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    Soft set from recently extracted honey

    Agree with your post. The reason that OSR does not generally need seeding is that pure OSR honey sets finely and so is an excellent seed in its own right. Sometimes OSR comes in with dandelion, though, which granulates coarsely, and you can end up with fine set OSR littered with 'sugar...
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    New book on Apideas

    Thanks all for your positive comments, it means a lot as I put much effort into trying to make the text thorough but clear and well illustrated... but was never sure if there was a demand for it, or how it would be received. Glad you are all enjoying the book and finding it useful! "How did...
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    Best time to add Patties

    Spring build-up is pollen-limited, certainly here. Thus if there is ample opportunity to get out and good warm weather, colonies get ample pollen and raise good quantities of brood, but if the weather is cool or wet their brood raising is limited or halted. We had exactly this at some sites in...
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    New book on Apideas

    Just trying to get my head round the logistics! Like so much in colony management, what works with thousands is very different to what works with hundreds or tens.
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    New book on Apideas

    Thanks BKP. Yes, the Apideas webinar is still available if anyone wants a taster of our approach. In fact there's 20 of them, mostly practical topics like swarm control, double brood, queen raising, reading bees, out apiaries, etc. All require a small payment, but that goes towards paying for...
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    New book on Apideas

    Where?!
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    New book on Apideas

    Many factors involved. How were they established, how populous, how were they set out in the apiary, did you 'set up and forget' or go back regularly to check progress, on what day did you add the queen cell, had you tried a 2nd queen cell after the first had failed, etc. We take available...
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    New book on Apideas

    Hi Ian - yes, another variation, confining the workers before distribution to the mini-nucs. Yup, Northern Bee Books have it now so they'll will have the book on their stall at the Beekeeping Show end of the month and any others they are attending - I'll be seeing Jerry in Somerset on Saturday...
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    New book on Apideas

    Hi Daboss - moving them to a different site would have helped with the success, assuming the usual distances. Let me know how you get on if you do decide to test both approaches in quantity at the same time and in the same mating apiary. Have just wrapped your book up for postage, looking...
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    New book on Apideas

    Hi Daboss Thanks for ordering. You describe a shortcut that can work, but success is conditional on a number of factors. When it works, it's great, when it doesn't work, it's not always clear why not, and you've lost a viable virgin queen. I treat just-pulled virgins and ripe queens cells the...
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    New book on Apideas

    Brian, Buzz - thanks for your kind comments - but most of all glad you enjoyed / are enjoying reading it and have picked up some useful practical tips from it. It does amaze me that the Apidea has been around for some forty years without anything really in the way of guidance.
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    New book on Apideas

    Can I post this here? I've just published a book on Apideas that I've been working on quietly for some years. It's a practical manual intended to guide people through using these for queen mating. 250 pages, over 280 colour photos and illustrations. More details, page previews and ordering...
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    Noise of electric cars revealed, and it’s not what you would think

    Lotus were working on this ten years ago. Clicky.
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    Brood/half or 14x12 national hives.

    Anything where you move a box, rather than individual frames. e.g. moving the half of brood and a half under the brood during winter.
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    sell wax

    OP, it depends if your customer wants any old beeswax (it will always be cheaper from ebay) or your local, known provenance beeswax. Thrones sell generic candlemaking beeswax for £8.40 for 500g, i.e. £16.80 / Kg. I'd suggest £20/Kg for yours if provenance is important to the buyer.
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