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Last year I used nuc method on a very strong colony - as per the descriptions here. I went in six days after removing the queen and took down (meticulously!) all the QCs but the one I wanted, shut them up and left them to it. Ten days later, I was in the apiary when they swarmed! 'D**n', I...

A humbling story... Beekeeping in Yemen

Very dependent on location, I think. Lancs and Ceredigion are very different local climate. Here in S Midlands we are more like the latter, and I saw lots of snowdrop, crocus, hazel and hellebore pollen going in. And I've just discovered (being slow on the uptake and low on observational skills)...

Where can I buy hives made from Pembs WRC? I'm up for that on grounds of sentiment alone 😊

But possibly better than sheep, or forage maize, or plastic hives (yes, I have some polynucs - very useful)

" UK plantation-grown cedar bears little resemblance to Western Red Cedar from the British Columbia coastal regions, and it differs in performance too. Canadian cedar is rated ‘Class 2 (durable)’ according to the EN 113 standard. By comparison, the UK grown Western Red Cedar is rated class 3...

Seems like we are two nations, doesn't it?! I spent yesterday morning doing quite hard work clearing and shifting brambles in my very sheltered, south-Midlands apiary, wearing jumper, heavy coat, hat and overtrousers (and gauntlets!). I did not feel minded to take any of them off. Winds in...

Dale Gibson, of Bermondsey Street Bees (near the Shard) gave a talk to Warks BKA last week. He is moving bees out of his part of London to more rural locations at the end of the tube/DLR etc, because he is convinced that the density of hobby hives is such that it is now leading to falling...

"Sticky Wicket Honey" :leaving:

I finally got around to watching this and really enjoyed it. The way the film immerses you in the (awesome) alien landscape and lifestyle is impressive. It felt so far removed from our crowded, industrialised, commercialised, westernised lives - as if it was the opposite end of the earth -...

I went to a talk by an owl expert, who rescues injured individuals and returns them to the wild where possible. She said barn owls hunting in the daytime is very common and normal. Tawny owls generally only hunt at night, and prefer to hunt in woodland, rather than 'quartering' open fields as...

I hate this government as much as any other fair-minded Trot, but I think even they have worked out which way the wind is blowing (sorry) on the energy market. I'm sure Little Britain will be behind the curve (what's new) but I suspect the numbers alone will make it happen more quickly than...

The future might include - almost limitless low-cost, low-carbon energy from renewables (the technology exists and the cost is plummeting) - low-cost meat and/or meat substitutes, grown at large scale in factories, substituting for the low-end processed meats that most people eat most of the...

I've lived on farms, I've lived in villages, I've lived in towns, I've lived in cities, I've lived on top of a hill in Africa. People are pretty much the same everywhere. Some of them I get on with and some of them I don't

Wishing you well. This is all quite alarming really.

Do you mean you yourself have had the bug twice (confirmed by tests)? I'm asking because just at the same moment I saw this a friend wrote to say his son & d-i-l have it for the second time - but their first dose was untested so they cannot be 100% sure. If this is becoming commonplace, it's...

Fantastic info - thank you. I'm glad you put the bit in about the "early days" - I had an image of you sitting in a shed for the whole Covid winter with a knitting needle, working through 5000 colonies worth of honey... Is there a good, written source for more detail about the crystallisation...

When a single substance goes from liquid phase to solid phase, that's true. Crystallisation of honey is the precipitation of crystals from a super-saturated solution, rather than a simple phase-change, so the situation is certainly more complex than just going from liquid to solid. You may still...

:leaving:

As far as I can see, in a rather fuzzy image, the ingredients list on the tub says simply "crystalized invert sugar syrup". Nothing else I had some contact (on other products) with Choc Falls and they were very helpful