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All works well until you miss a 2nd queen cell in the original colony and they all bugger off with the first virgin 😂 I also mostly use the nuc method and wasn't aware of Pete's variation which I will look at. If they have made any attempt to swarm though I won't use this line and will give...

I use sulphur and never had a problem with wax moth

Finally managed to get 1 apiary sorted. United a few hives, houses dble nucs in their own hives, added a cple of supers and set up a new apiary ready to shift a few hives around.

A strong colony then who would dispatch any intruding queen. You don't want to run the risk of letting them battling it out if there is one.

Maybe she was falling and died within the last couple of days? Can you reduce to 1 box and put a Qx vertically in between the 4 frames? I have cut one out which I use to restrict queen movement when needed.

I have opened a few hives but nothing much. No break in the weather here. Blustery, rainy, and cold. I might bite the bullet Friday with a calmer day and 13c. I also have quite a lot of uniting to do!

@NickM , you can say goodbye to your new queen in the bottom box. Introducing a new queen to an older angry workforce is a guaranteed death sentence regardless of the frame of emerging brood. Personally I would cage the queen with a push in cage and in 5 days when there is no more viable larvae...

I am tight, I don't fill it to the top .🤣🤣

they have plenty of cash down that way!!

I sell my 1.2kg tub at £16 compared to my 340gr at £6. My 1.2kg tubs are mostly for people cooking with it (I have a couple of cafes on the books) so they don't get the prenium honey, i.e. they don't mind if it is the bottom of the buckets.

That was my understanding also and the first orientation flight they take will not 'mark the entrance' as such. If you are going to go to all that effort to requeen, you may as well put the frame in the original box with a balanced workforce which will guarantee better qcs...so long as they only...

You don't get any nurse bees that way though, it's only your flyers which will return through the original entrance or is your frame of eggs from the nice queen transferred with bees on?

Yes at this time of the year I tend to requeen by restricting the nasty queen so she cannot lay (I bought a frame cage or use a push in cage)and either put a graft in or frame from a chosen colony. I will usually leave 3-4 good cells and split when they are close to emerging. With the weather we...

Seems to be more and more rather than 1 or 2 😂. First time I also see so many overwintered nucs being advertised for sale.

I have done nothing again, too cold and wet. I have only opened 10 nucs so far this year and meanwhile I hear and see beeks in my area already adding a 2nd bb and supers when there is no significant flow until the end of April??

You will have to wait for the Gower show😂

Bonus for me as I couldn't make this weekend!!

Bought from China at £1/lb?

To put it into perspective, I get around 500kg a year from around 15 production colonies + stragglers so not sure how they anticipate 400kg surplus per colony....if I was to leave my colonies 'organic' to produce more honey than my treated colonies (as stated on the link), I would probably have...

This is nuts, at this price it's not even worth doing it!