Recent content by Andrew2000

Thanks for all the replies. I have one other hive which is bursting at the seam so taking a frame every now and then has been useful in swarm prevention. So far I’ve added 3 frames over 10 days, the most recent one yesterday. No sign of a queen cell on the other frames yet. Based on the...

My bees swarmed a while ago and I left them for as long as I could to create a new queen. This didn’t happen and I now have laying workers (all drone, multiple eggs, poor laying pattern etc). I’ve read many options to resolve this but opted for the ‘introduce a frame of eggs/larvae every few...

That would definately be the plan if I had one! Im down to my last hive and my previous bee friend to pinch a frame of eggs from has now packed in beekeeping. Its the swarm and 'main hive' thats left now

So far 5 weeks without any eggs and I have looked hard and cant find her. I have a feeling there will be a barrage of replies saying wait longer now! If thats the case then I will wait! However, hypothetically, if the queen is defintely not there after a longer wait, what would be your advice?

Im pretty sure my main hive is now queenless as no sign for a long time and no brood or eggs now. Lots of bees though I picked up a swarm last week which is strong and just about fills a 6-frame national nuc (which Ive just transferred to a hive). My delimma is what to do now. It makes sense...

Thanks, thats great, so the 'workers' come off first!

So I remember from beekeeping classes a long time ago that if you shake a frame of bees, either the nurse bees or the worker bees come off on the first shake It being more than a month ago, I cant remember which one it was?! Can anyone fill me in?!

Thanks for all the advice. I guess the options are then 1) swap the 2 frames of brood for 2 blanks and let them fill up to 12 frames (may then need swarm control in future) 2) swarm control now, leave the 2 frames of brood in place. Votes for 1) or 2) please!

Id like to keep it single brood box as this has been successful over the years. I can either swap out the brood box stores for blanks or start a swarm control method.

I did a beekeeping course many years ago. I seem to remember at the time that you should always keep a couple of frames of stores in the brood box. My situation now is that I have a 12 frame brood box and queen excluder and 2 reasonnably full supers on top. The brood box has 10 frames FULL of...

Thanks for your thoughts. The second hive I have was created this year from a split and took at least 3 rounds of queen cells to get a laying queen thus the hesitancy in allowing the supercedure to continue! As this is my 'second' or 'spare' hive, Im hesitant to risk losing it this close to...

I have now removed the honey and am feeding the bees. Just before I took the honey off, I noticed that every weekly inspection, I have one charged queen cell at the bottom of one frame which I removed. Since then, I have continued very brief inspections and every week, there is again one...

I’d happily take the supers off and extract them but my extractor is due in 2 weeks! The other option is to take them off, stick them in the house covered in cling film. Any thoughts on this?!!

Just Catching up on all these replies as author of OP. Seems to have gone mildly off topic but also seems to have provided some therapy! Another super gone on and I now at the stage where I’ll soon not be able to teach to top to get the heaviest one off! I think I’ll have to move the top 2 to...

Now that might be a plan. My other hive was a split this year and has about half a super on it. I assume I can just clear the supers and slot them on top?? Is there a chance that the bees might eat it?!!