April 2026 · Apiary Check

There She Is

Every new beekeeper hears the same advice: don't panic if you don't spot the queen right away. She can be hard to find, especially in a young colony that hasn't hit its stride yet. What nobody tells you is what it feels like the first time you actually find her — that quiet, almost disbelieving moment when your brain registers that the slightly larger bee moving deliberately through the cluster is exactly who you were looking for.

We found her in J hive during our latest inspection. She was right there on the brood frame, moving with that unhurried purpose that sets a laying queen apart from the workers around her. The colony has changed a lot in the past few weeks, and seeing her confirmed what the frames were already telling us.

Closeup of the queen on the brood frame in J hive

The queen herself — larger abdomen, calmer movement, bees orienting around her. It takes a few inspections before your eye locks onto her quickly, but once it does, it clicks.

The frames are busy and a little chaotic-looking right now, and that is completely normal. A lot of what you are seeing when a new colony is ramping up is the aftermath of a big hatch — cells that were capped brood last week are now empty and waiting to be cleaned and refilled. The queen has already started back laying, so those cells will be capped again soon. If you are a new beekeeper looking at your own frames and wondering why there are so many empty cells, that is likely your answer: the colony just graduated a generation.

Empty cells after a hatch are not a bad sign. They are evidence that your queen has been working. The colony is not falling apart — it is cycling through. Give it a week and those cells will be full again.

J hive brood frame showing post-hatch empty cells and new brood — J hive post-hatch frame — lots of open cells, but the queen is already backfilling. This is what growth looks like in the middle of the process.

S hive frame showing good bee coverage and comb activity — S hive is moving at its own pace — steady coverage, bees working every frame. Different tempo, same healthy direction.

While we were in the hives we also checked our small hive beetle situation. SHB are a fact of life for beekeepers in the southeast, and this time of year they push hard. We run a two-layer defense: a half-sheet of Swiffer dry cloth laid furry-side-up across the top bars, and a reusable oil trap on the bottom board. The beetles get tangled in the Swiffer fibers and drown in the oil trap. Neither one eliminates the problem on its own, but together they take consistent pressure off the bees.

Pulling the Swiffer pad with small hive beetles caught in the fibers — Pulling the Swiffer pad — those dark specks are SHB caught in the fibers. Change these out regularly and don't let them sit too long.

Oil trap loaded with small hive beetles — The oil trap after a few days — emptied, rinsed, and refilled with fresh vegetable oil. A simple setup that does real work.

          For new beekeepers in the southeast: SHB pressure is not a sign you are doing something wrong. It is just the environment. The bees can police a strong colony — your job is to support them with traps, keep your hive tight, and stay consistent with checks.
        

We also have another mite wash coming up. You might be wondering why we would run a second wash so soon after the clean baseline we got three weeks ago. The reason is population. When a big hatch happens, the ratio of bees to mites in the hive shifts — and as the colony adds more capped brood, mites have more places to reproduce. Running a follow-up wash after a population surge gives you a truer picture of where things stand. It is not that we expect a problem. It is that we would rather know for certain than assume everything is still fine.

A lot of first-year beekeeping is learning to read what the hive is actually telling you rather than what you feared or hoped it was saying. Finding the queen, understanding why the frames look the way they do, staying on top of pests without overreacting — it all comes together one inspection at a time. We will have the mite wash results and the SHB update in the next post.