Beekeeping management

When nectar dries up, strong colonies will raid their neighbors. A robbing frenzy can strip a weaker hive bare in hours. The triggers are predictable.

Commercial operations are putting bees in refrigerated warehouses at 40F for winter. Survival rates beat outdoor wintering. The bees don't seem to mind.

Leave a super of drawn comb in the garage and wax moths will reduce it to silk tunnels and frass in weeks. The larvae eat beeswax, cocoons, and pollen.

No eggs, no larvae, no way to make a new queen until spring. A winter queenless colony is a dead colony walking. Most beekeepers won't know until March.

A swarm in a tree is docile, temporary, and not dangerous. It's also 10,000 free bees that a local beekeeper will probably come collect within hours.

Some beekeepers call them 'honey excluders.' Data shows 5-15% production reduction in some studies, none in others. The debate has outlasted the data.

One brood box instead of two cuts weight, reduces inspections, and forces earlier swarm management. Europeans have done it for decades. The US is catching on.

Bees fill every crack, gap, and seam with propolis. It glues frames together, seals boxes shut, and turns a hive inspection into a prying-and-scraping workout.

From oil traps to Beetle Blasters to Freeman traps. The small hive beetle arrived in 1998 and beekeepers have been improvising containment ever since.

Weight sensors, temperature monitors, acoustic analysis, GPS trackers. The data is impressive. Whether it actually reduces colony losses is another question.

The US imports more honey than it produces. Vietnam, India, Argentina, and Brazil are the top sources. Some of that honey's journey involves questionable stops.

Before 1987, American beekeepers didn't treat for mites. Now it's non-negotiable. Varroa changed the practice, the economics, the genetics, and the culture.

The workers vanished in 2006, leaving queens and honey behind. Researchers found not one cause but six interacting factors. CCD was a symptom, not a disease.

Floral source, soil chemistry, processing temperature, and moisture content. Four variables explain why two jars of 'wildflower honey' taste entirely different.

Spring bloom has shifted 8-14 days earlier. Fall frost comes later. The beekeeping calendar that worked in 1990 is now two weeks off. Some haven't adjusted.