I made a bumblebee nest box a couple of years back, based on plans that I saw here: (link). Supposedly it's not especially likely that a queen bee will actually find the box, although it can happen... well it hadn't happened for me for the last two years. I had read that if you don't get a bee to set up a nest in the box that you can try to ( Read more... )

Yesterday I was musing about making a topbar hive that was the same dimensions as a langstroth hive (sometimes known as the "standard hive" -- the typical rectangular box), so that a langstroth honey super could be placed on top of it or you could put topbars with comb into a langstroth box if for some reason you felt like doing so. Well, my ( Read more... )

The Alluring And Alien Sights Of A Bee In Ultra Close-up, from Discover Magazine. Some really cool electron microscope shots of the bee.

Bee-ware - bees use warning buzz to refute the waggle dance.

 Hi o/

Firstly, if this is agianst the rules then I apologise and expect to be deleted.

I am trying to start a community to help people do all kinds of things for themsleves, anything from making clothes and beauty products to just fixing furnature. A place for exchanging tips and asking questions. I think this would work particually well on LJ but ( Read more... )

Poking around at the entrance of the hive this morning I watched the girls drag one of their brothers out and dump him off the edge of the hive stand. He appeared to be newly hatched, covered in that downy fuzz but upon closer inspection I noticed that he was also sporting a reviled hitchhiker - a varroa mite ( Read more... )

Honey Bees Turned Data Collectors Help Scientists Understand Climate Change

An excerpt:

"When honey bees search for honey, colony scouts tend to scour far and wide and sample the area around a hive remarkably evenly, regardless of the size of the hive. And that, Esaias explained, means they excel in keeping tabs on the dynamics of flowering ( Read more... )

So I was outside with my youngest child. While he rode his tricycle, I was working on a wood project. Mainly I was just sanding down some wood to prep it for giving it a coat of polyurethane.

( Cut for length and pictures. )

I've just had the most awful beekeeping day. I share a hive with a partner, and on Tuesday we put a bee escape on our super, with the plan to get the bees out of the super before extracting yummy honey today. We first got a hive last August, so we've spent a long time waiting for this day ( Read more... )

bad news :(

HAMDEN, Conn. - Connecticut scientists say nearly half the state's 2,600 registered beehives are infected with bacteria that cause a disease that kills honeybee larvae ( Read more... )