Recent content by Paul Hitchiner

Thank you Thank you. All your comments are most reassuring for a novice.

Cleaver Cloggs me - I have put my beehive on two scaffold poles, raised 17" from the ground, to stop the mice and the ants. Now I realize that the winter wind will get underneath the hive and freeze the poor bees. Am I right in thinking this.....should I make a wooden skirt to fill the gap and...

I need to move a hive to a new site, by (hatchback) car. August seems to be the worst time to do it as the hive will be its heaviest, and the move seems to have to be done at night, when the bees are asleep in in the hive, after 10.00pm. The hive will be too heavy to move as a whole, so I am...

I am going to get a hive from a friend, and install it next week on my allotment. She said that her bees sting her when she is out of her suit, because they remember her smell. I want to reduce the number of times I get stung. I have three daughters, but wasps seem to only like one. They sting...

I put my suit on, rob the hive of their honey - but the bees remember my smell and sting me the next day when I do not have my suit on. Is it a good idea to spray air freshener on my suit so that the bees do not know my smell?

Can I take the bottom tray completely out so that the Varroa mites fall straight through? The metal mesh can allow many to crawl back into the hive.

What do you think of putting a damp towel over the hive to help cool the bees