Recent content by menteth

Thank you all for your responses This is a brilliant forum

Hey everyone Thanks. So acetic is a fumigation thing. For overwintering. At the moment, I really need the brood boxes. Post Cbpv, could I just give the BBoxes a good blow torch. Would that do? (The rest of the stuff I’ll acetic over winter).

Hello all you splendid lot. 4of my hives had cbpv this year. 3 died out really quickly. The third survived, with your help. Thank you. Luckily it didn’t spread to my other 5 hives. I now have 3 empty hives with frames, that I’ve kept aside. I’d really like to re-use these. I’ve scraped...

Bee keeping is all about location (of hives). In my experience. A bit of sun hitting the hive in winter, especially in the morning: This counts for a lot. Winter sun and shelter from wind. Bees need to get out in winter occasionally to do a poo. If they can’t because it’s too cold, that...

Hi Amari and all. The hive that I'm talking about, was a huge and strong colony. The die back has left them the size of a small nuc. The die off seems to have stabilised. They are queenless now. My worry was that if I introduce a new queen, the laying workers will kill her. The idea of...

Hello everyone, This forum is great. Bring on the collective brain. I have had CBPV in my apiary this year. An awful illness. I have 8 hives 14x12 (Hive 1 contracted it and died out within 10 days. It hit them really hard. RIP). Hive 2 contracted it and it's been more of a slow burner...

I currently have cbpv in my apiary. It’s awful, and really depressing. Never had anything like this before. It Started off in one very strong colony. I took the floor off. And placed an empty super under brood box. Hive on stand. but as the colony weakened, some robbing started. And now...

Hi Everyone, I generally don’t feed from mid August. However, “the flow” here stops pretty abruptly here At the beginning of aug. And once the supers are removed (to spin), there is a month before the ivy, when the Bee’s can get hungry. So I sometimes help them along. Good advice on...

Hi Everyone. I generally don’t lose Bees in the winter. Just sometimes. What I’ve found is that; here, where we are, if I feed them syrup from mid August, they fill the hive with syrup winter stores. Then, the crazy ivy comes, and the Bee’s go mad for it, and I’ve had hives so happy for...

Hi Everyone, A quick question about over wintering. 4 hives . 14x12 . We live in woody area. Every September we get lots of ivy honey. I usually leave this on the hives. (One full super, on top of the Brood box). However, very occasionally when it’s really cold, the bees can’t get to the...

I have a super super aggressive hive, that produced absolutely nothing this summer. Pointless.

Hi there. Thanks for the reply. I usually use wood chip too. I was slightly wondering of others experience with the herbs etc that you mentioned. They say that certain smells in washing powders (on the bee suit) and shampoos etc on us, affect things. I was rather wondering about what...

Hi Everyone, I also have a super aggressive hive. I do need to re-queen too. However, I can't even get close. Even lifting the roof causes a major assault. I only once managed to do an inspection and was super super slow, careful, calm, freshly washed, not sweaty etc, but they were still...

Hello everyone, I hope your bees are all fine and happy. Quick question: I united two hives (both 14x12 national). One was queenless for about 3/4 weeks (and the Poor little things had nothing to do but collect pollen, with no babies to feed). The hive was crammed with pollen (and nectar...

Hi Pargyle, manyvthanks for this. This is what I’ll do then. Brilliant advice