A swarm is not a colony in trouble. It is a colony reproducing, and the story behind it runs from queen cells in the brood nest to a cluster on a branch choosing its next home.

She is the only fertile female in a colony of tens of thousands, yet she rules nothing. Here is the natural history of the honey bee queen, from a sixteen day start to a year spent laying.

Before the modern white hive, bees lived in walls, on benches and under straw caps. We look at how the apiary was sited, sheltered and arranged, and why the old rules still hold.

Apis laboriosa is the largest honey bee in the world, and it builds a single open comb on Himalayan cliff faces rather than in a hollow. Here is what is actually known about how it lives, and how it differs from the bee in a British hive.

Goldenrod flowers when most of the summer’s forage has faded, and bees work it for both nectar and pollen. Here is where it grows, when it flowers, and what beekeepers make of its dark, strong honey.

Apis dorsata builds a single sheet of comb in the open, hangs it from a branch or a cliff, and defends it with a ripple of bodies. Here is what is known about how it lives and how it differs from the honey bee in a beekeeper’s hive.

Look closely at a colony building new comb and you may see bees hanging in living chains. Here is what festooning is, what the research says about it, and what a beekeeper sees at the hive.

Each late summer, a honey bee colony stops feeding its males and shows them the door. Here is what the drones are for, why the workers end their welcome, and what beekeepers read from it.

Clover is one of the most ordinary plants in a British field and one of the most useful to bees. This is what it gives them, when it flowers, and why red and white clover are not the same offer.

A bumblebee colony is a summer venture that starts with one queen and ends with her daughters gone, while a honey bee colony carries on for years. Here is the bumblebee’s year, and the species you are most likely to meet.