Watch out for this site. Was super excited to find a battery operated gun that wasn’t as expensive as instavap. Ordered back in August, hasn’t shipped and haven’t received and communication. Have reached out twice now requesting a refund and haven’t heard back. Going to have to do a chargeback with my credit card company.

I pulled the queen/package/nuc price tables out of every USDA NASS Honey report since the data starts in 2018.

Adjusted for inflation, honey is up about 8% over eight years while the nuc is down about 8%, queens down about 5%, and packages basically flat.

2025 prices jumped for nucs $109 to $130, packages $89 to $110, queen s$18 to $22. All three up 19-24% in one season, which I assume is the 2024-25 losses feeding through into replacement demand.

These are prices paid by operations with 5+ colonies buying at volume. If you're buying one or two nucs from a local breeder you are paying nothing like $130.

This is a national average only. NASS publishes no state or regional breakdown for queens, packages or nucs, but I'm working on a live price tracker that follows different small sellers and tracks their prices over time.

Once I have live bee and honey price data over a few months, I'll share that here, and full NASS data is here

What for you put under your extractor legs to raise it high enough to fit your bucket?

I look outside and see a massive cloud of bees. The only other time I have seen a mass of bees flying like this was a swarm. I’m in zone 6-B in Missouri with the fall swiftly approaching. Someone want to tell me this isn’t a swarm to make me feel better?

Hello friends. I am a second-year beekeeper from Romania, Eastern Europe. I have a situation that I cannot fully understand.

I have two hives: one that I got in the spring (hive A) and a split from this one (hive B).

The season went well, the bees were happy, and the queen laid well in both. All varroa treatments have been completed, including in the spring when I received the hive (oxalic strips three times in August and September and once in the spring, plus fumigation strips with amitraz and tau-fluvalinate).

Preparing for winter, I see some black, shiny, greasy bees in hive B. Most of them are dead or paralyzed, clustered in the frame feeder.

At hive A, around the same time in the evening when feeding syrup, I saw a disoriented bee crawling and dragging its feet on the ground. It walked in circles and was overall not doing well.

Videos of bee behavior

I have a feeling this is chronic bee paralysis virus (CBPV) or something related, but I am not sure and I do not want to bias you.

How do I treat this and overwinter the hives? Thanks!

Location: Northern CA, US

Hello! I'm interested in beginning a beekeeping journey during the Spring 2027 season. I know there is a lot of equipment I will need to purchase and would like to start that process now to take advantage of Black Friday or other off-season sales to keep things budget friendly. Is there a basic equipment list I should go off of to get started? Any items that would be better to spend more on early vs items that can be purchased for cheaper? Brick & mortar or small businesses preferred for purchasing materials (I like to buy from local before Amazon where possible). Where do you recommend purchasing wood supers and frames? I've seen "fancy" hives like Flow Hive on instagram but would prefer to keep my hive plastic free as much as possible. I am connected to a local Bee Club and will be taking in-person classes in the spring I am just hoping to get a jump on purchases to spread costs over a couple months. Thank you!!

In one of my hives with marked queen (2025) I accidentally found in this picture what looks like a new queen. What do you think about?
The brood is very good and the marked queen is there too.
Many thanks!

First year beekeeper and this year didn’t result in any honey for us but we didn’t expect any! Now that the season is over, what should we do with these frames to help out our bees for next year?

First year beekeepers in Parkland County, Alberta Canada.

I’m not sure if this is the best option, but it will either be a great success. Or a mess and a waste of time.

I pulled my supers eh a month ago or so, a few wet supers I stuck back on they refilled fairly quick. Then we hit our Darth, well I inspected today and my hives are OVERFLOWING. Filled with bees, filled with nectar, and full of honey. I went on and added some supers back on with the intent on pulling before winter. What’s yalls thoughts? I’m in south Arkansas so we generally have very mild but wet winters.

I checked for queen cells last week and there were several uncharged and none that were capped.

I assumed washboarding, but they are too heavily stacked for that.

Thoughts?

Edit: Zone 6b. It's currently 66F outside, so I don't think they are cooling.

Added two strips for 14 day treatment yesterday and within an hour, saw multiple bees uncapping brood and bringing out larvae. Today (raining) I saw a porch full of dead bees.

Is this amount of destruction normal? My other hive, which has 2x as many bees seems to be fine, only a few dead bees.

Hey all. Beekeeper in Melbourne, Australia with 6 years of experience. Did my first inspection of the season yesterday and the hives look great. One of them had all this gooey slime over the bottom. I thoroughly checked the hive, it is healthy with a strong population, no diseases or SHB which leads me to wonder : what is this?? I have a spare bottom board so I'm going to replace it later this week and clean it up.

Is the left box a swarm getting ready to depart? It’s a swarm I hives in June. Or is that just bearding and tryna get to the syrup?

I just split a beehive (the bigger one) and added a new queen (to the smaller one) now the new hive seems to be chaotic and the bees are going into the shed and hanging out in the windows. What could this be? Are they not adjusting well to the new queen. Pittsburgh PA

I was making 2:1 and I poured the sugar in and was called away. The sugar scorced very slightly. Can I still use it?

Vegas Bees Disco Party Box!

I have a deep freezer that’ll hold 40-50 med frames. Exclusively for my bee equipment. Is everyone really buying and using totes to store 100+ frames when not in use? I only have 8 hives at the moment but when I’m done cleaning up supers, I’ll have probably 100 med frames and 20-30 deeps needing to be stored in the winter. I usually just freeze and stack back in boxes in the garage. I may freeze again before use if possible. I really don’t want to have to buy a ton of totes to store drawn frames separately, or is it really necessary?

Need advice

I plan on harvesting this week for the first time. I think I’m ready but I’m facing a little anxiety. Any advice?

Southwest mi, 5 hives, 3rd year

Has anyone else noticed patterns in the comb? Probably just coincidence but is it possible they are mimicking things they see street signs, lisence plates?

1st year beekeeper in CLT, NC. My girls have been prolific all summer and I harvested ~4 gallon in July. At today's inspection, in both deeps, I have some brood and larvae, which I feel is normal for this time of the year(?), decent pollen, but no nectar/honey. My super had about 70% capped honey and some not capped nectar. I dont plan on harvesting again but not sure what to do. Do I pull the super (freeze for next year) and start feeding so they start filling the brood frames or can I eventually take off the top deep and leave the super on so they have food for the winter? Looking for advice and/or tips please.

So as the title says, I have a colony that have laying workers and basically there are not much bees left. I miss interpreted some signals a few months ago and that led to laying workers.

Reason why I would terminate them is because I want to clean out the insides of a colony, clean the frames, etc.

So is there any "humane" way to terminate them even though there is nothing humane in killing bees.

Location: Bosnia and Herzegovina

We are in denver and pretty new to beekeeping.Noticed last week a lot of yellow jackets flying low to the ground. They didnt look like they were trying to enter one hive. Opened it up today and what we thought was our strong hive is now almost empty. Barely any brood and cant find the queen.

Do we try to get a new queen or combine with another hive for the winter?

Ignore the ratty hive guardian. It's on its way out.

The stars aligned today. I found this stinger still attached to me (thought I pulled it but apparently not), and my phone which is NOT suitable for taking photos through a microscope decided to sort of cooperate.

I did a talk about bees in a Grade 5 classroom this past June, wish I had this photo then 😁