beekeepinglikeagirl.com

Since 2012 I have been playing a game called Queenspotting with my followers on social media. I post an image of a lot of bees and then challenge people to find the queen among the sea of workers

It can be a constant battle to keep bees from building cross comb in the honey super and if the beekeeper does not keep a close watch they will end up with quite the mess. When you give the bees the chance to build natural comb, they will often go overboard making drone comb as they seek to rectify this imbalance in their hive. The bees may get a little overzealous with drone production at first, but if you allow them to find the balance, most of that drone comb will be filled with honey and if you allowed them to be foundationless from the beginning you wouldn’t experience an imbalance. However, if you’re going to mix, it’s my opinion that the best combo is to go completely foundationless in the brood nest and then use foundation only in the honey supers.

These man-made wooden boxes, hung high in a backyard tree, are an ideal nesting location for honey bees. In fact, beekeepers who hope to attract wild swarms build “swarm trap” boxes out of plywood that very closely resemble owl boxes and often hang them in trees. Some people allow bees to stay in the owl box without considering that they will need to eventually trim their tree and tree-trimmers will not work on a tree that has a colony of bees in it. You should not only use a repellant and set up an alternative nesting box, but you should set up your owl box so that it can easily be taken down.

As part of my business, I often visit classrooms and youth groups to present on bees. The kids and I pretend to be a swarm of bees and act out the jobs of the worker bees. So, in late 2016, I decided to make this game available to other beekeepers and educators by turning it into a physical product. Lots of people have been writing to me to tell me their success stories using the game to teach and early this year the game sold out.