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Locally last year/early this year we had high winter losses in some areas .. largely due to isolation starvation from November /Early December due to c 9 continuous nights of -8 to -10C and days of -1C maximum. My local allotment lost 1 out of 4 , others lost 6 out of 13. One lost all his...

Horrible Queen Less?

Air freshener is quicker , easier and less wasteful of newspaper which if of the tabloid variety is best used as an inferior alternative to toilet paper.:eek: (I am old enough to recall Izal with a shudder)

I dump my virgin in a mating nuc and then damp workers on top. Never lost qs that way. BUT I take all my workers from supers above A QE , dump them in a plastic (Shiny sided so crawling up impossible) box and let the flying bees fly away, then spray with water. No drones ,no Q ,minimum hassle

Sparrows normally. When I ran TBHs with perches at entrance , I had to wire them off with chicken wire as the sparrows perched on the landing board to catch bees.

The good news: 14C highest temperature this week. The bad news@: raining again. Fed all 10 nucs. 1:1 solution Fed Q rearing hive - no rearing at present. Fed two honey colonies: fondant No spring honey left to harvest: bees need it.. 2 Qs emerge from incubator : into Apideas. No more QR...

The current weather is killing off queen wasps locally without any help from me. Found two dead in a week: unheard of this time of year.

I found the queen laid up my Jenter kit: left it three days for young larvae .. and found the bees had removed the eggs. Happened twice. Queens hardly laying despite feeding.. We have had 4 weeks of near continuous dark days/rain and maximum 13C temperatures.. Locals have central heating going...

Average 9 on Lang Jumbo = 18 National frames Nucs on 5 frames (National) except 3 x 11 frames (I sell nucs and these are results of this year's splits and are fed daily.

More than one person has given up when bees surround them and every landing may be the precursor for a bee sting.. Or not. Buy nothing - as above - until you know you like it..

I recall a drinking session in Dingwall when a student....but that is all I do remember

Trying Jenter# system as opposed to NIcot or grafting (not very good) Set up my Jenter system yesterday. Feeding donor double nuc as no flow. Eggs today. So far so good. # £11 on offer from Amazon vs £72 from Bee Equipment. seems ok. some fits dubious but usable. with gaffer tape. Had to...

:welcome: Where on the NE coast? I grew up in Macduff. (I kind of vaguely recall this conversation years ago...)

Similar conditions here. - only 30 odd miles away. Too cold to extract: 8C at night., 12-14C days.. Queen rearing not fun.

Can you do woodwork? If no, you need to. You can diy and make a lot of your own equipment BUT you need skills to do so. Have you enough money to live on whilst spending money on equipment? If no, forget it. Have you ever been stung by honey bees? If no, you cannot be serious. Three "nos" and...

Had the all clear from the Bee Inspector who went through with me all my 24 hives/nucs in two and a half hours on Monday morning. One hive had a false positive EFB field test which the lab test ruled out this am. Much relieved.. but logic suggested the one cell involved was unlikely to be...

I used to run TBHs. In summer I had three 1* entrances. Corked down in winter to one.

After my fiasco using Nicot in bad weather, I reverted to grafting: 20 grafts to Cloake Board starter /finisher from my calmest and most productive hive. If I get a success rate of 40% I will be delighted. As my eyesight is rubbish - I have varifocals -I used an Optivisor head band magnifier...

Local bees are best IF - and ONLY -IF you can find a local supplier of calm, productive bees. I have seen local nucs sold with local queens with totally unacceptable temperament and others that were lovely to handle and productive.# If I could not get nice local bees, buckfast are the next...

Carniolan: very gentle, very prolific, tend to swarm unless given lots of space. You need to anticipate rather than react in adding supers. Italian: very big brood nests, incapable of surviving harsh winters as big nests in winter.. need loads of stores. UK weather North of Southern England is...