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Found what I assumed was a capped supersedure cell on the weekend but also saw eggs so assumed the existing queen was still present. Took the opportunity to do a couple of splits as I had been planning some expansion this year. Didn’t worry about where the original queen ended up as I left...

I made up 10 a couple of days ago. Shed felt on top with a good helping of sheep’s wool to act as insulation.

That is interesting. I am on solid UFE’s but I might experiment with half the hives to see if there are any noticeable differences. Does anyone currently use a snuggle board?

That’s a great idea, I’ll surely do that!

I obviously have far too much wool. Now that the roofs are done, any benefit to insulating the void below a UFE?

Inside configuration is 6 frames with one being an old brood frame from last year which I assume there might be some remnants of honey in (but nothing capped or the like), the other 5 are just empty frames. There is an established wild colony in the area which over the last couple of years...

Scouts or robbers? How do you tell the difference?

Great, I’ll give it a go as I don’t have a clue what else to do with it! Thanks

I’ve come into possession of a rather large bale of sheep’s wool. Is this any good for insulation in hive roofs instead of PIR boards? I’m also thinking of making a few insulated ekes for fondant feeding over winter and could use some of it for this project.

I did see a bee whisperer video recently where he took a weak colony on a couple of frames and put it on top of a strong colony with a queen excluder and a sheet of newspaper between them. He seemed to say the bees from the strong colony below would get through the newspaper and join with the...

Nuc’d a small hive that I had assumed was queenless and dwindling but to my surprise, while only a small amount of capped brood, larvae and eggs on 2 frames when I investigated. Given the size I put it in a poly nuc in the hope it’ll be able to regulate the temperature better.

In Ireland it’s already a requirement to register your flock and have a flock number issued. Something to do with Birdflu and disease management I think. Bees are still voluntary from what I gather but when I registered, I never heard anything back so not sure how much resourcing goes into it.

And possibly a silly one at that. Thinking of feeding for comb building. I see a lot of advice to ‘trickle feed’ rather than glug a couple of kilos of syrup on and let them take it down. What do we mean by trickle feed? A litre at a time or 1.5 litres, let them finish it, leave it a few days...

Does anyone use a Varroa Easy check to check for Varroa numbers? I assume provided you don’t overdo it with the CO2 they are unharmed and back at it shortly after. https://www.thorne.co.uk/health-feeding/pests-diseases/varroa/pest-and-disease-non-chemical/varroa-easycheck.html

Thanks, I had noted they are being incredibly frugal this year. Lots of unused stores across all hives.

I moved over to solid UFE floors last season on my hives. I previously was on standard OMFs. The winter cluster last year in the hives was very much centrally located which makes sense as that’s where the brood nest was. This year, since I made the switch I notice the cluster and brood nest very...

How much did you feed in the autumn? One possibility is you could have over fed and clogged up the brood nest with stores which prevented enough winter bees being produced and as a result the colony just dwindled out

Going to try get my other 3 single broods onto double (plan to try 2 Demeree and just adding a second brood box to the other early in the new season). I have 8 queens ordered for the 25th of May so going to try get a number of 2 frame splits done up to cater for these and get my hive count up to 12.

I have spindle and bird cherry in mine along with some of those in your list. They are easy to manage and the flowers/fruit appear to attract all sorts.