Recent content by tudorcd

There is a great app for your smart phone called "Plantsnap" you focus on the flower which it looks up in it's database and hey presto ! And I have just used it on th screen image and is confirmed Epilobium hirsutum as "Codlins and Cream"

Has anyone intentionally or a accidentally united two hives without using either of the methods being discussed ? I am curious whether war really occurs, or we all believe in a legend we are too nervous to challenge. Thanks.

Do you have any support for this statement ? My understanding is that the size of the thorax prevents queens passing through the QE, and that includes virgins. Not the size of the abdomen. Thanks.

The content in this thread does not seem to follow bee physiology as we understand it. Could it be that there is a logical flaw from the beginning ? OP, could you please post some good pix of the "eggs" - no personal insult intended.

You can improve the odds by setting up a 4 frame nuc with a protected cell as well as the main hive, so only one queen needs to get mated to solve your problem. Queen cells are cheap here (NZ$10) compared to mated queens (a lot more), so hedging bets could work well. What are your prices like...

Here I find that using a protected queen cell works well and there is no need to find the incumbent queen. The newly hatched queen acts as the "assassin" and dispatches the old, and after 9 weeks all of the previous generation of bees will have gone. Interestingly, some hives become much...

Yes, one of the signs of a small or virgin queen is that the legs are too big ...

Thanks, I did not know that it was from your hives. Here I pass on about 30 swarms each year to our team of "Swarmers", and most are "foreign" as bee keepers don't call them in, of course, just handle them from their own hives.

It is recommended not to feed a swarm because there may be AFB spores in the honey brought along. The adult bees use the honey for drawing frames and they are not affected by the spores. If they are fed, the travelling honey is stored. We had a case of AFB in a hived swarm 3 years ago, and the...

In the Eastern states of Australia one can get Yellow Box (Euc melliodora) honey which is a very nice honey and not full of the taste of gum. And Leatherwood (Eucryphia lucida) honey from Tasmania is powerful and challenging, great on porridge. We don't import honey to NZ, so visiting my grand...

We can buy a Chestnut honey in New Zealand from New Plymouth, it must be from Sweet Chestnut as it comes in from the orchard during pollination. It's delicious and very sweet. And I have been sent a pic of pollen from local Horse Chestnut which is bright red, very pretty. Taken by Stephen...

If you are finding eggs this means that the queen is still in the hive (as of a few days ago). Part of the prodrome of swarming is that the bees reduce food to the queen to slim her down for flying, and she usually stops laying as a consequence. Unless there are lots of bees choking the hive...

If the QE is left in, is an exit needed for the drones as they hatch out ?

Thanks MartinL. I suppose, in my ignorance, I was thinking of a result of getting the bees into a hive so they could be treated for varroa in late summer and brought through winter. Rather than being locked in a box with the crown board plastered down by wild combs. Or are varroa not a problem...

This could be handled in the "cut out" method of getting the bees out of a tree, and a split ... Principle is to move all the bees into another box, and they need a queen, then the original queen and hive wither away. Steps: Move hive off. Put new box on site with one frame of brood and some...