Beekeeping horror stories...

If you have been keeping bees for more than a few months you probably have a horror story or two. I thought it would be fun to share some... try not to laugh too much as you learn from my errors.

My first one is simple:

When I restarted keeping bees I was keen to go to foundationless frames. The advantages, as I see them, are that the bees draw natural comb and I have less expense buying foundation. My first two years were a disaster of repeated cross combed messes. The worst one was when I opened a box and they had packed and entire super wall to wall at 45 degrees to the frame direction. The whole lot ended up being cut down.

The key lessons I learned were to make sure the hive was level and to use horizontal, not vertical, support wires on frames. Horizontal wires help them draw out straight, but vertical wires let them build out in any old wonky orientation!

What are your disaster stories? I have more to follow :D

I've taken the foundation out of my frames before and had the same problem!

Like an idiot I thought it was too cold for the bees to come out but I really just wanted to take the top off and peek because I couldn't tell if they were alive still. Opened the top, they sent out a single bee and damn if that bee didn't sting me.

When I installed my recent nucs I had bees march up my suit and into my hat stinging me in the neck. Good times!