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Keeping a few hives in the garden is extremely simple, running 100's as a commercial operation with Queen breeding, disease/external pressure control and all the biz logistics is hard and takes decades to master (which is why it's interesting). I've one stock sitting in a wood, two brood and...

Plenty of folk stop inspections in April ha ha - depends on what you're doing, but for standard hobby beekeeping prob when the supers came off start of August.

Had it created from my design by a stained glass artist Well spotted, had no issues yet and the box is mainly used for order collections

My 2p - I'd concentrate on level of skill not hives, I've always thought 5 years min to become semi-decent and that is after 1000's hours graft (it's a complex business). After 5 years 50, after 10 - 100+ etc and bolt on all the extra skills needed. You need to figure out what works for you...

Ha certainly graft but nothing special. I use the best heated knife there is, an uncapping tank plus custom rack that holds 50+ frames and a 40 frame extractor (with a huge filter system and a few other bits). Frames (not first year and also spaced to get full nice thick frames), can uncap them...

100 standard super boxes (SN4) can be processed in a day with not much kit, the expense is the food grade facility to house the kit and storage. My setup would cost 50-80k for an idea, i'd not rent this out simply due to disease risks. With my setup the honey ends up *jar ready* same day, saves...

You have two farmers with many hives in totally different climates both quoting the same stuff. I'm very sure the bees would not waste their time collecting resource that will end them, those traits would be rendered out of the equation if it were the case in the bigger picture. Ref internal...

Simple test you can try; starve a colony then stick rock solid fondant on the bars late Dec/Jan, watch what happens (or place a frame of *solid* ivy in there 🙂 - (or OSR you saved from Spring)

Fondant for years here (quick/simple) but don't be too keen, around these parts late October/Nov and only if the hives are not rammed with ivy.

Yeah wrong - Bucket £4/lb (16oz) Jar @ £4.50 (12oz) - £6/lb Jar b2b minus - Jar/Label/Delivery/Fuel/Packing/Kit to process (a lot at scale(jar washer/bottle machine/Label machine/filtering etc etc etc) and a food spec building (rent?) and your time/wage etc. At a more realistic £6 a jar, that...

£4lb bucket rate here, £3.50 for OSR no problem (if you wanted to process that carp). Your £4.50/12oz/£6 is off as you're not accounting for the jar/label/pack/fuel (kit)/time etc etc.. so it's actually less than bulk buckets which was my original point (if you look at the numbers). I white...

Not opinion but business, if you sell at near bulk rates then simply sell the lot at bulk and save a load of work, simple/makes sense. At those prices they need to shift large volume to make a basic living, lifting to £6 b2b the outlets will still sell for a higher margin no problem and save a...

Local bee farmer to me is selling to ALL the outlets around here for £4.50 12oz jar which seems pointless, take off the jar/label/fuel/work costs and it's below bulk rates. His outlets are selling at £5.95 12oz so cheaper than the local Facebook dodgy looking honey. I'm selling to my outlets...

Indeed, all part of the planning regarding the move to large frames if you want to take full advantage (or the hassle it causes). TBH you could prob buy a used large extractor cheap and stick it in the garage or shed for little ££.

Ideally, for large frames you want a large machine, I use a 40 Frame Electric Radial Extractor - no issues and extract 100's (using pre wired frames, 4 wires).

Look at Mike Palmers brood factory set-up, one of his YT vids mentions age/back etc (the bonus being a very flexible system) and he covers the honey frame side. I'm setting these up next year and will post progress etc, for brood and honey.

Using fondant to build comb in many Apideas - this is how they become established (syrup would be a nightmare)

This is nonsense, if the defensive trait(s) (data) is not available and of the correct type it won't cause offspring to suddenly become killer bees. You can test this with SDI using whatever cross you like, try it. I've seen a lot of posts on here around defensive bees, i'd bet 99% of the time...

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