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I'm presuming you have wooden boxes already and not poly. If you enjoy woodwork there are loads of options. I like Sutty's and Penninetraders's suggestions. I have a previous injury and there is no way I'm lifting national supers as the ergonomics is all wrong. That was one of the reasons I...

Lusby also popularised Housel positioning, but again there is no evidence that this is a real thing.

She's definitely a fantasist. Her studies of small cell or natural comb theory around the world were completely made up, yet I still continue to read that this is the way to stop varroa.

Which will lock you into treating for varroa. Personally I'd go for the local nuc now. It'll give you quite a few months of watching bees and there is lots to be learnt (and a lot of pleasure) by just doing that. Such a lot of fuss and nonsense spoken on here whenever somebody shows an...

0.5mm times 11 frames is 5.5mm. You might again argue that is not a big deal, but it can be the difference between fitting a dummy board or not. And you definitely don't want anything projecting above the rim as that stops sliding boxes.

Okay thanks. That's how I'll use them then. They are probably better when they are stuck on. I read somewhere that the old metal spacers were 36.5mm, which is why I measured the plastic ones. The only way I could get 36.5 was to alternate their orientation.

I don't see the problem unless you're one of these (deleted) who want to kill everything.

This might sound a silly question, but where are the plastic ends supposed to go? If you literally put them on the end then that makes handling frames more awkward. Most pictures I've seen of them have them positioned across the rails, but then that messes with your bee space as it raises up...

I think you did well to change the direction of combs. Are you using starter strips or full foundation? It gives me some hope as I've started a custom hive that is going to have it's super frames at a right angle to its brood frames. At the moment I've bodged it so they are in the same...

Could you describe that? My understanding is you could just mount national/langstroth frames at 90 degrees in a layens frame. Fill in any voids with wood, or let the bees fill the rest of the layens frame up with comb if there is a good flow on. If you want completely new comb then...

Yes but you know what scout bees look like and would have known if you'd previously had a colony in there. Whereas the general public is less observant. They could easily misinterpret orientation flights as a swarm arriving. Or even a swarm leaving as a swarm arriving. From the opening post...

Today I cut my thatching straw. It's still a bit green which I'm concerned about, but some naughty mammal was removing the heads and I wanted to still have some seed left. Not sure yet if I'll turn it into a skep or use it to insulate a horizontal hive. It made a change from growing potatoes.

Cherry laurel has a totally different flower shape

What a stupid thing to say.

Anyway, I'm still waiting for the lime tree near me to start flowering. There are buds there, but they are taking an eternity to open.

Nope. It's privet.

Sounds ideal! Most of the bees should still be in a cluster below any new comb. There could of course be the remains of an old colony up there. Yeah I can understand that. I've only done the one extraction from a building and the homeowner was super handy and well up for anything. I went...

It was sort of tongue in cheek. I suppose it wouldn't be too bad in a Henry, but in a clear plastic cyclone vacuum it would be a bit grim watching the bees whizz around. I'd look up how to make a proper bee vacuum.

You make a small hole in the plasterboard ceiling (screwdriver + Stanley knife will do it) and shove the hoover pipe up there. A bit of poly filler and paint and you'll never know they were there. They wouldn't have made too much comb yet, so being serious you could probably extract them with...

I'm a perfectionist and it pains me to see stuff like that, but you have to accept it with home grown cedar. I make a lot of my own boxes and it is just impossible to make them flawless. You'd have to buy Canadian cedar which is at a different price level. An alternative is Paulownia...