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Not beekeeping error, just biology in action. Which makes head-in-sand syndrome even worse.

@hive8 you're on the right track, I think that poisoning has now become a very rare occurrence in the UK, assumption (I know we shouldn't assume, but we do) these days is probably best laid at the door of CBPV. ----------------------------- There was a local beekeeper who plastered photos of...

I'd benefit from the lack of interest and keep them. Chances are, if the queen mates well they'll make a great stock next summer and repay this year's effort.

Those 0.9 queens are always rubbish

Yes, some of the podcast material was very good.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for some of those reports. There's probably a lot of useful observations to be made by hands off beekeepers but I'd have thought that they'd need a level of hands on management skill before they could really know what they were observing.

At least you can have an interesting conversation about treatment free beekeeping, conversations about 'do nothing' beekeeping may be a little more of a niche interest.

Not sure if it's still active but Phil Chandler used to run such a forum. Think it was under the bio bees banner, but not looked in for a long time so it may possibly be defunct now. Worth a look.

Sceptical, you're not the only one! A photo of a swarm with a clipped queen.all of those bees would be gone with a virgin the following week if something wasn't done: Edit: @Garry R , brood bodies made from phenolic ply, should probably have been painted.

Yet people have made money with warres, it's the individual that makes it work or not, my point has consistently been that I don't think the warre methodology as promoted by some fans of the system will ever be scalable on a commercial basis but if you give me a box I'll make queens, bees and...

From the 5th edition of Warres book, copied from the bio bees website (my highlight): "Nowadays, I recommend without hesitation the People's Hive with fixed combs, even for very large enterprises. [...] However, out of respect for the freedom of my readers, I will describe the People's Hive in...

I understand what you're saying

Progress

Lots of warres are ran with frames in Europe to the extent that holtermann and icko carry them as standard stock. Time moves on

I'd second @hemo with regards to clipping queens in the spring following their first year as a general management method.

I think the issue to a large extent is that the hive itself is inextricably linked to the warre methodology in many people's minds. The two needn't be the same, the box, ultimately is just that and can be used along the usual lines without any of the nadiring business. As far as I know the well...

@elainemary may have just cause to roll eyes and shake her head at what follows considering our exchange on the subject of clipping back in January. Anyway, I always reserve the right to change my mind if need be, and this season with a partially screwed hand I took the decision to clip any...

I'd love a name in this instance if you can remember. To be fair, I'd imagine that he had some clue, certainly enough to be exporting Italian queens to the UK in the 1920s. That said, I think his system is a disaster but even then, in the context of being a method for impoverished peasants to...

@Andy, that's actually quite a nice idea

Because of the comparative low cost of setting warres up I've been playing around with a few warres on a purely hobby basis for a few years now, trying to fathom out whether it really would be practical on a commercial scale or just a labour sink. My thoughts from early on, and I've found no...