Dear Friends: I have a nuc box that I cannot get the queen out of. I am a novice beekeeper (5 years) and I bought two new nucs this spring. I placed the frames in my hive body's and the next day, the one nuc still had the queen in it. She must have been on the inside wall f the nuc box. I banged the nuc box on top of the hive bodies and left it there for them all to go into the hive body. It then rained for 3 weeks straight so I couldn't check on them. When I finally did, they were all still in the nuc box, with 3 or 4 combs built. Then I tried to place an escape board under the nuc box, and the next day I removed the nuc box from the top of the hive body's. She is still in the nuc box with 4 - 5,000 bees. I can't tell where she is in the box, and do not want to break out combs for fear of injuring her. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Patâ¦

There are many 'wild' European bees out and about. Keepers do not capture all the swarms from their hives. I see swarms go by the house every year; actually, I hear them before I see them. On one occasion, I put an extracted super out to let the bees clean it up before being put into storage. I put a bottom board and top on it to keep the summer rains and mice out, and watched the bees come and go. I kept an eye on it, in passing, for a week or so, and the bees were still active when there hadn't been that much to clean up. I took a look inside and a swarm had taken up residence. I had this super sitting on a lawn chair on the north side of the garage, but the 'big boys & girls' say the best way to entice a swarm is to place a hive body under the eaves of a building at the corner. Terran

I'm up here in lower alabama in zone 8b...right on the alabama/florida state line...seems honey bees are in the strangest places...or either i've never noticed them before...wanted to get some seeds off of a tall palm tree and everyone of the tall palms in this area are swamped with them...they are also all over the orange/red trumpet like vines that grow wild here...that is a normal i guess but there are more this year than i remember noticing the last few years...also the crepe myrtles here are semi-covered with them...more so than usual...i also have a couple in my morning glory bush in my yard...that's the update for this area :)

Thanks for posting this link. I just watched the video and am reminded once again how big money agri-business influences Washington! I just watched the bees here for the first time this year and saw many swarming my plum tree and saw just a few on the peach a few days later. I leave a ground cover type weed in the early spring because I see the bees on it too and it blooms before anything here on the farm. We are need to be very concerned about these herbicides and GMO crops.