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I second the Boulivo Beekeeping suits. I have 5 now to cater for myself, my wife and kids. They are ventilated suits at a low price (£40). Unless there is a breeze they are still hot, but when that breeze arrives it is amazing. For the price / perceived quality I'd find it impossible to spend...

Now that would definitely be a step too far...very kind though & something to aspire to. Pretty much everyone on here knows more than me, I am but an enthusiastic beginner.

Thankfully you'll find plenty of experienced contributors on this forum who willingly give advice, with explanations. And if they think something was bad, they'll explain why. Erichalfbee, enrico, Ian123, BostonBees, Beebe, pargyl, Swarm, Curly Green Finger's come to mind as being excellent...

Definately no queen present.

When I went through this earlier this season I was also left with a cluster of bees which didn't return to the original hive location. They eventually picked themselves up off the grass and landed in a tree besides them. Two days later they moved into one of my bait hives. I assume there was one...

I'm with you on that - but you work with what you've got & keep your fingers crossed. And yes, I'd agree you do want (atleast ;)) 2 colonies!

I leave the cage in the hive for 24 to 48 hours with the tab left intact (only 48 if I'm introducing for example a Buckfast or Italian into a hive of black bees). Then I break the tab off and leave for 4 days. Generally the queen is released within 1 to 3 days. If they haven't eaten through the...

I also went down the route of shaking out a drone laying worker colony some distance away earlier this year. I added a frame of brood rather than a mated queen (as I could...I'm aware you have just the 1 colony though). In short it worked and the colony has now built up extremely well. Here's a...

It's an obsessive hobby..... I started with my first swarm in May 2021 & went into winter with 5 colonies. By April 2022 I only had 1 Q+ colony - a bad start to the year but I leant lots, I'm now at 6 colonies (down from 9 a week ago having found new homes for 3....1 more still to go). This...

Thanks for that. Although I only need to store for 2 to 3 days, out of interest what a the maximum reasonable time you could store for?

Recently I'm sure I read on there that you can just wrap them in plastic for a few days before extracting if required...? Assuming that is correct. presumably a bin liner around the entire super (obviously not still on the hive before anyone says) would suffice? Or are there other / better ways?

That is a very good point! Thank heavens for that person.... :sneaky:

I do agree - there is something magical about catching a swarm, certainly when you get to see it arrive!

You're like a machine when it comes to catching swarms!

If there's a good population in there & your weather is clement, I'd be tempted to take that sheet they've drawn out 1 side and a bit of and place it in the middle of the brood nest. That said if it's full of stores don't, in which case I'd put a frame with a full waxed sheet in there instead...

In my limited experience, it seems as though things do go fairly slowly to begin with until a certain unknown critical mass is reached and then off they go like a rocket (although maybe a slightly slower rocket at this time of year compared to Spring). I'm assuming the 5 frames the nuc came with...

Just to be certain, how are they off for stores? No food makes the best of us craggy. And varoa levels / when did you last treat? Or of course anything local which could be 'annoying' them?

Honey supers for Dadant contain frames of half the size of the brood box frames, so yes heavy when full but perfectly doable. I can't imagine lifting a brood box full with honey though...that would be extremely heavy. And I only work on 10 frame Dadant rather than the 12 EastEndBees is talking...

I use Dadant 10 frame hives and either 5 or 6 frame nucs, however I'm in France where it's a major force. For simplicity with other beekeepers in the UK it's not an obvious choice. That said, if you're happy buying packages rather than nucs and expect to be self-sufficient then why not. Were I...

I wasn't sure...so I took the serious response :ROFLMAO: ! I also had a cast swarm 18 days ago. Lovely bees. I recently met a Russian guy keeping bees (Carnica) about 2km from me as the crow flies so I'm wondering if I'm getting some nice swarms thanks to him...I know nothing about Carnica. He...