Recent content by XYZ

Today's inspection was long and tiring. Two not-so-great queens went in the jar of white spirit. GM buckfast was the last to be inspected. No sign of her or eggs. QCs though. Took all but two down. Took one out to put in mating hive - it fell on floor. Not confident of the one left over...

I'd recommend Brian too. Worked with him for my labels and we came up with incorporating the anti-tamper into the label itself. Providing it's a paper label and not a poly one it works really well. He even trialled the labels on his labelling machine and it works really well even with the...

I'm in the process of doing this, mainly because the 90 degree gearbox on mine has bust after only two goes. I've had a shaft adaptor machined by a friend of mine and I've ordered a UCFL204 flanged bearing which I will mount to the top plate. That gets the basket nice and straight and allows...

Yeah I wouldn't do that again. Cheers :-) I saw some newspaper on the floor today, which is good to see. Indications so far is successful. Will open up possibly tomorrow and get them into one box.

She's not long been released from her push-in cage. There may be a small patch of capped brood but not much.

I purchased this: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/231716225660?ul_noapp=true The second time I used it, the gears started skipping when driving it in one direction. I had to remove the top assembly and connect my cordless drill to the basket shaft and hold it straight while spinning with the drill...

Would it be sensible to remove the newspaper after a few days, rearrange the brood frames down to one box, then come back on the evening to trickle? Capped brood will be minimal - surely *if* there is a heavy mite load a trickle would be better than nothing?

Yeah I have a bucket of thymol syrup so I just used it because it was close by. Not for any treatment reasons. Fully intended on oxalic trickle but looks like I'll have to do that once the colonies have united. Will go back on day 10 to shuffle the frames about and let them settle before trickling.

Thanks Murox I appreciate that :-)

Hi everyone, I hope you're all well! :D Due to a knock-on effect and some on-the-spot thinking/reacting I took a nuc with a new buckfast queen and united it with a swarm I caught (once the swarm queen was found and removed). Swarm queen was really dark, and big. She's not completely out the...

Hey! Stop that!! :icon_204-2:

Vacuumed this one up yesterday and hived them. Couldn't find the queen. Didn't take long before the abelo entrance reducer was taken out while they marched in

Checked on push-in cages today. Nuc 1 - Queen dead. No eggs. I'm guessing I missed a bee or two sneaking in when I put the cage in and they killed her. Gutted. Absolutely gutted. Had to give them a frame of eggs to make their own. Nuc 2 - Queen alive. Eggs. Bees seemed to take a...

I'm sure he's trying. A little patience and I'm sure we'll get there. :) Harry - can you take any photos of how it's set up? Just some snaps of what the hive looks like and where the feeder is. That should help.

Oh great, I may have a problem then. One single drone though, strange. Will have to keep an eye on them.