Recent content by patrickr

Hi all I've got excess honey I want to sell. I want to sell to neighbours and through online marketplace (Facebook?). There's also a local shop who has expressed an interest who would take 1LB jars. I'm considering all my options for bottling (to give me the widest possibilities): ie. 1Lb...

Thanks everyone. My poly nucs don't, unfortunately, allow for adding on top. I think I will go for moving to a hive as advised above (ie. to the side) and then see how they go. If they don't expand, I'll move them back to a nuc for the winter.

Hi all Whenever I move a colony from a nuc to a full-sized (National or national 14 x 12) hive, I dither. Here's how I usually start: I take the frames from the (usually 5-6 frame) nuc and I transfer to the centre of hive (cold way). Then I dither. Question: If there are uncapped stores...

Good to know. It seems brambles is the order of the day. I've become obsessed with looking for them and get very annoyed when I see them being cleared!

Ditto... :)

Thanks. Not an option as my son is at school here. :) Guess I will take my chances where ever we end up in W. Wales

Hi All We've been looking for a new house in West Wales. One's come up in a good area for general forage for bees, I think, and a place for a new apiary. However, I've noticed that about 200 - 300 metres away is another apiary owned by a bee farmer. He's always had about 10-12 hives there...

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ALL great answers!

Thanks all. Some great answers. :)

Hi, I have limited other stock. One weaker colony which I don't particularly want to steal a test frame from, but can. The other is on a 14x12 which is wrong size so awkward. The suspect colony is a bit tetchy which could indicate queenless,... yes, I should wait a few days more...

Hi all Old queen did a runner with half the hive on 29th May. I left the colony for 3 weeks + for the new queen to mate. The weather was patchy during this time. I opened the hive for a visual on 22nd June and saw that cells had been polished ready for something to lay?! Another inspection...

That's an interesting thought. Thank you!

Hi. Thanks for that. Makes sense. If I want to go double brood later, should I put the new brood box under existing brood box - bearing in mind that I will have majority foundation. Or should I distribute brood frames in both boxes eg. 4 frames in bottom BB, 4 in top BB if there were, say, 8...

Have eggs in the bottom box. I removed the nadiered super at the very beginning of this year because it was completely empty. I then added super 1 a couple of weeks later with a QX so she must have been in the brood box then and climbed up.