Recent content by patl

So, the bait hive outside my front door attracted a swarm on monday morning which I moved into my apiary a mile or so away in the evening. Yesterday evening I took up the rest of the stragglers who were still knocking around the bait hive. Most of today, there's been only a couple of bees...

On my suburban allotment, globe artichokes seem to be the favourite at the moment with 6 or 7 bees on each flower. Other than that runner beans seem to be popular.

It was, about a week ago when I put the new queen in there. It's not impossible she's gone but it was this way before I last checked, that was the main reason for requeening

I've always been led to believe orientation tended to happen in the afternoon, surely 7-8 oclock at night is a bit late isn't it? I have no problem with guarding, I fully expect to be told where to go at this time of year when I go near a hive. But when people are being are being butted and...

I did try dusting with flour as I figured scattering sugar when there was robbing going on wouldn't necessarily help. I didn't see any of the robbers going into my hives though so I figure they're coming from further afield

Well, although I wasn't seeing much fighting, I was seeing side to side movement outside the hive, a sudden increase in activity, a lot of the exiting bees dipping as they leave the landing board and there was a lot of activity late in the day after all the other hives had gone quiet for the...

I figured flour rather than icing sugar because I didn't really want to scatter sugar in the apiary, particularly with robbing going on.

Sadly, I don't have access to an out apiary so that's out as an option unfortunately. :(

As far as the nuc is concerned, it is very weak, so understandable, the full hive I have a feeling has been being robbed for a little while though and is an otherwise strong hive, but doesn't seem to be protecting itself, at least not for other bees, it's guarding behaviour concerning humans...

No, the nuc was made up from another hive. And I have fed the nuc because I figured although I gave them a frame of stores, with only house bees they might need some help. The hive that I made the nuc from appears to be untouched by the robbers so far but I'll be keeping an eye on it.

Hi, One of my hives with 2 supers appears to be being robbed as does a new 3 frame poly nuc that has just (this morning) had a new travelled queen introduced to it. This evening ( possibly later than ideal, I didn't recognise what I was seeing initially) I finally shut both entrances with 3mm...

Thanks for the response, I'm kind of getting to the same thought. Yes, another 2, but one of those has just been requeened, so I want to leave well alone for a while and the other I'm hoping for some honey from if a summer flow ever arrives, so I'd prefer not to weaken it at this stage if...

Antihistimine and washing soda, Oh and coloured drawing pins come in surprisingly handy too.

By 'getting it' I didn't mean I don't have (at least as many) problems as I did in previous years, just they don't seem quite as insurmountable :) but today was a challenge for me too, hell, on Friday I failed to squash a queen, how many times have I been worried about the opposite since I started.

Particularly when they then start lecturing you on how their way works, so yours must be wrong. However, I have noticed that this year (my 4th) I finally feel I 'get it'. I don't think I'm doing most things better (or too much worse most of the time) but this is the first year that it feels a...