This is getting interesting - who said beekeeping was boring. Time consuming but not boring.
There's no QCs in the box (I guess you mean queen cells). There was one when we visited the box yesterday evening but we took it off. Didn't find the existing queen though.
For your scond point - I think...
Sorry didn't say - yep she had 5 attendants with her. As for the water - the bee shop who sold us the queen advised us to give her a drop of water. Thanks for your other comments - just goes to show how much there is to learn, the whole subjet just grows. Wonderful. Thanks
One of our hives are filled with vicious little she devils - really mean critters. They attack like stukas!! We were advised to change the queen. So off we go buy a new queen (white spot number 46) in her little box with candy. Find the existing queen we're told, kill it (cripes!!) and insert...
so if you read the Sun and have an allotment you're a pleb!
Actually who cares what the news papers write - a bee will sting you whether you live upsatirs or downstairs.
Hi Cazza, we use clean tea towels to cover the brood box or supers when inspecting. It redices the amount of smoking to use - in fact for the super I don't smoke at all. I find the bees are less frantic and though makes the visit slightly longer I think it's worth the effort.
At least you got the paint onto the right place. Our attempt resulted in a queen punk with paint every where. She still alive though and laying quite happily.
Light hearted question here - even if maybe a bit dumb. I get the impression that home extracted honey is tastier than those in the supermarkets - why is this? I mean those of you who grow tomatoes know that they taste better than in the shops - but that's understandable as shop brought are...
Hi Rink
We're new to the forum and only 2nd year into bee keeping. It's fascinating and there's certainly no silly questions. You learn alot just by doing it - you make mistakes but the magic is always there, especially when you do your extraction and taste your first own honey. Pure heaven !!
2nd year as well. The first year was I gues pure old beginners luck. The second year, yep it's panic as we're trying to put into practice what we've read and heard - wow like going back to school. Really interesting though. We've got 3 colonies which we've nicknamed as the "Goodies" who are...
I've been told that when adding new supers because those in place are practically full the best way is to add them directly over the queen excluder, ie under the existing super. Then I read that this can "stress out" the bees as the food supply over the brood has suddenly disappeared.
Err I...
Yo Nobby. Equally a novice bee keeper but we're lucky in having a shop near by where we can browse and ask questions at our leisure. Our real bug is the quality of the wood used for beehive and the uppers and the frames. We thinking of going to a joinery to make them up. Any body knwo what's the...