Beekeeping Management

A winter colony can survive 2-3 months after losing its queen, but the timeline depends on when it happens and how many winter bees remain. Here's what actually occurs inside the hive.

Twenty thousand bees clustered on a branch three houses down. The neighbor calls. You have maybe hours before they move on. Here's what the actual capture process looks like and why timing matters more than technique.

A 2024 study tracking 64 hives found queen excluders had no effect on honey yield or brood production. So why do beekeepers call them 'honey excluders' and what's driving some operations to abandon them entirely?

Double brood boxes were the standard for a century. Now beekeepers across regions are consolidating to single-box systems - here's what changed and what the production data actually shows.

Heavy propolizers glue frames so thoroughly that breaking them apart kills dozens of bees per inspection. Here's what actually happens when you pry apart stuck equipment and why some beekeepers are changing how they manage it.

A full small hive beetle trap reveals active infestation patterns and triggers specific timeline windows for intervention, from the 2-4 day egg cycle to the 3-6 week pupation period in surrounding soil.

Sensors that predict swarming three days early. Scales that identify robbing behavior from weight patterns. Temperature monitors that prevented 60% winter losses. Smart hive tech moved from research labs to working apiaries.

India exported 45 million pounds of honey to the US in a single year. India doesn't have enough bees to produce 45 million pounds. The math doesn't work. It never has.

September 1987 changed everything. A parasite the size of a pinhead transformed beekeeping from a part-time endeavor into a chemical management operation where treating for mites became more important than managing for honey.

The workers vanished overnight in 2006, leaving queens and honey behind. What researchers found wasn't a single cause but six different murder weapons, and the colony had been sick for years.

Buckwheat honey tastes like molasses. Orange blossom carries citrus notes. Tupelo never crystallizes. The nectar source matters, but so does soil composition, rainfall timing, temperature during bloom, and whether bees worked the flowers at dawn or noon. Honey isn't just honey.

Maryland spring arrives a month earlier than it did in 1970. Apple bloom advanced 6.7 days per degree of warming. Wild bees emerge 6.5 days earlier for every 1°C rise. The calendar that governed beekeeping for generations no longer matches what's happening in the hives.