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I have a much simpler and smaller loader - in effect a mini hiab. Made by Palfinger with an electric winch for raising and lowering hives. The boom can be extended to only about 6 or 7 feet and therefore it is sometimes necessary to barrow hives to within reach of the crane. The raising and...

Not sure if you are serious on this one masterb ? If you are, then I think these are probably the two daftest sentances I have ever read on the internet. I think you may be confusing British Bee Farmers with Starbucks, Amazon, Google etc. If we reach the ultimate pinnacle of - "never making a...

Shook swarms were very effective in my outfit in 2008. I don't have the exact figures to hand but I think we shook about fifty colonies in the summer of 2008 and spring of 2009. EVERYONE of these was successful and apart from one mysterious and unexplainable case of EFB in August 2009 I have...

To undertake a "risky"activity where you are the one at risk is one thing, to then involve unwary others is a different matter.

Yes ACCIDENTS but according to an Accident Investigation policeman I know there is no such thing as a pure accident - always somebodies fault.

Absolutely PH Several years ago I was working bees on OSR and a colony went "beserk" on me. A few days later I learnt that a couple walking up a country lane about a 100 yards away had to flee as this was happening. They each took some stings and decided to take legal advice. Luckily for me the...

As the bees have had such a hard time this year I have, for the first time, used Ambrosia. Prior to this I have always mixed my own 2:1 sugar syrup using only COLD water straight from the tap. I tip sugar into 5 gallon open topped drums/tanks (7 or 8 at a time) and then using a hosepipe add...

Those "issues" , in my experience are nearly always either a queenless stock or a drone layer. I expect there will be an unusally high percentage of drone layers by next spring due to the difficult mating conditions this "summer".

Yep, choose a morning after a severe frost. I lay two pieces of timber, about a foot apart, on a wheel barrow and rest an end of each Q E on these timbers whilst scraping the thickest of the wax off with a hive tool. The Q E are held in a vertical plane and both sides are scraped so most of the...

About 74% sugars

Sort of off topic - sorry, but Could not agree more but the real issue with reusing jars isn't the risk of physical contamination but the less detectable risk due to chemical or biological contamination. We do not know what that used jar has had in it after the honey was consumed. Rat poison ...

Due to increasing costs of artificial fertiliser, clover has had a resurgence in the pastures and set aside around here (North Yorkshire). Three years ago, just as the rape supers had been extracted, the bees went beresk and got me a ton of clover honey in about a week and I thought I saw a new...

I believe that we get a really good year only one in five. My last "boomer" was 2006. No doubt weather patterns have played a part in seemingly ever diminishing yields but that is only part of the problem. From the late seventies up to perhaps 2006 I could average a surplus of from 60 to 80...

Yes, stick at it. Your story has persuaded me to finally post on here. I,very occasionally, retreat from a stroppy stock and that's after 35 years as a semi-commercial beefarmer (160 hives). HOWEVER, I am concerned about this current fad for not using a smoker. Not only does smoke help control...