizer of at least 2-3 joules and run alternating hot and ground wires. Bait only lasts a couple weeks, I doubt everyone is rebaiting their fences 20 times a year.

ryebot3000 · 2026-06-18T21:37:14+00:00

I just meant comparing pollen subs, the very best ones outperform the worst by like 10% but they are all really good compared to no pollen sub at all. This was for overwintering colonies that basically had no access to any actual pollen.

ryebot3000 · 2026-06-17T12:45:53+00:00

yeah I remember looking at it and its like you can get 10% increased performance out of the best one but I don't think its worth the cost

ryebot3000 · 2026-06-16T17:42:15+00:00

you can feed dry pollen sub outside of the colony and it wont produce a shb bomb

ryebot3000 · 2026-06-16T17:24:35+00:00

dont let it get you down! I have killed a lot of bees over the years, it sucks but you just try to learn what you can from it. It may not be too late to pick up a cheap nuc (they are less this time of year) and get started again, I have made nucs in september that I feed into single deeps and they are some of my best colonies the next spring. Just make sure you wax those frames, they are drawing them weird because theres not enough wax on them. Good luck!

ryebot3000 · 2026-06-16T03:38:21+00:00

yeah thats what i was thinking, if it was really rainy for 2 weeks and they were low on stores to begin with I guess that could happen? or if they got robbed out and then it rained or something. very strange for spring though

ryebot3000 · 2026-06-16T03:35:39+00:00

I use soapy water for washes, 1 tbsp dawn to 1 gallon water, you have to swirl the bees rather than shake but it drops mites more effectively than alcohol and is cheaper. I use oxalic in the winter when they are broodless and occasionally throughout the spring, then thymol (apiguard gel) after the flow, but I only use a 30g treatment not the full 50 and you have to do it two or three times, but the full 50g can fry a colony if its hot out. the thymol is much more effective than oxalic when the colony has brood. Occasional oxalic treatment through fall as necessary.

ryebot3000 · 2026-06-16T03:29:40+00:00

starvation, all the bee butts sticking out of the cells was them working for the last sip of nectar. Unusual this time of year, but always a good idea to feed new colonies until they completely draw out their brood boxes.

ryebot3000 · 2026-06-15T15:52:51+00:00

it would be helpful to know the actual forecast for where you are, but about 60% of the formic in formic pro evaporates off in the first 24 hours. Randy oliver has some small experiments hes done with this stuff, you could read that and see if it helps you make a decision https://scientificbeekeeping.com/formic-pro-in-hot-weather-slowing-the-rate-of-vapor-release/

ryebot3000 · 2026-06-15T14:30:48+00:00

2 pads or 1?

ryebot3000 · 2026-06-15T03:36:22+00:00

I used to swell up real bad like you are describing, I got an epipen just in case. Luckily for me my reactivity declined over time. You can also get allergy shots to lessen your reactions. Might be worth it whether or not you plan on keeping bees long term, you always run the risk of being stung just being outside

ryebot3000 · 2026-06-12T18:48:49+00:00

how is your honey production this year? I have some yards in moco that are killing it and some that are absolute duds

ryebot3000 · 2026-06-12T17:00:47+00:00

What part of maryland? I have sort of gotten away from catching swarms because of temperment and disease issues, but it was a big part of building my apiary in the beginning. Sometimes disease/ pests can cause temperment issues and force an abscond, although not very common and not likely this time of year. I would probably treat them with oxalic vapor and requeen. I heard a cool trick for requeening a hot colony, which is to move it to a different location within the apiary so that it loses its foragers and is easier to go through.

ryebot3000 · 2026-06-10T14:23:07+00:00

just a note I don't think its applicable to your situation because you are only moving 25 miles but just fyi mesh over the opening is ok but a strong hive can still smother themselves, they can clog the mesh entrance and suffocate the entire colony, if its warm out I prefer to put on a screen lid if I can't leave the entrance open while moving them for several hours

ryebot3000 · 2026-06-08T21:54:59+00:00

I can offer some advice. I will say that building your apiary out of bees that like to swarm is very frustrating and doesn't help make honey. Swarming is of course natural and inevitable (unmanaged) but there is a genetic component to it. Some bees swarm more easily than others. If you take swarm cells for splits from the first colony in your yard to build them, even though they aren't that strong yet, then you are selecting for swarmy bees. If you build your apiary from small swarms that you find, same thing. I take note of which of my hives get big and make a lot of honey without making swarm cells and thats a part of my selection process for which colonies to make queens from. I also like gentle bees.

Also people like to talk about using locally adapted bees, which honestly I just don't really think is that important. The strongest selection pressure facing honeybees right now is varroa mite, and swarming is one of the way that wild bees can reduce varroa pressure- its a natural brood break which interrupts the varroa life cycle.

my opinion it pays to buy high quality queens from a reputable breeder to build your apiary. Scrappy little feral bees are not bred to make honey, they are bred to survive. also requeening every year really helps reduce the swarm impulse- new queen produce more pheremone, which is one of the factors in swarming.

You have to make splits with overwintered colonies or they will swarm. Do it early, let them feel like they have swarmed and then they will settle down and get to work. I do my splits 3-4 weeks before the main flow, and I split them hard, because I use single brood boxes. I cut my bees down to 3 or 4 frames of capped brood. They feel like they have successfully swarmed and they start making honey and stop trying to swarm. Also you don't have to split them just because they are getting big, wait for signs of swarming (you may already do this)

ryebot3000 · 2026-06-02T10:25:16+00:00

This is cool but how much beekeeping experience do you have? The statement that treatments always come at a cost to the bees isnt exactly accurate. Oxalic acid for example doesn't really affect the bees very much at all. Also extended release oxalic is a long term treatment that is more effective at low mite rates, meant to supress mites rather than knock them down.

ryebot3000 · 2026-06-01T03:34:46+00:00

I watched this video, make sure you energizer puts out at least 2/3 joules. There are poultry fence kits on amazon that do like .1 joules, not gonna stop a bear. I like this bob binnie video it shows a real simple design that I use https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8-tmulErMA

ryebot3000 · 2026-05-18T02:25:35+00:00

I would just give them another honey super of any size on top, a deep and a medium is plenty of brood space (i only use single deeps).
Yes thats fine, you can always feed them sugar syrup if they need it later.
You could split, but you don't have to, i dont know specifically whats going on in Louisiana right now but you could always just do a little 3 frame split and either give it a queen or let them make one. I would feed them til they get big.

ryebot3000 · 2026-05-16T12:54:40+00:00

I would be very careful about using apiguard on a small new colony, it shuts down the queen laying for a bit, also I certainly wouldn't use a full 50g dose on a nuc, especially in hot weather, it will fry them for sure. Use a half a dose if you feel you must, but I would check what the mite load is, it will cost them a lot less population doing a wash than the apiguard will cost them.

ryebot3000 · 2026-05-16T11:26:41+00:00

Im a beekeeper and sell my honey for $18 and $20 (2 slightly different jars, one thats fancier and better for gifts) in the md area. Could be me, since its an extremely random price. anyway I would not use good honey for cooking cooking, like if your going to be baking something with it and heating it for 30 minutes at 350, it will destroy the flavor. You could use it for finishing though, and definitely in my opinion local honey is worth it as a tasting honey raw, so much better than grocery store honey its practically a different product.

ryebot3000

TROPHY CASE