Seeing dead bees in front of the hive can stop a beekeeper in their tracks. Most of the time, a small pile of dead bees is a perfectly normal sign that your colony is doing its job. The honest answer is this: a few dead bees each day is healthy behavior. Anything that looks like … Read more

You open the hive, scan the frames, and your stomach drops: your queen bee disappeared. Before you panic, take a breath. In most cases, your colony has already started solving the problem. Bees build three different kinds of queen cells, and each one tells a different story about what happened. I have walked dozens of … Read more

If you have spotted white chalky pellets on your landing board this season, you are looking at one of the most recognizable signs of trouble in a honey bee colony. Those small, chalk-white lumps are called chalkbrood mummies, and they are the hardened remains of bee larvae killed by a fungal infection. The good news … Read more

I pulled a frame last spring and stared at a cluster of pale, wriggling grubs on the comb. My first thought was wax moth. Then I noticed the spines. That moment of confusion is exactly what this guide solves. If you are trying to distinguish small hive beetle vs wax moth larvae on your comb, … Read more

Opening a hive and spotting dead or discolored brood is one of the most unsettling moments a beekeeper can face. The question that follows is almost always the same: is this sacbrood, or is it something far more dangerous like American Foulbrood? Getting that answer right matters more than almost any other diagnosis in the … Read more

The moment you spot something wrong in your brood frames, your stomach drops. A sunken, greasy-looking cell here, a punctured capping there, and maybe a faint smell that doesn’t belong. If you’re wondering what to do when you suspect American foulbrood, you’re in the right place. Here’s the short version: stop inspecting, close the hive, … Read more

I’ve lost two colonies to varroa in the last five years. Both times, I told myself I’d “check on the weekend” and both times I waited too long. That’s the real reason this sugar roll vs alcohol wash comparison matters. Picking the right method isn’t academic. It’s the difference between catching a mite spike at … Read more

Treatment-free beekeeping fails in most US regions because the parasitic Varroa destructor mite, paired with Deformed Wing Virus, overwhelms honey bee colonies faster than natural resistance, hygienic behavior, or survivor genetics can counteract. I have spent years tracking bee losses across climate zones, and the pattern is consistent: untreated colonies in the continental US collapse … Read more

Every morning during beekeeping season, I pull up a chair about ten feet from my hives and watch. No smoker, no hive tool, no protective gear required. Just my eyes, my ears, and a cup of coffee. What I learn in those fifteen minutes tells me more about colony health than many beekeepers discover during … Read more

Seeing multiple eggs per cell during a hive inspection is one of the most confusing moments a beekeeper can face. It signals one of two things: a newly mated queen still figuring out her rhythm, or a queenless colony where laying workers have taken over. Telling the difference matters enormously, because the fix for each … Read more