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:iagree: ...though I'll own up to a big nose, a receding chin and a large beard. This is my 1st year with a fencing veil and so far the main thing I've noticed is that I don't notice it. I'm a convert I can confirm that if you fail to zip up the veil then it does not matter what type it is...

Thanks, but I'll bow out. Life's too short

Sorry if my existence causes you inconvenience, I'll just pass by on the other side of the street

To whom has he offered it so far? I don't mean names, I mean how has he tried to contact local beeks? I can think of a couple of people who might be interested

Early/poor crops are turning even here. I'm hoping to get OSR honey off before heading for a week in France on 3 June. C'mon team

It's only 2 or 3 years since we were feeding bees all summer and people were telling me I was lucky to have got any successful matings at all It's not like last year, but I suspect few years are! I agree with this though: I wonder if they are having to spread out the nectar across a lot of...

Tried the "cut the wrong branch and then collect the bees from the floor" method of swarm collection. Worked in the end but a tad messy. Not recommended. Fun though

That's hard to do. It's pretty unavoidable to put some eggs in the top and there is a likelihood they will create emergency QC. You have to keep looking, or put in a board and treat it as an AS I do know a very experienced beekeeper who simply put a QE and a couple of sticks under the back of...

Thanks Tom. Interesting that you would put the brood on top. I thought if I put brood on the bottom it would encourage them to empty out the honey and move up. Wrong again?

Thanks JBM But for example, what I have is a frame (or in fact 8 or 9 similar frames) in the top box where the older brood in the centre have emerged, but the younger brood on the extremity are still incubating. Nevertheless the colony have 50-70% filled the emerged cells with nectar Yes...

My 2 week old Demaree has succeeded so far (despite missing 3 QC in the top box on the 1st check - oops). Brood thinning out in the top box; drawing comb and laying in the bottom box; bees happy However, as Wally Shaw warns, as fast as they are hatching brood, they are filling the cells with...

Bees look good. You lose marks on carpentry :leaving: Some impressive loads of pollen

Crikey - is it a bit rough in the West? I'm planning full inspections today!

Min of Ag stats. show an increase in population of 2.5-3 times since 1975 - pretty much straight line, rather than exponential. That's also pretty much the time we started planting OSR to help them through the late winter I found a source that says pine martens prey on wood pigeon too. Let's...

Last year I wrote "**** started" in my diary on 11 Apr and was confident enough that it was over to be extracting on 27 May I think it will be later this year - but if I find individual frames ready for extraction before then (which currently looks unlikely!) I will take them, because even that...

All the thumbnails prior to post 31 are not present or active for me, but 31 and following are fine. Anyone any idea why? Are you going to put them all in your web gallery?

:iagree: Though mine were busy yesterday and coming in dusted with yellow, so maybe it's picking up

Thanks, that's helpful. I got QCs in the top BB, which I half expected. Have cut them out and transferred one to a nuc. No sign of QC in the bottom box after a week, so I hope I'm in the clear as they have drawn her some new comb My logic was that a couple of (not full) frames of brood at...

Not hyperbole. My Italian boss has been stopped twice by US police because he was walking in public

How wet were those fields over winter? OSR is very sensitive to waterlogged ground - the root system does not develop and the dry spring we have had could be stressing a crop with poor roots. Most of the OSR round here, even good crops, is restricted height - due to cold dry spring I think...