Recent content by RoofTops

I am currently in France in our campervan and yesterday we stayed at a lavender farm in Provence. It was a lovely spot and the owners don't charge anything - though they do have a little shop selling all things lavender which my wife visited before we left. The owner has over sixty colonies...

I have just put the last of my beekeeping equipment up for sale - a 50 kg stainless steel honey tank as sold by Swienty for over 200 euros. It has had honey in it up until a few weeks ago - which I have donated to a local bee farmer in exchange for a pot of heather honey - I think he got the...

Just to say many thanks to this Forum and to the purchasers. All the books now sold and despatched this morning by Royal Mail 1st Class - should arrive with everyone tomorrow. :)

I have now added a few more older books and booklets. A Colour Guide to Pollen Loads of the Honey Bee by William DJ Kirk IBRA 1994: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/311282245220?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649 Beekeeping at Buckfast Abbey by Adam (Paperback, 1987)...

Having had to give up beekeeping when we moved house I have finally got around to selling all my beekeeping books on eBay. I have started a thread in the For Sale section here with links to the eBay listings but I am not sure if it is going to be allowed! So, if you simply Google "eBay...

I am putting all my bee books up for sale on eBay. The books are: The Buzz About Bees: Biology of a Superorganism by Jurgen Tautz (Hardback, 2009): http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/311281983621?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649 Queen Bee: Biology, Rearing and Breeding by David...

This from the SMMT's website: https://www.smmt.co.uk/industry-topics/uk-automotive-sector/ Manufacturing •The UK is home to: •Seven volume car manufacturers. •Eight commercial vehicle manufacturers. •10 bus and coach manufacturers. •Eight major premium and sports car producers, and over 100...

One of the advantages of masonry paint over gloss is it is water based so cleaning things afterwards is a lot easier, especially if you use a spray gun. You can spray masonry paint even with a cheap low powered gun* if you thin it down to about 50:50 with water. Lay out all the hive bits on a...

I was on ACE inhibitors for some years and had no problems getting stung - it happened all the time! However, after a while the tablets were becoming less effective in blood pressure terms so after a tip-off from a relation who had had the same issue I pursuaded the Doc to put me one calcium...

You should see many simliarities in behaviour with honey bees as ants and bees are all in the same order - the aculeate hymenoptera, along with wasps and a few oddities like lacewings.

Bees will fly well over 3 miles for OSR. They won't gather a huge amount of it as they will consume some of the nectar on the return flight. Peope have ben undone by this when following the 3 feet or 3 miles rule. They move the bees say 8 miles but unbeknown to them the bees were working OSR...

If you are transferring them to 14 * 12 brood boxes at some time you are still going to have to get them onto 14 * 12 frames. You can mix the two frames in the same brood box but it can get messy. One option would be to transfer the current frames into two National supers stacked one above the...

Very sad about the loss of the colonies but if you don't even know when to do the OA treatment (you were about a month too late) then the finger of suspicion probably points at your general beekeeping skills as the most likely explanation for the colony losses. And in case you say the weather...