The corbiculae (singular: corbicula), often called pollen baskets. Here's a picture of a bee with light yellow filbert pollen pellets on her corbiculae.

Why do beekeeping instructors recommend a beginning beekeeper start with a minimum of two colonies? Starting with two bee nucs or packages, and not one, enables a beginner to compare the progress of two colonies, and to judge better if one is encountering a problem. Many problems can be resolved by adding resources – feed, a boost of a frame of brood from another colony, etc. By comparing the two, a beginner has a better chance of realizing that one colony has a problem in ti

A: They always have a honey crop.

The 2nd pair of legs have tibial spurs. Those are used to pierce the wax flakes produced by the wax glands (on the abdomen) and pass them to the mandibles or perhaps to another worker to add them to comb being built.

A: A cryba-bee

She was on the third step.

At any time moving around the hive at any angle, including completely upside down, the bee has a minimum of 3 legs in contact with a surface at any time giving maximum stability in any position a bee takes while completing her tasks. Any pair of legs can be used for specialized tasks while the bee’s body is secured by the tarsal hooks of at least 3 legs still in contact with the surface or hanging onto other bees’ bodies, as when grouping to make wax comb, sometimes called “f

This is considered by many beekeepers to be the best way to feed sugar at this time of year, preferably placed just under the inner cover. Soft fondant preparation as written by master beekeeper Colleen Ebken can be found on the home page of this website, www.snokingbka.org/home . Just click the "Soft Fondant Recipe" button. If there is no time to prepare soft fondant, dry sugar under inner cover on newspaper placed on top of frames in top box in stack is next best. If

A: They regulate the buzzwords.

She could only draw beelines.

A: They post “No Smoking” signs.

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

A: Bagpipes, because she finds the droning romantic.

“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

A: Bee—rogatory.

A: The Surgeon General is always reminding beekeepers that “Smoking is dangerous to your health!”

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