this is great stuff...got to try this out. surely get the bees to build their own wax is the way to go. just as a note nylon monofilament fishing line is pretty inert and fairly well the same stuff as the nylon frame spacers. So i would say its fine as a wax strengthener.
beer crates on the grass. some have concrete slabs under the hives. others have a wooden stand made of a pair 5x2s long enough to have a pair of hives on each one
interesting
So get some productive well bred bees.... thats easier said than done. My lovely productive gentle bees have all died. So what i have left is grumpy swarmy bees (but they must at least be somewhat resistant to varroa disease etc). Do i keep going with those or what about buying...
You need a better gene pool obviously your own queens are not the best by the sound of things. When a colony dies do you investigate the root of the cause
I have tried to suss out what happened and ive not come up with anything conclusive. possibly varroa related or could be Nosema...
just thought i would go out on a limb and see what comes back.
Ive had bees a good while now and got really into it before the wife, kids, and full time job reduced my focus on the bees. So i will be the first to say that i dont really give the bees the time they need.
Now im having a hard...
i had three swarms arrive in empty hives the year before last and they were in 2 different apiaries and right next to hives with stocks in them. So im not sure about any rules about distances. However none of the swarms were my own and it was late in the season. Ive never had any swarm arrive in...
laminate flooring is often made of MDF and will get damp and swell up and go to mush. If, however ,its ply based then it should be better. Also I would personally avoid MDF generally as its made with a resin thats banned in the US for heath reasons....Its mainly due to the dust thats not good...
Yes this was very interesting particularly the part where they drove the bees up to a wired box by drumming on the log to apparently remove the queen to encourage them to requeen the hive. Not too sure about how that's actually achieved but never seen bees driven like that.