Recent content by SteveHLD

My gut feeling is that prolific colonies will fare better with Asian Hornet predation than non-prolific bees, does anyone know any better??

Here is my story. Both the Queens in my colonies had clipped wings and both colonies attempted to swarm at much the same time. Prior to this my landlord gave me 9 hours notice that he was going to do major works next to my hives and inevitably the bees felt very threatened and the builders very...

Thank you. I have followed your advice

I have four hives/Nucs which have only 2 to 6 frames of brood (for reasons I will not explain here). I anticipate joining them together to make 2 hives later in the year. Two have a second box on top to help them make stores and one has it's brood in the top box. Should I reduce them all to one...

The swarm was bigger than I thought so I decided not to add a frame of brood. 4 seams of bees with the queen on the hive wall still, with a lot of admirers. I only had plastic or a couple of frames with starter strips so I used the latter. In 6 days they have drawn out more than 2/3 of a frame...

They sell frames for brood and supers but unfortunately not Mediums.

Thank you for your valuable advice. Please could you describe when and how I could consider "reuniting" the swarm with the mother colony. I think on this occasion I could have saved quite a bit of my bee work force by closing the entrance. I did not think I would be able to collect the swarm...

A couple of my colonies have swarmed recently. I have two questions: Firstly I have been taught that after a colony has swarmed you should leave the mother colony alone for a month and then look in to find the new queen / eggs. But what if they become queenless early on - the QC fails to hatch...

Unfortunately Mann Lake has closed it's outlet in the UK and shipping rates from US are prohibitive. I have plastic frames from Pierco and Swienty and they look identical. Has anyone any idea where I might some black cell-rite for medium boxes?

I have coated the frames with melted foundation wax at about 90 degrees Centigrade using a rollerwith the aim of getting it on in such a thin layer that you can not really see it unless you look closely. Is that about right? I am interested that some bee colonies draw comb better than others. So...

I'm in my second year keeping bees. I am aware that the use of plastic frames tends to cause heated discussion so no condescending or damning remarks please. I think plastic frames are beautiful from the point of view of inspecting the colony. For you who have never used them the eggs and larva...

I examined the hive today and they were well behaved really. They did not come at me, did not sting and did not make that high pitched pinging sound of being miffed. The real problem is that very zealous defender bees buzz people a long way from the hive and this is only a problem because of...

I have things arranged so that the bee flight path is directly over my allotment. I have just stomped around and dug on my neighbours plots and had no reaction from the bees. Do bees fail to react to things that are out of sight? I think I will wimp out of doing an inspection this week and get...

Oops I posted twice, I thought my quick reply had not worked. I use a J shaped tool. I do not routinely scrape the wax of the top of the frame as I thought the bees would just replace it. My burning question is how to manage my current situation.

I have done a practical course (same bee breed as mine) and attend my local Group practical sessions (for beginners) when I can - National hives. I do not seem to have a problem there, but then the frames do not get stuck between boxes. The MB equivalent to the crown board is a sheet of clear...