Search results

I did air my long held view that neither BBKA nor NBU address ongoing improvement of beekeeping in UK. BBKA is stuck on beekeeping as it was, held back unfortunately by the rigidity of its excellent training and educational modules. BBKA is also held back by being an amalgam of local...

Sorry, raw honey does exist in the jars of many ‘natural beekeepers’ who do not feed sugar to their bees. Some of you are really hard to convince that some things may actually be better. but it does not matter - the only people who are disadvantaged by obstinacy are yourselves.

have you any evidence that the health value of (raw) honey is ‘a load of c—-?

Only if you read it before!

Yes , you must be right - for a colony to teach its full potential, there must be sufficient forage thruout the season. But given that, as I see it, since it takes 3 weeks from egg to bee wherever the colony is, a shorter season will limit the max size of the population and so a smaller hive...

Continuing … All my comments are based on keeping bee in London and Hertfordshire. Scotland is a different country far to the north with its own climate, and severe winter temperatures. . I should have identified the climates within I work. Your ideas are interesting. I assume you have a...

May I thank you in return for a corrective and informative response to my post. Helpfull.

There can be some confusion on this . Bees can ‘survive’ in low efficiency cavities, even in open fronted caves. Bees can ’thrive’ in National type hives if the bkr intervenes to replace 1/3 of brood frames per year - tops up winter stores with sugar feeds and with fondant in spring. Bkrs who...

Next biggest is that the UK National hive is good for bees. (can’t resist adding that one!)

Don’t the mid-winter spikes have to be robbing? I have lost 50% of hives, in Jan, worst losses ever. Other bprs here have has losses. How have your neighbours fared?

Can you tell us more about the electronic scales - and graph drawing? I have tried bathroom electronic scales and had to give up - they could not settle consistently. So now using mechanical scales that only read to one lb.

This January - or earlier - I have lost 6 colonies out of 13 long hives , more than I can ever remember. This followed the largest ivy crop I can ever remember. All hives were left with more than 40 lbs of sealed honey and were not fed syrup. All hives were treated with OA and all showed very...

Should have made clear that when Northern Bee Books - and presumably Ardern Books - buy for resale, there is a big discount. So if this forum was used for face-to-face sales, both seller and buyer would benefit.

An excellent idea to use this forum to pass on beekeeping books. Posts on various subjects do sometimes indicate books are not always used to better understand a problem. Old bee books can also be sold as collectors items. Northern Bee Books have the largest collection of new and old books -...

Yes. An African hive needs to throw off excess heat. A UK hive needs to conserve heat almost all year. I think it is a pity that TBH have been promoted so much to beginners on grounds of simplicity and low cost. Deeper long hives are also simple and easy to construct at home.

True that OMF do not reduce vr sufficiently to be a control. but what they do do is enable monitoring the fall of varroa onto a board slid in below, which can detect when varroa numbers leap up due to robing a diseased hive elsewhere. . The lines of fallen brood cappings also show where the...

I do think that you do need to add supers to long deep hives if you want to maximise the crop from the main flow. The reason I believe is that quickly increases the acessible empty comb. The store frames in a LDH are behind the brood if the entrance is at one end - so an extra two or so would...

No, not since mesh floors were introduced for varroa control - now less important as varooa have reduced so much in virility - now useful as the pattern of debris sows where brood is emerging without need to invade the nest above - and important for ventilation in winter - and likely to be...

Lots of advice given but let me add. i have run a TBH just for variety in the teaching apiary but found it a poor home for bees in our northern climate. Bees want to form a spherical brood nest to minimise heat loss - I found the TBH is too shallow and so the long shallow brood nest loses heat...

I think ‘bee experience days’ are a great way to involve the public without going too far initially. Better than just offering trainingcourses, which go too far for some. So good on you! I have run experience sessions for a few years for my association, max 4 visitors so they can get close...