Recent content by davidstacey42

I got caught out at the weekend - tilted my head to one side and got one on the ear where the mesh was resting on it and one on my muffin-top where the smock rode up and exposed my tee-shirt. I will need to re-evaluate my PPE I think. Stings came in in handy as it happened, since I'm a year...

That may explain the behaviour of my swarm. Paradoxically, the branch lower down the tree was thinner than the one higher up, to which the larger cluster was attached. That's why I find these sort of forums so useful. My textbooks just show a stock image of a rugby ball shaped cluster in a...

Went home at lunchtime and they've absconded (neighbour saw them heading off in a southerly direction). Still, good experience trapping my first swarm, even if it was only to give them bed and breakfast...

Came out the back door yesterday evening at about 18:00 and was horrified to find the air around my hive thick with bees. Had glanced at my hive about half an hour earlier and although there were more bees than usual on the front, activity seemed otherwise normal. Watched them move slowly up...

I had a population build up in my orchard/chicken run a few years ago. I used to pick them off at dusk with the air rifle for a bit of fun but realised that they were breeding faster than I could reload the rifle. I knew I ought to do something, when one night, we drove in through the gate and...

Hi David, I set up one of these Octagonal Warres last year and the bees are doing fine in it. I've also got a TBH which I intend to populate this year. I got the bees through the hive supplier and they were on frames that dropped straight into the widest part of the octagon (the bees have...

My mistake - I've got a Waspbane (it's got the word 'wasp' in it which confused me)....

I put one out last year and it worked in the sense that it killed loads of wasps (also seems to be good at getting blowflies) but although I had no problems with wasp raids, I couldn't say for sure that it was down to the Waspinator achieving a 100% kill-rate for wasp scouts as advertised. I'm...

I installed a nuc from FP last Saturday. I've only just come across this thread and probably wouldn't have made the purchase if I'd read it first. Having said that, the bees were as docile as you like and all seems well a week further on. Must admit I was surprised to get instructions that...