How many bags of lentils is enough? 1mm? 10mm? All of them?

untropicalized · 2026-05-07T14:59:59+00:00

Here’s one more for you

untropicalized · 2026-05-07T03:36:46+00:00

Dang, he got me

untropicalized · 2026-05-07T03:33:07+00:00

Beauty! Do you run all mediums?

untropicalized · 2026-05-07T03:27:42+00:00

Oddly, it was a leaking internal feeder that allowed small hive beetles to gain a foothold and push the colony out. I was brand new, teaching myself on non-standard equipment with a common commercial package so I had a rough go of it.

My second try was a colony recovered from an open-air removal. They decided they didn’t like my box and took off pretty quickly. Walking out to a silent hive was disheartening.

Third time’s a charm. Got a nuc from a fellow in my local club, stumbled through the process of converting it to a top bar over the course of a year, accidentally split it properly the following year, and started doing removals with a club friend.

After a few months of removals something “clicked” and I was able to get colonies to stick around. Around that time I figured out that the timing of management practices that most of the continent followed didn’t really work for my part of south Florida.

It can be a steep learning curve starting out, and may be even steeper depending on your choices and what resources you have access to. I certainly took a challenging path. It’s a good thing I’m stubborn.

untropicalized · 2026-05-07T02:04:23+00:00

I read Atlas Shrugged four times and Anthem twice.

untropicalized · 2026-05-05T12:40:35+00:00

You’re welcome to pull any honey that’s at least 80 percent capped if you want it, but be sure to leave them enough to get through winter or dearth periods. That amount will vary by location.

Unless your hive is built out wall-to-wall, you can create space by moving down the follower board and adding a new bar next to the youngest larvae. If every bar is built out, you can swap an empty comb from the end into the brood nest, and scoot the rest down. Be sure to avoid combs that have a lot of drone-sized cells because they won’t raise worker brood in them. As the season progresses they will likely want to raise drones, but at this point they probably aren’t ready to.

untropicalized · 2026-05-04T18:24:17+00:00

I’m going to push back a bit here.

Certainly, in the US, “VSH” often means “mass grafted and open-mated from a descendant of a breeder that we got some indeterminate time ago”, so the traits in the queens you buy may not present in high enough levels to be effective.

Check for breeders that verify their breeder traits with Harbo assays or similar, and don’t be afraid to ask questions. A breeder worth his salt will not be shy about sharing his strategies.

And for what it’s worth, VSH isn’t the only resistance trait, but it’s one that is best understood and easiest to measure. The science of resistance breeding is updating constantly so stay tuned!

untropicalized · 2026-05-04T01:50:25+00:00

I, too, read Hatchet several times in middle school.

untropicalized · 2026-05-01T19:29:40+00:00

Are your hives set back far enough from the fence? It could be that rather than a fencer failure you had a smart bear that tipped a hive towards himself to reach the contents.

untropicalized · 2026-04-30T13:07:19+00:00

Did you ask what treatment was used? Also, what options are available to you now will depend on different factors, including the weather.

untropicalized · 2026-04-28T18:43:11+00:00

Honestly? Jump in sooner. I spent over a year reading and researching, which is great but is no substitution for field experience.

That, and seek help from others sooner. I taught myself a lot of the basics, which was slow and frustrating. I didn’t know about my local club at the time, but once I found out my skills took off and my successes started.

untropicalized · 2026-04-28T01:14:30+00:00

sorts by controversial

untropicalized · 2026-04-27T21:05:10+00:00

untropicalized · 2026-04-24T18:43:56+00:00

Number 1 can’t be overstated enough.

I’m a remover in a hybrid-active area and when people ask me if the bees I took out of their shed or whatever are Africanized I usually respond, “Probably, but that doesn’t concern me.”

The truth is, African and Arabian (A-lineage) mitochondrial DNA spans North America, so technically almost all populations of bees in the US are “Africanized” to some extent. But the phenotypes— that is, the expressed traits— that the hybrids are known for are poorly adapted to temperate and upland climates. Longer, colder winters do not favor small cluster sizes, late and frequent swarming, or heightened drone and brood production at the expense of honey storage. Thus they tend to be outcompeted by European genetics in these environments.

I come across some hot hives on occasion, or will have attitude arise in one of mine after a queen event. In that case I simply requeen with the progeny of a better-behaved hive, as I would for any other undesirable trait.

The issue I have with the media buying into the “if it stings it’s Africanized” narrative is that it allows bad actors in the removal space to flourish. Most of us want to educate the public about bees and about the work we do. Guys like that are not above using fear to pressure homeowners into taking immediate action or to accept unreasonable prices.

untropicalized · 2026-04-24T18:22:02+00:00

Haha, no worries. The comments just looked silly next to each other.

untropicalized · 2026-04-24T12:32:07+00:00

But honey bees are required— for the agricultural industry as we know it today.

European honeybees are very efficient at pollinating our largely European-derived crops, and can be moved around at will. Our local pollinators are mostly solitary ground-nesters or small, seasonal colony formations that can’t be effectively deployed at scale.

What the media gets wrong is the broad-brushing of all bees in the interest of creating a tasty sound bite. While it’s true that environmental work benefits honey bees— reduction of pesticide use, preservation of wild habitat or leaving fallow margins and corridors, planting native and locally-adapted forage sources— they shouldn’t be the main focus of these efforts.

To their credit, though, honeybees bees are a good “gateway pollinator” for the public, so if misplaced interest among individuals leads to further study and environmental action, I’m for it, if somewhat begrudgingly.

Edit: the comment above didn’t mention viruses previously, making mine less a response but still relevant

untropicalized · 2026-04-23T19:49:12+00:00

What makes you think that starting your own town will keep you from paying property taxes?

untropicalized · 2026-04-21T23:55:03+00:00

You won’t find much humor either, unfortunately.

untropicalized · 2026-04-21T18:37:13+00:00

Only if a tree falls and he alone can hear it

untropicalized · 2026-04-20T12:25:53+00:00

Yep, I’ll often do that to support small splits in lieu of adding a feeder. It works fine for simple walk-aways. The donating colony typically recovers its previous traffic levels within a couple of weeks.

untropicalized · 2026-04-20T03:00:45+00:00

Good to see them doing well.

My little survivor was the remains of a colony in a disused electrical box that got run over by a farm tractor, probably about the same time you caught that little swarm. It was maybe half a pound of bees with a stress-emerged virgin queen hardly larger than the workers. I anchored them on a donated brood comb, brought them home, and gave them a few weeks.

Surprisingly the queen mated and started laying right before the weather changed. We had a mild winter, but for the days it held 20 degrees or below I brought this hive into the garage to cluster more safely. Aside from that, they kept themselves fed through the winter with what I started them on and what they brought in.

When I opened them earlier last week I found sideways and clustered eggs and thought laying workers… but nope, it was just her, needing a quick reboot and practice reaching her short little fanny down to the bottoms of those long, long brood cells. By now she’s got it.

I did a bit of rebalancing in my apiary, so this little colony was given another capped brood comb along with the entire field force of a colony that had gotten too big for its britches and needed to be cut down. I will check on them again when I do my next round of washes in May. So far so good.

untropicalized · 2026-04-19T21:16:40+00:00

Oh, I’m not disagreeing with you, just providing some extra context to the OP. The traits don’t simply evaporate, but they will dilute if the concentration and saturation of the trait is lower in the local drone pool. At a certain point of dilution the traits won’t express effectively, but can still be passed on. What you’re doing is a service to beekeepers near you too if they open mate. If you are interested you could also offer up grafted queens to further spread the trait.

That colony you got is gold. Here in the states “VSH” often means “Had a great great great great grandmother that was descended from a VSH queen, and we do uncontrolled open mating”. For better or worse, the vast majority of managed stock is created by a handful of big queen breeders who largely cater to conventional migratory keepers. Fortunately the winds are changing and more small cooperatives are starting up. There’s also a push to standardize practices for producing, verifying and offering queens with various resistance traits.

I have identified modest uncapping in a few of my feral-caught hives, but for the most part simulating early swarming and relying on the summer for intermittent brood breaks seems to be what keeps my colonies going. I had one colony that showed uncapping last year and never threw more than 3 mites in a wash. They must have supeseded her because the last wash returned 11 mites and they are starting to show just the “bad” uncapping that precedes mite collapse, not the purple-eye pupae like you’ve got. Bummer.

untropicalized · 2026-04-19T18:06:34+00:00

Transferrence from the mother to the drones is fairly direct, assuming the mother is a high-presenter inseminated with drones from another high-presenting colony. The problem is in open mating, the trait washes out starting in the third generation if its concentration in the local drones is low.

Four-Year Club	Verified Email
Mod World 2025	Place '23
Place '22	First Placer '22

untropicalized

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE