Although in English we call her the queen, she does not play the role of a traditional monarch, and many languages call her "mother." Instead, she is the mother of the hive; she lays eggs and her presence holds the hive together socially, largely by the pheromones she and her developing offspring emit. As any beekeeper knows, the colony of bees loses its focus and strength when the queen is absent, just as when a family is without a mother. In any colony, most decisions are

“You are what you eat.” In this picture, one female egg in a cell was selected to be a queen and the rest of the larvae on the frame are workers, from other female eggs. What is the difference between growing up a queen or a worker? The worker bees nursing the female larvae decide what diet to feed each larvae from the time the egg hatches. The diet that produces a worker differs in components such as proteins, hormones, sugars and other nutrients in types and amounts from

It is easiest to handle and can be used in mechanical extractors. After extraction, the foundation with drawn comb can be returned to the colonies, and reusing drawn comb increases harvestable honey production. Bees can start refilling the drawn comb with nectar right away, without using that nectar instead  to create wax and draw new comb. Bees use the energy equivalent of 5 to 10 lbs of honey to draw out a lb of wax. If the beekeeper returns the drawn comb frames to the col

Are deep boxes getting too heavy to lift and more awkward than you want to work with, in your apiary? If so, cutting the bottom 3 inches off a 9 and 5/8 inch deep box yields a 6 and 5/8 inch medium depth hive box and a 3” shim to hold moisture absorbent material or Styrofoam  insulation. 1/8” mesh (#8 hardware cloth) stapled to the bottom of the new 3 inch shim holds the absorbent material up and prevents the cluster from moving up into that area.

Ordering the correct depth frame or box When ordering hive boxes and frames, be careful not to assume the word ‘shallow’ as casually used by many bee keepers denotes a specific depth dimension. Western/Illinois/medium box has a depth of 6 and 5/8  inches, and is frequently referred to as a shallow. However, when ordering boxes, you may order a 4 and 3/4 inch for comb honey production kits and a 5 and 5/8 inch is commonly used for short season collection of varietal honeys. Lo

With all the styles of beehives available on the internet, why do the majority of beekeeping instructors still suggest that beginners start with vertically stacking Langstroth? If not the wooden Langstroth, then styrofoam or plastic versions of the same basic design? The Langstroth has been in use for 170 years although during that time period, many hive designs have been tried but most have been discarded in favor of the Langstroth. Why has the Langstroth lasted so long

Drones need more time to get so much larger than workers. To attain this growth, they get an extra 3 days to develop as pupae, for a total of 24 days from egg to emergence as an adult, compared to a worker’s mere 21 days of development. Also, they aren’t just larger than workers; some individual drones weigh more than some of the smaller individual queens. Drones can have bodies as wide as or even wider than queens, particularly in the abdomen, even though they are not as lo

Maybe, maybe not. Unlike many breeds of livestock (cattle, horses) or pets (cats, dogs), the traits of most importance to the beekeeper are not linked to the color of a queen - - again, unless she was artificially inseminated or mated with only drones of her strain. Queens and drones do NOT select for mating partners of their supposed strains, despite the fact that some beekeepers naively assume that. By the way, the queen above is cordovan coloration.

Italian, Carniolan, Caucasian, Russian, Buckfast, Saskatraz – many beekeepers enjoy experimenting with different strains. However, most every bee supplier claims their strain(s) is (are) docile, unlikely to swarm, mite resistant and high honey producers. That can’t always be true. So, who can a new beekeeper trust? The good news is: succeeding with bees is over 90 % colony management following basic guidelines and procedures. For beginners, until you develop the necessary ski

Where can beekeepers in Western WA buy bees? Suppliers of nucs and packages are pushing to get beekeepers to place orders now. They may need to sell the nucs and packages they have ordered from out of state, or small local suppliers may have a limited bees available. The suppliers with the “loudest voice” (best marketing ads) may or may not be the best for your needs. The best way to get an idea of how many sources are available in Western WA is to check the list SnoKi

Here’s a picture of the sun as high in sky as it gets at this time of year. We are 2 weeks past the winter solstice. Given the sunbreaks we have seen recently in much of Western WA, this is a good time to  re-evaluate hive locations. Bees need their cleansing flights and sun on hives, particularly on hive entrances, allows those 'relief' missions!

Consider the advice for locating hives as given in The Beekeeper’s Handbook, 5 th ed. Sammataro & Avitabile, illustrated in the diagram above. Frequently, this is the ideal time of the year to reassess wintertime hive locations. For the commercial keeper, it’s a practical decision, profit/loss, availability, etc. For the hobbyist, convenience, safety and enjoyment of the hobby can validate a decision to move. Even as a small scale beekeeper, you are not paid for extra work,

2 compound eyes, 3 simple eyes (ocelli), but each of the compound eyes has 1000s of ommatidia. According to "Honeymaker: How the Honey Bee Worker Does What She Does," by Rosanna Mattingly, a worker has an estimated number of ommatidia between 4,000 and 7,000; a queen fewer, maybe 3,000 or 4,000; but a drone has more, estimated at from 7,000 to over 8,000! And each of the drone ommatidia are larger. No wonder a drone's eyes meet in the front of his head! No wonder he has an al

2 compound eyes, 3 simple eyes (ocelli), but each of the compound eyes has 1000s of ommatidia. According to "Honeymaker: How the Honey Bee Worker Does What She Does," by Rosanna Mattingly, a worker has an estimated number of ommatidia between 4,000 and 7,000; a queen fewer, maybe 3,000 or 4,000; but a drone has more, estimated at from 7,000 to over 8,000! And each of the drone ommatidia are larger. No wonder a drone's eyes meet in the front of his head! No wonder he has an al

No, when it is too wet or cold (or both!) for the undertaker (mortician) bees to fly the dead bees out of the hive, they sometimes move the corpses up onto the inner cover. After all, that does remove the dead from the colony's living space. Beekeepers may discover this temporary "graveyard" when lifting the outer cover to check feed, perhaps to place it on the inner coverto avoid further disturbing the colony.

Jan. 1st, 2026! Happy New Year! Depending on where you are located in Western Washington (or elsewhere), you may have just experienced your first week of freezing weather this winter, as SnoKing did here in the Maltby Apiary. Photo below is the Maltby Apiary 10:30AM on the last day of 2025. Night temperatures have been in the high 20s F and day temperatures have been below 40 F this week. If you have been checking your bees and have not found dead bees blocking hive entrance

Beekeepers often observe their bees flying past nectar sources, sometimes the very flowers that those beekeepers have planted as pollinator forage!, to a single source the bees prefer. As beekeepers we can understand that the foraging population of a colony will collect nectar in the most efficient way, utilizing division of foraging duties, waggle dances, pheromones and all forms of communication to concentrate its efforts on a major, rewarding nectar flow. So, bees often p

An American pollen color chart is difficult to find. One of the reasons appears to be the size of the area of the United State, considering just the contiguous 48 states, and the number of climate and vegetative zones involved from the northern boreal zone to the subtropical. Our beekeepers (members of SnoKing Beekeepers Association) keep bees in Western Washington and find that pollen information to suit our cool maritime, temperate zone climate and vegetation can ofte

Not necessarily: even a color as unusual as blue appears in pollen in nature. The color of the pollen may even be different from the flower from which it comes. Rusty Burlew of honeybeesuite.com writes fascinating, researched articles on this sort of topic with illustrations. Here's one on blue pollen, possibly the most unusual color we beekeepers see in in our hives: https://www.honeybeesuite.com/bees-and-blue-beautiful-blue-blossoms-for-happy-honey-bees/#h-the-allure-of-

Swarm cells are planned by the workers and therefore are placed close to the center of the brood nest - the safest, warmest, most protected spot where the cells will receive the most attention. When the broodnest spans more than one box, the bottoms of the frames of the top brood box are prime locations for those royal cells. If there is no time to properly separate brood boxes for a full hive inspection, or too many hives to check them all thoroughly, often a beekeeper tilts