Recent content by AlanJ

There seem to be two kinds of WBC hive boxes around, as shown in this picture, and I've been trying to find out which type is authentic The boxes on the left, from Caddon Hives, have extra strips of wood at the bottom of the box (arrowed) that meet the lip of the hive box below. Those on the...

To get the full-benefit of foil-faced insulation, I read that the reflective surface needs an air-gap to function. Using 50mm x 25mm timber for the eke with 25mm kingspan insulation plus the draught excluder gives about a 20mm airspace: just enough to fit in some fondant in an inverted plastic...

For insulation in an eke above the crown board to work properly, it needs to trap a layer of warm air underneath it to keep the crown board warm, which is the whole point of the exercise.. The bees obviously don't have access to this airspace, so if the eke does not sit perfectly on the hive box...

My honey was at nearly 21% this time, all from sealed comb. It was very humid when I did the extracting, so I did wonder how much of this moisture was being picked-up during the extraction process? (All the small droplets add-up to a big surface area) With my very modest harvest of honey still...

For several years now we have been saving whole stems pruned from our lavender bushes and put them through the garden shredder: the woody bits help to give a longer burn. The dried shredded lavender is used to fill corrugated cardboard cylinders to make lavender 'smoker cartridges'. A research...