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Thanks @elainemary for such a detailed post, really helpful to have this information. Looks like your candle in the votive glass burns beautifully, were the NT29 wicks successful or are you going to upsize them? I've just had my first ever attempt at making candles and I'm quite pleased with...

I had something similar this week with my garden bees, 4 out of 6 colonies, the boxes were covered in bees and I thought they might be swarming. On investigation it was congestion at the entrance, it was warm, the ivy is in full flow and they were flying like a summers day. I temporarily...

Called out to a small swarm on Tuesday evening (what were they thinking??, no drawn comb so put in a poly nuc with foundation and feed feed feed. Checked today, 2.5 frames already drawn (there are only 2 frames of bees) and the queen is laying. Very fortunate with the weather and...

I would be interested in knowing the outcome of your wick testing please, I'm now thinking of making some votives myself 😁

I have a league table of honey production per hive. Definitely no correlation between temperament and productivity.

Probably a stupid question @elainemary but have you checked out their votive making guide Make Votive Candles ? Does that make it easier? I have a bee buddy who uses 4candles and finds them very helpful and knowledgeable of you phone with a question?

This was so helpful, thank you. I lost 3 queens (out of 13 colonies treated) and have "yellow carded" it using this link. Won't be using it again 😔

Only twice I've ever seen it too, once when I put the clearer board on upside down and once when I'd forgotten to put it on at all. Took a few long seconds of mystified staring at the supers full of bees before I worked out what was wrong. Eejit! 😂😂

I've done that too sometimes 😅

I've found that the uncapping tool of choice impacts the amount of sieve clogging, an uncapping fork scrapes the surface but leaves a lot of the wax in place which then extracts with the honey, blocking the sieve. An uncapping knife removes most of the wax so doesn't block the sieve as...

Sometimes I find, particularly at this time of year, the queen just goes off lay. If you don't spot her during an inspection it's easy to assume she's not there. But the bees are pretty good at self preservation and if she had disappeared or been killed they normally make emergency queen...

I still quite enjoy extracting but with a bumper crop this year found it hard work and tiring, and now understand those that moan. The joy though of seeing the variations in colour and volume of each super, but to top it all, selling both my 8- frame manual extractor and 4- frame electric...

That doesn't change, it's always an adrenaline sport 😂

I most enjoyed my beekeeping when I had 3 in the garden, plenty of time to look at them, AS, workshop time etc. 5 is a good number, I accidentally got up to 12 last year, reduced to 8 this spring by unites, DLQs etc. So far this year I have had 120% swarm rates (they were all preparing to...

An update from the Devon and Cornwall police today is that some of the bees have returned "home" so they are somewhere nearby...

Yes, you are unfortunately in a EFB " hotspot" at the moment, a fellow beek has just had to destroy a number of colonies in your catchment area. Hopefully the seasonal bee inspectors will get on top of it before your bees are due to arrive 🤞

Another 2 AS and that takes it to 100% this year. Now completely out of equipment, energy and enthusiasm 😞. How quickly do you get away with reuniting? And do you always replace the newest queen? I had some lovely tempered queens and they are only last season's

... or any ideas on how to extend the length of the spindle by 1cm - I've tried googling "spindle extender" but no useful results 😕

Hi, I have a manual 12 frame radial extractor and a (cheap) electric 4 frame tangential extractor and I've just had the brilliant idea of swapping the baskets so I have an electric 12 frame. It works - almost! Turns out the spindle is about 1cm too short. I want to see if I can source a...