Thanks for your replies, my first thought was that they had both swarmed, it certainly has all the indications of swarmimg. Both colonies were supplied to my in April 11 by a member of our association so I don't know the provenance of the queens other than I know that that person breeds his own...
Two of my colonies have flummoxed me. They are Nationals, about 600mm apart, both facing the same way. They both swarmed in April despite swarm management techniques, they both developed new queens and up until three weeks ago were both laying and building up, then when I inspected them last...
What did I do in the Apiary today
I'm looking after a friends bees whilst he is on holiday. His bees don't like me much. Everytime I visit them they go for me. 3 stings today... just from one colony. I decided not to do the others, will try again later. I can't help thinking that bees get to...
I am considering changing from the BS Nationals that I currently use to Commecial via the use of hamilton converters. For three reasons, 1. To provide more brood space; 2. My Mentor uses commercials and there is benefit in being able to borrow stuff at short notice & 3. Frames and foundations...
What has occurred to me, as I have the same poly hive, is how do I remove excess syrup once they stop taking it? With my normal hives I just remove the feeder, these hive however present a bit of a problem...ever tried tipping a hive full of bees over on its side?
I confirmed that I'm rubbish at spotting eggs... Two weeks ago I united two colonies. I had run the second colony as brood and a half for about 2 weeks but I did not see any brood in the 'half'. So when I united them I put a QE on the top brood box and put the super that was the 'half' on top...
I had the same problem I was given a shook swarm at the end of March, the old queen promptly went off lay and was superceded, the emergence of the new queen coincided with all the crap weathe we've been having. After nearly 5 weeks I finally saw the queen and the first signs of brood. That was...
United two colonies. The new, supercedure queen, in my weaker colony turned out to be a drone layer. As they were only Nuc size decideed the best thing to do was unite them with my stronger colony. I'm new to beekeeping and never done it before and never appreciated how heavy two brood boxes...
I had my two colonies about 5m from the back of the conservatory with the entrances facing the garage, I hardly knew they were there. I've moved them to my out apairy but only because I don't want to lose the site. However I'm new to beekeeping and I cannot say that the situation would always...
Thanks for the responses so far. The queen is still present, shes a green queen, but compared to other queens I've seen she seems lethargic and the workers don't seem to pay much attention to her. I think they are trying to supercede her but if she is not laying eggs, then as someone has...
I'm a new beekeeper, I worked with a mentor last year and attended a course throughout the winter. I received my first colony via a shook swarm 3 weeks ago. I noticed at the time that there was very little brood in the donor colony. Now three weeks on there is drawn comb, stores of nectar and...