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This could make a good opening post for an independent thread but probably best not to...

This all gets very blurred in my mind, the moment 'local bees' are mentioned. If we're talking of a specific area where Amm remains clearly dominant in type and behaviour then I agree it's narrow sighted to. Introduce any other subspecies however, often, when people refer to their 'local bees'...

I'm not sure he says it *all* although he does say a lot. He's a man that openly admits he'll bring in queens if and when he needs to while continuing to breed his own as far as possible. Now, I'm not actually convinced that a travelled queen is ever quite as good as she might have been if left...

No. That wasn't my question, I wouldn't question you wanting local bees, that's pretty much what I have myself* at the end of the day. My question was about non local bees not doing well in your environment which I felt was the implication of your statement that local bees are suited to the...

Serious question, have you found non local bees to struggle in your particular environment, if so, is there a clear reason as to what causes their difficulties?

Bindweed is flourishing this summer

I've not been using the full stop so that probably explains things although I've also been thrown by him not showing as an option in the drop down when I start to type his name

Couple of mentions of Pete Little in this thread but as I understood his posts on the subject he used Hoffman in the broods (being a fan and maker of 1.5" spacing) and castellations in the supers. Randy Oliver's recent National Honey Show video has some good pointers on comb/frame...

Your current plan isn't your gut instinct, it's advise from other people who may well be right but if they're not then it's your bees which will suffer.

Sometimes we need to go with gut instinct

Seems like an offer too good to refuse

Not on topic but Julian Johnstone, when he was working as an inspector, used to carry a selection of benzaldehyde soaked rags on a biscuit tin under the passenger seat in case of emergency. It certainly saved me from an even worse stinging in the middle of an apiary of 20+ ferocious colonies...

It happens but far more rarely with the horizontal wired frames than with the diagonal wired foundation. Not sure why that should be but it's definitely a 'thing' which can be easily observed if you have similar quantities of both

I'm reawakening this thread simply to add an interesting YouTube video (some of the question and answer section gives real pause for thought) on the subject of drones. Dr Garrett Slater:

Manley appears to have been writing about mating nucs absconding despite using the term 'mating swarm' going so far as to give advice on stopping such mating swarms. Manley, Honey Farming: Another trouble met with by the queen-rearer is the loss of virgins with mating swarms. These swarms...

Ludicrous advice. As if you'd want to recombine if the requeening failed

I have a lot of sympathy with the baseline of this thread; don't tolerate aggressive bees. It's something I've been saying for a long time now, but I can't really see a blanket approach of killing such colonies to eradicate the drones as being acceptable practice. It doesn't necessarily follow...

Warre did, as I believe Bernhard Heuval did/does. ICKO in France sell a warre frame extractor (at least, they certainly did up to quite recently when I last looked at their website)

No, that's out of context. My post which you've quoted was to point out to finman that warre did allow the use of frames