Recent content by thundercat

I am gutted... This year, I started with two strong colonies. One swarmed (a BIG swarm), but I recaptured them and this colony grew to become a double brood, six super hive. Which was fantastic given the horrible weather in the UK this year. The other two colonies grew (on double brood), but I...

I have a spare Q, and my plan is to dissect her, and make some slides (for the microscopy practical exam). I would like to get the mouth parts and the ovaries on slides, but what's the best way to do this? That is, do I first mount the Queen to open up the abdomen, and then extract the ovaries...

Two to Four Colonies? One colony had swarmed, but I got them back. That Q was very prolific and she has very quickly filled a brood and a half [with eggs] in just a few weeks. Hoping her former colony has a new mated Q. Weather has been awful, so worried about drone Q. Other colony had a picky...

She's Back Well, I don't have to worry about the original colony, as on my next inspection, the old Q was still there. As for the Q cells in the nuc box, the cells are empty, so the Q is out and hopefully, she has gone on a mating flight. Will wait another week to see if she starts laying.

I inspected the hives yesterday (I only have 2 on double brood boxes). One of them was perfectly fine, but the other had lots of Q cells (many of which were "meant" so I took them off). One frame had three sealed queen cells, so I removed this frame and put it in a nuc box. The hive is a...

Stores I took the fondant off, and the bees have been very busy on the crocuses, daffodils, snowdrops, camelias and hazel. I will check on them early next week to see how they are doing. If they need a feed, I'll probably water down the fondant assuming it's 80% sugar. I have a refractometer to...

It was a glorious day yesterday in England, and I gave the bees a good look. Even though it's only 2nd March, they are busy actively bringing in pollen and making honey. We had a very mild winter; they were even flying on Christmas eve! I have two BS National hives (one double brood, and one...

Preserving Bees The best way to preserve the bees (for later dissection/examination) will probably be to store the samples in an isopropyl alcohol (ipa). Ideally, you would want a ipa and water mix (80-85% ipa), but pure ipa won't make much difference.

My Two Pence We had a very low mite drop after treating with Apistan (resistant mites?) in the autumn. However, we a very noticeable mite drop when we treated with Oxalic acid in late Jan. It's hard to say whether we would have had the same impact if we had treated with something other than OA...

Not 400x I'll again throw in my hat with the "it ain't 400x" crowd. When you get to that level of magnification, the depth of field is incredibly shallow and everything you see looks flat. Any any depth would be signaled by areas that appear out of focus.

It's not mice I am very doubtful that the cause is mice. Mice would eat the whole bee, not just the heads. Moreover, the thorax is the most nutritious part (not the head). As was already mentioned, decomposition is a more likely cause. If you have a mouse guard on already, then as the...

Sorry, I mis-wrote... I meant "using Apistan in the spring" not "using Apistan as a spring feed". When I next treat for Varroa in the spring, I will definitely want to use something that can be used during a nectar flow (just in case we get another hot April). Using Apistan was a BIG mistake...

Contaminated (Not Poison) Honey I contacted Bayer and they told me the honey was NOT suitable for human consumption. I have no objections to feeding it back to the bees. Ultimately, my question is what is the best way of giving the honey back to the bees?

Regrets I am absolutely kicking myself for using Apistan!! :banghead: Who knew that April was going to be the warmest month in 2011 (in the UK anyway)?! I won't be making that mistake again (using Apistan as a spring feed)... On the plus side, the honey is not OSR; it's nice and runny. The...

Last year, I treated my hive with Apistan, but it was a great April and the bees filled two supers with honey. I took off the supers (as they weren't suitable for human consumption), and I have stored them (to give back to the bees at some point). I now want give the supers back to the bees...