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Using eggs and powdered milk in pollen sub is common in the States

I use a cheese knife...something like this... winco-kcp-15-15-cheese-knife-with-double-handles

I used to place unfinished or sticky supers over the crownboard (inner cover), with the escape hole open. I found that too many times, the bees just used the super for any small, late flows. Probably because, essentially, the super was still in contact with the bees' cavity...with just a thin...

How much wood would a Woodchuck chuck .….

All this fiddling and stress...I make 300 nucs each summer. We move them to their apiary and give a caged queen with cork off candy end. No days of waiting. No waiting at all. The bees know they're queenless in an hour or less. No problems. Every year...4 or 5 of the queens aren't accepted. Cut...

Is there a way to delete an Ooops?

Ooops

Good decision

I don't know your climate/flows. I do know your flows last longer than mine. That said, I try to get my nucs made before the flow ends. That would be about mid-July with the end of the Lime flow. I made 303 nucs this summer between 6/30 and 7/9. Each is made up with 1 frame honey, 1 open brood...

I don’t get many vacations. Too busy in the warm months and too cold to leave the house in the winter. Every once in awhile something good comes along that I can’t pass up. See you in October at the National. 🎶🍻

Caught queens. 109/128 nucs. Then re-celled the nucs. Then united the 4 cell builders that were grafted five days ago, with the queen-right mother hives. 186/192 grafts viable. A good day.

Now that you have split the colony, I would expect the temper to ease. Enough to find that old queen. So why not purchase two queens from a good stock, and requeen both hives? Allowing the old colony to raise their own queen will likely result in another colony like the original. IMO

Grafting Day. 192 total grafts from 6 different breeders. Had some folks stay late from yesterday's queen rearing workshop. Members of the Penn State EPIQ program...teaching queen rearing and instrumental insemination. I have a part time employ who is enrolled in the program. Got to spend a...

Broke up some over-wintered mating nucs. Made 128 new mating nucs from them. Cells go in tomorrow am. Queens will be ready to catch in 16 days. One more group to establish next Tuesday, and we'll have the 512 done. Looking forward to seeing this year's daughters.

Is there any worker brood?

Where does chalkbrood come from? It must come from somewhere. Are CB spores endemic in our colonies? Does it come in from outside the colony... drifting, robbing, or maybe the communal watering hole. I don't really know. I do know that a hygienic colony will clean up and stop a chalkbrood...

Sorry, I missed this one... Freeze killed brood assay... https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0203969

Well, colonies that remove chalk mummies before they become contagious, will never suffer from the disease. Chalkbrood can't maintain its infection if none of the mummies form spores.

An hygienic colony will remove any chalk mummies before they become infective.

Chalkbrood persists due to faulty genetics. Period. No amount of sunshine or ventilation, or any other manipulation will rid of a colony of their chalkbrood...permanently. Now, the frozen brood assay is the answer. You identify the colonies that are the most hygienic...something over 95% for...