Recent content by Finno

I believe old hands used to pop the QC's under their cap.

Wet QX and bees stuck would indicate that bees had vomited stomach contents. Must have been trapped in some way and vomited due to heat stress. It would only take one layer of bees disabled on queen excluder to prevent ventilation leading to them all smothering.

Once encased in wax, foul brood spores cannot be infective.

Design of CDB hive was ideally suited for wet maritime climate and prevented ingress of water in winter. Traditionally the section crate for this design was only three sections wide and a stack of crates took advantage of the "chimney" affect of rising heat from the centre of the brood box...

Only one way to settle this - pistols at dawn:-)

Yep! It's cabin fever time again

Spores are inert once encased in wax.

Probably leopard slugs. I believe that even when they are thrown out, they are very good at returning "home" to hive where they have been lodging.

Dandelion pollen is also orange, not yellow like the flower.

I've used old recovered vinyl floor covering. Needs to be without any punctures though.

Don't know much about this group, but you might like to check them out for some contacts: http://www.bees.ie

Typo in link. Delete the letter "u" and you should be good to go.

Appear to be very old bees who have lost their hair. Very often seen where a colony has been queenless for a very long time and workers, having no brood to rear or much work to do, survive for long time.

I can vouch for this supplier. Excellent service generally.

To perpetuate their genes - failing successful queen mating they can do so via drones.