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So today I decided it’s the best weather - took half day annual leave to try and find and mark the queens in artificial split nuc, main hive, and move the remaining 14 x 12 frames from the Bailey comb change into both of these to reinforce with some fresh capped brood. main hive queen -...

Firstly a bit of an update - thank you for the advice on Apis Mel 30c from Amazon. Made a big difference and will keep using in future. well what’s happened since the last update: Last week inspected - marked last years queen (the prime swarm nuc), Queen from this year from overwintered nuc and...

On a warm day your better being slower - fast movements can irritate the girls where slow and steady works.

Sadly took a piriton immediately - just seem to swell up when zapped.

The indent dip is where knuckle was - could be interesting as swelling can only increase over next few days before decreasing - localised only - so not having an allergic reaction.

One thing I hadn’t twigged was the need if swarmed to go through and knock down and queen cells - thinking had missed one from knocking down to one the day before the prime swarm - it’s taken me too long to grasp this. I went through today (was out when had a small cast swarm - caught) - and...

Our BBKA association previous apiary was next to a field containing horses with no issues - nor anything other than the usual barbed wire fence between. key requirement is to not have aggressive or guardy bees -even without horses you would want peaceful bees in the garden -try and get a colony...

Other than with rain threatened went up in suit with no gloves - one got up cuff and another at point cuff elastic must have caught it - currently on business trip up in Manchester with one forearm and wrist twice the size of the other. I’ve picked by the Wally Shaw book, Swarming, biology and...

Thanks - going to try that - hoping varifocals work as my old glasses were just distance / however 3 of us couldn’t find any eggs in the hive - just also really thrown by the capped queen cell and old queen co-existing for 8 days. think I need to accept that regardless of weather being below 15...

Well today officially makes in a nightmare for my first spring as a beek. I only got my nuc in June and within two weeks a queen cell so did an artificial split - both hives came through the winter strong and ended up having to empty some winter stores from the overwintered nuc supers to make...

Great advice Enrico, Drstrngr2 - Are you and D treating for Varroa in autumn? What do you do to winterise yourself hives?

Had some advice that with OSR you should extract when can turn the frame flat and shake and nothing if you have a refractometer you could also check that water % is below 18. Not an expert but sharing advice from one of the longer serving beeks in Kent on how he handles OSR. When the flowers...

Second the chicken feeder - I use a 12L capacity one with gravel.

Welcome Great sources of advice on here (sometimes contradictory) but everyone will explain their thinking and a great place to learn.

Massive help - indications are swarmed on Tuesday - last inspected previous week so although there were play cups they weren’t charged. However this week has been commuting 2 hours each way to Croydon so no opportunity. However now have a second NUC as took advantage of the Queen cells for a...

Going down to Wales to pick up 3 of Ceri’s NUC’s - 1 for me and 2 other local beeks.

glad it’s not just me - the main hive has started to cap supers which were empty at the end of Feb - seem to have had an early flow. Extracted as needed some built out frames - didn’t have space to store capped stores, tastes more like Honey than sugar syrup -my syrup fed contained thymol (Hive...

Heavens I wouldn’t sell it - never my intention, just nice after such a bad year last year to get a chance of extracting anything.

Interestingly refractometer arrived - tested and Brix 82% Water 18%. Good chance to learn and practise prior to proper spring extract around May. Alex

This was the 16th February this year - many days like this