Recent content by Robert Denny

We have plenty of fields of OSR just starting to flower here in Herefordshire so entirely possible you have too.

I had a colony with CBPV last year which we we split to prevent swarming. The hive with old queen recovered but went down with it as numbers grew. The hive with the new queen never showed any signs of it. I think some queens are less prone to it than others.

To clarify; I marked her (blue, because that was the pen to hand) but have no idea if her age.

A swarm I collected about a month ago, has a mated queen, which is marked. They are over about 6 frames. Last week I saw frames with eggs and brood in a reasonable pattern but not prolific. However, on an outer, partially drawn frame, there were cells with multiple eggs in them. This week I saw...

Superb explanation, thank you very much.

Meadow grasses are of course agricultural. Yellow Rattle can be very useful in “wild flower” meadows but is by no means essential. If they are growing it for silage, it will be fertilised and cut well before flowering and seeding so the very aggressive grasses will dominate.

Your home remedy rings true for horse fly bites where the recommended treatment is to apply the back of a teaspoon recently removed from boiling water - as hot and as long as you can bear.

Mark, That’s really helpful. Thank you very much.

Not exactly in the apiary nor today but this was what I was doing yesterday. Finally got them all in and home by 8.30pm.

That’s a great link and thanks for the advice. I do have few nucs.

Thanks so far. Ok, to recap:- It is a swarm cell They need more space to lay in. What do I actually do?

9 frames of bees and 5 or 6 frames of brood and I wouldn’t say it was honey bound.

Thank you, would it be worth taking the QC and Q cups down?

No, we couldn’t see eggs or royal jelly in them.

Nice and Hi Mark, The 40L storage boxes, are they the “clear” ones? Have you had any success yet or in previous years with them. Thanks, Rob.