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It depends entirely on the bees. I typically work my bees wearing a veil with white t-shirt, jeans, and running shoes. No particular reason for the running shoes, they are just comfortable. The white shirt is because it is cooler to work in and to some extent suppresses bees attempting to...

Hive size and shape are almost entirely unimportant to the bees. Read that carefully, they will use just about any size or shape cavity so long as it is not too small. Hive size and shape are entirely for the convenience of the beekeeper. Maybe one size and shape hive is better because it is...

Define successful treatment free beekeeping as colony survival for at least 5 years with no treatments and no hive manipulations specific to limiting varroa reproduction. This prohibits varroacides, induced brood breaks, essential oils, organic acids, etc. By that measure, my bees are probably...

Not really, but a swarm will use honey brought from the parent colony to draw comb. Otherwise, bees draw comb only when incoming nectar exceeds daily needs. Even then they will draw minimal comb until they have a severe shortage of storage space.

Both splits checked today and queen positively located. Both are hauling in pollen and the queenright colony is drawing comb. One of the two queen cells was torn down and the other was capped late this evening. Both appear to be in good condition. I expect a queen to hatch in 6 or 7 days.

I got the split made today with 4 frames of brood and 1 frame of fresh nectar partially cured into honey. One of the brood frames is half drone brood which I will cut out tomorrow leaving only the worker brood. Two other frames are due for renewal and will be culled as soon as the brood...

I inspected a very strong hive today that had 5 good frames of brood plus 3 more frames about half full. There were 4 frames almost full of fresh nectar and an abundance of pollen. I found one queen cell with a 3 day old larvae so this colony will be split tomorrow. I have a full box of...

Different bramble species produce significantly different honeys. Wild blackberry in my area yields heavily just about every year usually producing a surplus of mediocre flavored amber honey. Raspberry is not adapted to this area though a few varieties can take summer heat. I am always amazed...

Different climate so different perspective. Daffodils bloomed heavily about 2 weeks ago, maple trees are about half way bloomed, pear trees are in full bloom now, and henbit is a purple carpet in many lawns. A quick check of a large colony today revealed fresh made wax and some stored maple...

Farrer's writings on population size compared with production emphasize one very important thing. The number of nurse bees in the hive maxes out when the queen is at max egg production. He documented this rather thoroughly in comparisons of hives of various sizes. Say a queen is laying 2000...

Methinks Finman is getting subtle in his dotage. Keeping bees in man made hives represents an intervention in the natural cycle of bee's lives. Preventing them from swarming is another intervention. Taking honey from them is another man made change in their lives. I strongly agree that...

This is just a very general comment regarding "leave them alone" beekeeping. This style of beekeeping is neither natural selection nor is it man made breeding and selection. Leave them alone is still using man made hives with colonies concentrated to a density not normally found in nature...

I've seen a couple of feral colonies over the years that swarmed repeatedly in the spring with the parent colony dying afterwards. I've also seen this in a couple of my colonies where three swarms left and there was no virgin queen to rebuild the parent colony. This could easily occur if the...

Perhaps I am mistaken, but I had the suspicion BN was in fact Mike S who posted here quite a bit a few years ago. Aspersions: the root word roughly means to spray which in this case seems to have some reference to micturation. Man made breeding is not and never will be the same as natural...

A knee-jerk reaction to controversy is often to bottle it up such as by closing a thread. Sometimes we need the controversy to learn and grow. I've studied this thread and learned quite a bit about social interactions among people who have a particular set of beliefs. There were several times...

No, just no. Mammals have a "reactive" immune system. Crocodilians have a "proactive" immune system. Our immune system is utterly incompetent compared to the average crocodile's. Much of the older beekeeping literature is inaccurate or downright wrong. Much also is still valid and relevant...

A dog with fleas/lice is not a very good simile, but I could draw some relevant parallels between humans and Covid19 that are a lot closer to the mark. Deadly to it's host, easily spread, Treatments work but are controversial, some have natural resistance, etc.

This is not feasible in all climates. I would have 20 suffocated colonies in very short order on a hot July day.

Brood breaks are one of the mechanisms that helps reduce varroa counts, but it usually fails to help in the second year for an established colony. The usual cycle is for a strong colony to throw a swarm leaving the parent with a very high count of varroa mostly in the brood cells. By the time...

BN, posting a spreadsheet that posits what might happen is not exactly the same thing as posting mite roll test results that tell you exactly what is happening.