This incredible headshot of a bee was taken by photographer Jonathan Willner. He found this little bee resting in the morning on a wooden post in a community garden in town. To capture this incredible detail, he used a very custom ‘’home made ‘’ set up using painters tape and gorilla tape. It involved 3 …
Read MoreOne of the most significant tools in apiculture today is instrumental insemination. Each year in early August bee breeders and researchers from around the country and abroad make their way to Purdue University’s honey bee laboratory, where they have the opportunity to learn how to instrumentally inseminate honey bee queens. Krispn Given, an apiculture specialist …
Read MoreA genomic study of Puerto Rico’s Africanized honey bees – which are more docile than other so-called “killer bees” – reveals that they retain most of the genetic traits of their African honey bee ancestors, but that a few regions of their DNA have become more like those of European honey bees. According to the …
Read More
Year-round water for my bees I leave feeders in my hive entrances most of the year. Occasionally I’m feeding syrup and the rest of the time the jars contain plain water. The standing water will eventually erode the metal of the lids as well as stain the jars with rust. Using the tiniest size of drill …
Read MoreQ Precarious Haranguing Hello Mr. Hayes, I’m a beekeeper here in Central Massachusetts and unlike many hobby beekeepers, I’m not writing to harangue you! Over the 6 years I’ve been involved in beekeeping, I’ve noticed a marked increase of Varroa destructor and a marked increase in their resistance to available treatments. This fall alone between …
Read MoreAs I’m sure everyone is aware, there’s a lot of buzz about global pollinator declines lately. But are declines restricted to pollinators, or are we actually experiencing global insect declines in general? This is the topic of our second “Notes from the Lab”, where we highlight “More than 75 percent decline over 27 years in …
Read More
Alfred Hitchcock would have loved the small hive beetle, Aethina tumida. If he had only known, he might have scrapped his movie The Birds in favor of The Beetles. Small hive beetles lead a horror story life, fraught with mystery, intrigue, and destruction. The beetles, aided by their partner in crime—a symbiotic yeast—produce slime, mimic …
Read MoreEvery beekeeper has wrestled with the Varroa destructor mite. Every beekeeper also knows we’re running out of weapons. With abounding resistance to conventional miticides, researchers at Monsanto are instead trying to use biotechnology to fight the mite – it could work, but is another mite-killing agent what the industry really needs? Recently, I had the …
Read More
Colony usurpation is when a summer swarm takes over an established colony by quickly invading it in a matter of minutes. While some of the hive bees and the usurpation bees fight, the crucial action is with the queens. The usurpation queen becomes balled near the hive entrance, where she just entered with the invading …
Read More
For the last two months, I’ve been talking about things that can go wrong in the honey bee colony. Threats to social cohesion. In November, I talked about so-called “royal” subfamilies whose female larvae coerce nurse bees into feeding them royal jelly and rearing them into queens. Last month I talked about “anarchistic” workers who …
Read More"I want the American Bee Journal to be the finest publication about bees and beekeeping in the world."
- C.P. Dadant, Editor of ABJ 1912-1938
THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL
51 S. 2nd St., Hamilton, IL 62341
Phone: 217.847.3324
Fax: 217.847.3660
info@americanbeejournal.com
©2026 Copyright the American Bee Journal. All Rights Reserved.
website developed by CleverOgre
