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Totally agree - but there are all sorts of openings to genuine discussion, including the crackpot ones. I would also suggest that observations 'in the field' often trigger scientific investigation. I don't know this Phellipe chap or his history so I don't have an axe to grind here.

Hey, Happy New Year everyone. I'm not sure where anyone is coming from on here now. Such apparent belligerence - maybe if we were all in the pub somewhere the tone would be different, or at least coloured by the mickey-taking I hope is taking place. Personally, I am not holding a hard-and-fast...

Know what? This isn't a decent kick-around of thoughts. I've tired of your self-important dismissal. It's a complex discussion and your dismissal suggests you haven't really looked far beyond your own opinions. (diagram from Complex Demographic History and Evolutionary Origin of the Western...

maybe not 'suddenly observed', I would suggest; rather, seen around for (possibly) ever, but no longer so frequently kept by beekeepers. As I say, most of the ferral bees I've come across in my job as a tree officer have been blackish - pretty much the opposite ratio of black to the stripy...

Just trying to keep it light - I don't speak Finnish at all; I just typed in a cheeky retort to a translation programme.

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/humans-bees-china_n_570404b3e4b083f5c6092ba9 Pesticide use... There's a difference between 'self-fertile' and 'self-pollinating'. Most apples and pears can be pollinated with pollen from other flowers on the same tree and some need another tree nearby (or...

Ei niin paha kuin hänen englantinsa...

Thanks for the clarification. Not seen that before - and that was the question I was asking.

Now you're just being a tad offensive.

Whilst being a little provocative, I wasn't suggesting they'd not met other bees, but that they were perhaps physiologically unable to cross breed. Over the course of the years I've come across a good number of ferral colonies disturbed during tree felling. Very few of them looked like my...

REally? The multiple queens fly TO a swarm when it has landed? Landed where? ...you have completely lost me here...

Got the first (old) queen bit and I knew about the sisterly love between new-emerging queens, but you haven't answered the query regarding multiple queens in a swarm?

Living and learning - I'd never heard that before and just assumed that the casts got smaller because the swarming bees just hived off on their chosen queen, so if several emerged at once they'd go their seperate ways at that point. Thanks.

...unless they genuinely are a new-found subspecies that really doesn't interact with Apis melifera... Jus sayin

Do you mean actual flying swarms frequently have more than one queen, or just that a colony preparing to swarm can have multiple queens? I've certainly seen the latter, but was unaware that flying swarms often have multiple queens. I've not heard anyone say that before.

:rolleyes: ...sorry I wasn't specific enough. It was just a quick observation - checked mine yesterday in 13C.

possibly because the NBU have just sent out notices telling us that varroa rates are high atm because of the warmer weather...

Ouch - best of luck with that (the plumbing). Good suggestion on the separate label. Makes it more reasonable for label printing generally.

When I first started I was surprised to learn that we're required to put a 'best before' date on our honey labels. To me, this makes very little sense since we know that honey remains edible for many years and potentially centuries (the famously 'edible' honey found in an Egyptian tomb was...

"And no - you can't use taste the difference ... Sainsbury already have it on their 100% pure - FOREIGN honey ..." I'm surprised at the assertion that one can't taste the difference; there is a distinctly different taste to the generic supermarket offerings, indeed there are distinct...