The National Bee Unit is pleased to launch the 2026 National Hive Count. The hard slog of summer beekeeping is done so make yourself a nice cup of tea, grab your laptop and sink into your favourite chair. It’s time to update your BeeBase records! We would like to ask…
Kleptolecty
Competition between honey bees and other pollinators is often indirect, time- and location-specific. In contrast, pollen theft by honey bees is direct, and may be more common than we thought. Beekeepers need to engage more with the contradictory studies on competition with other pollinators.
She ain’t heavy, she’s my sister
Why don’t foragers collect as much as they can carry when foraging, and why aren’t they damaged when crash landing back at the hive entrance? Forager longevity, lead backpacks, kinetic energy and a brief discussion about dropping mice down mineshafts.
Housekeeping
It’s a good time to tidy and secure all the spare boxes, boards, queen excluders, roofs, and frames that have accumulated during the season. Winter storms, rodents, and wax moths will otherwise make a real mess of them … which you’ll have to clean up next year.
Alternate to exterminate
When and why you should treat with oxalic acid after late-summer use of Apivar. With resistance increasing, an alternate treatment — applied in a timely manner (so not ‘sometime in winter’) — helps minimise mite levels for the following season.
What I Took Home from the NBU Healthy Bees Day
There’s a particular kind of quiet that falls over a room of bee farmers when a bee inspector puts up a photo of a frame and asks what’s wrong with it. Nobody wants to be the one who gets it wrong. I spent a day in a room like that…
KYellow-legged hornet 2026 rolling update
Please report sightings of Yellow-legged hornets (YLH), also known as Asian hornets, on this online form or download the free Asian hornet Watch app for Apple devices or android devices. As of 01/10/2026: To view the location of destroyed nests, please visit the map page and choose the Asian Hornet map…
Talking the talk
The winter may feel never-ending, but in person and online talks offer the opportunity to improve your understanding, learn something new, and make the ‘off season’ seem just a little shorter.
Repellent smellents
It might be possible to create pesticides repellent to honey bees that reduce the accumulation of the sub-lethal chemicals that have a long-term detrimental impact on colony health.
Drone congregation areas … or not?
Some equinoctial thoughts on success and failure in beekeeping, and attempts to understand my woefully poor queen mating this year. Mating occurs in drone congregation areas (DCAs) … or does it? A recent review questions the evidence supporting the role for DCAs in queen mating.