May 20, 2024

  Q  Keeping sugar water fresh I have +/- 200 single hives. I pail feed and am running into black mold in the pails. I have heard of putting a teaspoon of bleach in each pail with the sugar water. I do not want to do that as I feel it may harm the bees. I was using 2-gallon (7.6…

In Part 1 of this series, we ended with bees becoming ensnared in spider webs. We continue with watching bees forage. I spend a considerable amount of time studying bees, especially in the summer. Watching bees forage, chasing them from flower to flower, camera in hand, filming and feeling for when the camera begins to overheat, one learns a constellation…

Many of us keep some type of beekeeping log. A log contains data — facts and figures that describe what we found, what we did, and what comes next. It may also contain colony maintenance reminders, to-do lists, and inspection notes. Some of us record these reminders in a notebook or digital device, while others scratch code inside a telescoping…

Around this time of year, I have the most glorious recurring dreams about swarms. Usually, the dream starts out like any run-of-the-mill dream about working for hire on Taylor Swift’s rainforest unicorn farm. I’m usually crawling around on the soft fragrant ground, trimming iridescent fringed aphids from a coral reef tree, when my knees begin to glow with agony. I’m…

Varroa and Tropilaelaps feed primarily on honey bee hemolymph when they reproduce Until 2019, everyone knew varroa was a vampire that fed on honey bee hemolymph. But then Sammy Ramsey published his paradigm-altering study (Ramsey et al., 2019; highlighted in the April 2019 Notes from the Lab: 159(4):443-445), showing varroa was actually more like a werewolf since it fed primarily…