Recent content by wbchive

Each to his own.

I can recommend the one-handed catchers with a sliding door at the base. Great for clipping and marking.

I favour those small, grass pellets that are intended for feeding horses. Light a bundle of hessian and puff it till it’s well alight then drop a handful of horsey food on top and keep puffing for a bit. This will give you a full Flying Scotsman and it’s cool and won’t make your eyes water when...

Tim Rowe’s methods were fine for his situation but perhaps not so suitable for general use. For example, his one-size boxes were easily and cheaply made - providing you had access to some quite advanced woodworking tackle. Furthermore, his hives were usually situated near woodland so swarms...

My (mainly) heather honey likes to ferment in the jar despite my reducing the water content in a dehumidified room before pressing the comb. The only way I have to deal with it is to empty the offending jars into a double pan and pasteurise it. It seriously alters the character of the honey but...

His glass is half full.

Good luck with that. You may get the famous response.

What's a glass?

Do you think it's all over? There are miles of beautiful, purple heather between Bingley and Ilkley and the bees can't get up there because of the cold/wind/rain. What a pain! Steve

That explains it, then. Thank you for the replies. The bees did not react to her. She just walked down between the frames as if she'd always lived there. I expected that because she did not have the same scent they would treat her as an outsider and attack her. In future I will play it safe and...

My dad used to protest angrily to his neighbour who sat in his garden with an air rifle shooting the sparrows that visited his bean plants. The neighbour just kept on shooting. The sparrows just kept on visiting.

Months ago I split a colony. The queenless bees above the Snelgrove board steadfastly refused to raise a new queen. I gave them eggs from downstairs and they raised them as workers. Eventually I reunited top and bottom using newspaper (Yorkshire Post) and they fought like Samurai. Next day there...

+1 for madasafish. If he's attracting rats the Environmental Health Department will be very interested, particularly as he's producing food.

Lovely pictures, Torq. I've just set the second one as my desktop background. Steve

Please keep contributing. There's always someone who knows better, even when they don't. I've had warm frames collapse in the extractor - very messy. Presently I take off the supers and leave them in the kitchen overnight to cool down. Steve