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Wild thyme works for me, I’m probably going for go towards a brown colour for the next lot of boxes. In the above pictures there’s 5 of my colonies, 4x in a green that’s a bit too teal in colour for my likening and 1 that’s wild thyme. The wild thyme has blended in well enough I can’t even spot...

I had a similar experience last week, inspected 1 of my colonies last Friday that was quite small in size but had a single queen cup with a egg in it, I had to peel the wax to get a good view that it was charged. Curiosity got the better of me yesterday and I checked this colony again to find...

Not quite in flower yet, but the field beans beside my apiary don’t appear too far off flowering, a couple of weeks tops maybe?

Taken apart a treadmill I picked up for £15 and I now have a box of parts i hope will get my extractor motorised in the near future, no doubt I’ll need a few bits and bobs but I think there’s 80% of the bits needed right here

I’m not sure, there’s no manufacturer details on it what so ever. I’ve had suggestions it could be a Thomas, the blue of the stand are their colour supposedly.

Thanks for the tip, I did think that after returning back to bed, I don’t fancy running out again tonight though. I’ll make a template again tomorrow and see if 1 or even 2 frames would fit. I use a mixture of National supers and broods for honey so even if I can’t fit 2 broods I should be able...

Yesterday evening I drove 2:45 or so each way up to Manchester to buy a 2nd hand extractor, this evening whilst musing in bed I dashed out the door grabbing my dressing gown on route much to my wife’s disapproval to trial a idea with the extractor. My thoughts are to buy several plastic...

Visited the bees I moved yesterday for a preliminary inspection, despite being inside a copse there was still quite a stiff breeze due to the pronounced hill of they're on. Three colonies have 5 frames of brood, one has 4 the other has 8. I put my foundationless suppers (National broods) above...

Disappointing to hear about the wrong basket, I too would want the 8 frame version; hopefully you’ll get a partial refund or the correct basket sent out to you if the supplier replies. Have you had an opportunity to plug it in and spinning? Does the motor run smoothly and quietly?

Just got back from moving my 5 colonies to this seasons apiary, took much longer to move than I had hoped due to not being to get very close with my car as the ground is saturated. Luckily I had a new fishing barrow which works well to move hives on, managed to get 2 on. Tomorrows job is to...

Hi all, With 5 colonies coming out of the winter and my only extractor being a 2 frame tangential I’m starting to get sleepless nights thinking about the acres of OSR my bees will be foraging on and extracting all those frames…. Plus the moaning from the other half if I spend a entire weekend...

I’ll look forward to your delivery as much as you will, I’d be keen to hear how quick the delivery is, thoughts on packaging and the product itself and how it performs, I’m going to need to order myself a bigger extractor than my 2 frame tangential manual extractor sooner than later, so your...

That’s a very busy frame of brood, is the queen a buckfast?

No fair enough, I’ve too noticed that the cheaper extractors on eBay seem to be sold by multiple sellers in the same town.

@Martin S did you take the plunge and order the vevor 4/8?

Thank you, fingers crossed it’ll prove to be a good apiary as well a nice place to tend to my bees.

Moved a few hive stands to a new out apiary this afternoon, will need to pop back with concrete slabs and blocks to level the stands before moving the bees over. The farmer has OSR about 1km from the apiary and field beans just the other side of the leylandii as seen in the top pic.

Not so much in the workshop but I was gifted a 8X6 insulated and plylined shed that I took delivery of at the weekend. Despite only being a few years old it needs a little work, the shiplaps popped out and there’s minor rot to deal with. Last night I painted the sides twice and this afternoon I...

I’ve noted some OSR fields with flowers appearing south of Banbury ( north Oxfordshire) this week, maybe 2% of the plants but a timely reminder of the upcoming flow. Plenty of Hazel, willow coming into flower, blackthorn and crocuses and such too on show. I’m excited at the prospect of only 2-3...

I was going to trial exactly this later this spring, I was going to use a segregated brood box with nucs above.