Recent content by BeekeeperDan

Thanks everyone - some of the nucs were chancing it, where I'd found swarm cells during inspections and some were taken from my Snelgrove splits after the swarming intention had been quelled by splitting the flying bees and queen from the nurse bees and letting the nurse bees raise new queen...

Anyone else noticing their bees are really keen to go forth and multiply this year? I've been using 6 frame poly nucs to raise new queens with one frame of brood and attending bees, one frame of food, the frame with brood and queencells on and empty foundation and practically every one this year...

Eyeman and Finnman, I will have another look for chewed, discarded pupae when I next visit the quarantine apiary but I couldn't see any on my last visit (I was looking in front of the hive for dead or diseased bees). I have seen my bees remove drone and worker brood in this way before and...

Good thinking deemann1. I bought some hygienic queens last year or the year before from the University of Sussex (http://www.sussex.ac.uk/lasi/sussexplan/hygienicbees) and they interbred with my mongrels and I bred from the queens they sent. I have seen much more "pepperpot" brood in the hives...

Jafer2 Nope, no shaky bees, balding, dark or greasey bees but it's good thinking. The brood actually seem to be healthy, I dug a few out. I didn't see any bees "hatching" but that could just bee due to the time it's been since they were given fresh combs after being bee-vacced out of the roof...

Stihl leaf blower. Put the super on it's side on a milk crate and blow the buggrs out. They are so confused by this they don't get particularly cross when I do it, they're too busy sorting themselves out. Clears a super in a minute or two. Sorry you got stung so many times.

Is she running out of sperm and so laying unfertilised eggs randomly amongst fertilised? It could explain why some cappings are raised much higher than their neighbours. Clearly there is a bad case of bald brood too. What is most interesting is that the combs removed from the roof did not...

I can now edit my first post and add photos there so I have.

Post 10... Nearly there, thanks for your patience!

Post 9...

Post 8... The photos will be coming in post 11, I promise!

Post 7... I have to wait 30seconds between posts too, this is really offputting for a new member!

Post 6...

Post 5...

Post 3...