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Common Lime to horse chestnut - I'm lucky to have both (and more) here and all very old trees.

10 years ago I ended up in a wheelchair (from sport and muscular back damage (national level athlete) - I tend to use my arms/shoulders and lock core to move weight around (never ever twist) and do lots of core exercise each day so take risks very seriously. When I say strong, moving 50kg boxes...

^^ Insane heights

I use one size (national) but only because commercial and all the efficiencies around doing so. Yes they are heavy (and I'm strong) but never let them build-up to multiple boxes per hive (especially as running DB where needed). It's hard work but far less boxes/processing and a load of other...

I run both, not much difference observed bar the far better protection in these crazy summers of late.

Our definitions of *fresh* and fit for the melter/fire might differ a tad. Here are the frames I'd class as poor, ready to melt vs decent ones I'll save - ^^ To be processed, mix of feed/pollen and not to my standards. Some are borderline, any doubts they get processed. ^^ Fresh

Those concrete hives look like luxury hotels vs some of the dire old oaks I've removed bees from. One next to the house prob had bees living in the rotting cave for over 100 years until the lot came down.

I've many sites (on Mars) and stocks so have to look at the risks vs reward vs time and balance that out. In a few weeks the bees will be dragging in masses of pollen around here anyway. Interested to see the frames for ref.

Image of these frames? I've a few 100 I'm about to melt down that sound like that (if you want them ha). Not worth the time (and bees) and potential hazards so melting the lot. As a test, placed a box of really mouldy super frames on some spare stocks and the bees cleaned them up fine.

Kept bees in a travel correx box over winter a few years back, did fine.

+ 1 Very impressive and well written modern book, loaded with information.

Think about what sort of operation would need that many (queen suppliers?) and not that far from UK. In the US some operations are running 100k + hives. If interested, look into the automation around mating hives in Australia, model rail tracks moving mating hives around to a timing schedule...

Hi Dan, responded to email, was returned but 2nd time seems to have worked, cheers.

https://thewalrusandthehoneybee.com/mating-mathematics/ :)

You could spilt them into testing/RnD groups of 5 and see how that plays out for your bees/environment? - I'd want a solid working method before firing off 30 mini nucs. Speaking to someone the other day that runs 9000 :coffee:

Indeed, top stuff and very informative (as expected) looking forward to flying over there and speaking in person.

Thanks for the rapid posting Dan, looking forward to reading it (y)

Hi Dan, Thanks for the details. Maybe luck and I'll try again against the 3 days dark method this year. I'd literally placed a cup full of wet bees with virgin (hatched from incubator an hour or so earlier) closed them up and moved to mating site, left them for an hour and opened the unit. As...

Great for images.

Zero issues with mine; when not being looked at there are thin ply few mm covers (mainly for darkness) but even that is not really an issue. Room temp was 16-21 most of the year, hive temp 34 + management is key. Bee space standard around frames/glass, some brace comb (little on glass) between...