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I've said it before and I'll say it again - the eco credentials of wood are much over-rated. Where do you think your western red cedar hives are coming from? How are they being transported? What is fuelling that transport? Utter hypocrisy to decry poly hives when the felling and processing...

Hi Pete - I looked at Dulux Weathershield. Is that what you mean? I thought it was pretty expensive stuff and the Cuprinol paint has been fine - nice muted shades. I've done the BBs and roofs a dark green and the supers and floors a lighter green.

Just been painting my 5 new Swienty hives with Cuprinol Garden Shades with no apparent ill effects - no melting poly for sure! Water based and comes in better colours than the vomit-inducing pastel shades masonry paint seems to come in. And it was on offer at Homebase a couple of weeks ago.

And another keyboard warrior is revealed. What is it with you lot and your need to insult people? "Wear the robe of the barbarian"?? - if I typed what I just thought in reply to that I'm pretty sure admin or HM would have banned me. Don't they have forums in your black cloud place here you...

Civilised yes, hushed no. For all the polarity you'll ever need I suggest heavy use of this forum's search facility.

Phew - I can open my eyes again!

Not a generalisation at all. I was referring to the specific supplier of the OP's queens - easy to ID from the info he provided. I wasn't speaking about the generality of queen breeders. And do we really want to get into the issue of local versus imported? It's yet another polarised debate...

Agreed! We have a forecast of between -1 or -10 for the same night. Slight difference! I'm going to take note of what it actually turns out to be and then we'll see.

Sorry but I don't think there's going to be much of a guarantee with a cheap imported queen. If you want or need to buy in queens your best bet would be to try to source them locally and from someone who lets their queens establish a proper brood pattern in their mininuc before sending them...

Complete dimwit! Not the first "PhD" to be thick as mince.

Beginner big mistake - not joining this forum and taking advantage of all the fine information on offer. Also - most of the beginners I come across seem to think the bees can fit into their lives with out them putting a lot of effort into finding out how best to care for them. Beekeeping is a...

How long is a piece of string? That's not a question anyone can answer properly. I suspect the swarm cells might produce a better fed queen. But you'll be waiting around for them to produce swarm cells when you could already have started the process or even already have mated queens from...

There's any number of qualities you might base the selection of a breeder queen on - what they are depends on you really but might include temper, low swarming impulse, stillness on the combs etc etc.

What is to be gained? Er...you get to choose who's going to be the mother to your next crop of queens rather than the bees. And it's very young larvae that get grafted not eggs.

Teach yourself to graft - it's really not that difficult

True?! D-ya think o9o? Hmmm...twas sarcasm me old curmudge!

Didn't you realise - no-one thinks about anything as deeply as o9o. Our puny minds just don't match up to his Stephen Hawking-like one!

Interesting statement there. Why did you have to? Were you going to do anything to sort out a possible problem? Or was it just for your own peace of mind? I suspect it was more to benefit you than the bees My take on it is that there's nothing to be done just now other than to make sure...

I hate to tell you but the BBKA has no remit north of the border. Not sure about Wales.

Like I said I admire the intention Pargyle and I'd co-operate were it ever to happen but as an example of how badly beekeepers do with this sort of thing look at the uptake of Beebase registration. I can count on the fingers of one hand the beekeepers I know who are registered on Beebase with...