The Beekeeper’s Companion Since 1861
American Bee Journal Volume 166 No. 10 October 2026 Cover Cover Callouts: Apis mellifera, weather girl - 1077, Winter hive ventilation - 1093, 1101, 1105, How does the colony respond to OA? - 1127 Cover shoes a frame of brood with a queen cell and several bees near the center of the frame.

Two yellow clovers: Hop clover and large hop clover. (Fabaceae)

Trifolium campestre (hop clover). The plant was grown in a greenhouse
Posted November 1, 2016

Two yellow clovers: Hop clover and large hop clover. (Fabaceae)

Scientific name: Trifolium campestre (Hop clover, field clover) and Trifolium aureum (Large hop clover, golden clover). In the beekeeping literature, these two species are frequently handled together. This is the way I handle them here. Synonyms: Hop clover: Trifolium campestre was once called Trifolium procumbens. Large hop clover: Trifolium aureum was once called Trifolium agrarium. …

Read More

November 2016 – HBB

bees engorged full of honey
Posted November 1, 2016

November 2016 – HBB

When walking up to an apiary, a good beekeeping skill is to let your vision sweep across the hives seeing how the bees flow through the air. When bees are making honey, the bee traffic should stream from the entrances up into the sky or over into nearby fields. The apiary flight pattern is similar …

Read More

Advantage of Large Body Size

Posted November 1, 2016

Advantage of Large Body Size

Last month I talked about the evolution of body size which, when it comes to the superorganism, translates to the number of cells (workers) making up the body (colony). When it comes to the honey bee superorganism, it’s reasonable to say that big is good. This is true whether you’re talking about a natural colony …

Read More

Comb Honey Corner November 2016

Split top bar frame
Posted November 1, 2016

Comb Honey Corner November 2016

As of this writing one of my colonies collapsed with two-half filled supers of comb honey on board. The brood chamber is producing wax moths. The supers have small hive beetles in them. My solution will be to separate the boxes and let nature take its course. The brood frames will have the wired wax …

Read More

November 2016

Posted November 1, 2016

November 2016

The Varroa Problem—Part I Randy Oliver………………………………………………………………………………….1233 Bomb vs Bond—Non-chemical Varroa Treatment Options—Part II M.E.A. McNeil………………………………………………………………………………..1239 Honey Bee Colony Losses: What’s Happening in South America? Fabrice Requier, Nancy Garcia, Georg Andersson, Facundo Oddi, Lucas A. Garibaldi…… ……………………………………………………………………………………………1247 Making and Maintaining Connections: Networking: Personal, Social, Corporate Lawrence John Connor………………………………………………………………………125 The Ethics of Honey Selling Howard Scott…………………………………………………………………………………1259 Charlie …

Read More

Honey Bee Colony Losses: What’s Happening in South America?

honeybees on frame
Posted November 1, 2016

Honey Bee Colony Losses: What’s Happening in South America?

Currently, a third to a half of managed honey bee colonies is lost every winter in Europe (Potts et al. 2010a) and North America (Seitz et al., 2016). This decline in managed honey bees threatens honey production and crop pollination service in many countries (Potts et al. 2016), leading to concerns for negative social, economic …

Read More

November ABJ Cover

November American Bee Journal Cover Photo
Posted November 1, 2016

November ABJ Cover

Kris Hurlbert sent us this beautiful apiary photo that he has entitled “Hives under a Morning Fog”.  Kris said, “I thought I would send you a photo I took the other morning of our hives under a morning fog just as the sun was breaking. The more I look at it, the more it captivates …

Read More

ARS Research Leads to Better Understanding of Bee Health

Altering the microbes in a very young honey bee’s gut can have longterm consequences throughout the bee’s life.
Posted October 1, 2016

ARS Research Leads to Better Understanding of Bee Health

Bacteria in the gut of young honey bees may provide clues about the impact parasites have on bee health. That and other experimental findings were published by U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) researchers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Because young honey bees don’t have gut bacteria, entomologist Jay …

Read More

Researchers Identify How Queen Bees Repress Workers’ Fertility

Posted October 1, 2016

Researchers Identify How Queen Bees Repress Workers’ Fertility

Researchers from New Zealand’s University of Otago have discovered the molecular mechanism by which queen honey bees carefully control worker bees’ fertility. It has long been known that worker bees have a very limited ability to reproduce in a hive with a queen and brood present, but in their absence, a third of them will …

Read More

U.S. Honey Crops and Markets – October 2016

US Crops and Honey Markets
Posted October 1, 2016

U.S. Honey Crops and Markets – October 2016

UNITED STATES Honey crops will be up in the Midwest, according to many of our reporters this season. The big honey-producing states of North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota (which account for over 30% of our total U.S. honey crop) had rain and warm weather at the right times, so many beekeepers felt their crops …

Read More

VIEW SITE MAP