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I removed the last supers from my 20 hives last week and found that they had not capped quite a few combs. So used refractometer and found (taking several samples) that the honey in the unsealed cells was almost 20% water (legal but far too runny). Placed the supers in a small room (with no...

Where are all these multitudes of swarms coming from? I have had 6 swarms go into spare equipment stored outside in my garden during May. Down at the out-apiary have had a further half a dozen swarms go into bait hives yet only one has come from my colonies ( a colony with three year old queen...

Nice day today so did my Ist inspection of 2023 (not been to visit the outapairy bees since before Xmas). All (24 hives at outapairy and 2 at home) still had plenty of stores . They had variable amounts of brood with one with11 frames of brood (I use double BC national hives) while another had...

Saw a queen bumble collecting pollen from hellebore flower today. Seems a bit early for them to be on the wing

Having judged hundreds of shows over the last four decades here is a couple of things for you. In one county show I noticed a daddy long legs (Tipulid fly) walking along a table with a leg missing and remarked jokingly to a Steward that perhaps I ought to look out for the missing leg in a...

Trickled 68 colonies (26 of mine plus 10 belonging to one friend and 32 to another one) with OA . Colonies all quite strong and with plenty of stores apart from a couple. No losses yet and the smoker wasn't needed although one colony a bit defensive but decided not to light smoker just for that...

Had just one colony in WBC in 1959 which yielded 90 lbs of honey . Melted down and filtered the wax cappings and cast a wax block winning first prize at Kidderminster BKA honey show in 1960. Hooked on beekeeping ever since.

I would describe the taste and smell of ivy honey as strong and somewhat medicinal and could be described as an acquired taste. Here in "sunny Donny" it is still coming in and I can smell it several yards from the hives in the garden. The bees are even flying in the rain to fetch it.

Also get hold a of few show schedules from other BKAs

Removed the Apivar strips from 26 hives. Was very heavy work as I winter my bees on double BCs and the strips were in the lower BCs which meant taking off the heavy top BC s (which were more or less full to the brim with stores and ivy nectar is still pouring in). Bees were well behaved so...

Sorry if I got it wrong. However in The Weights and Measures (Packaged Goods) Regulations 2006 they include a gap so maybe they don't read their own regs! see below Nominal quantity and unit of measurement Minimum height of words or figures exceeding 1 kg...

Beebe Sorry to be pedantic but shouldn't there be a gap between the numerical value and the weight symbol e.g 380 g not 380g With the amber colour and all those bubbles the jars presumably contains Ling heather.

Queen clips are a menace especially the plastic ones. You can kill queens trying to get them in there in the first place and, as you found out, they can easily open and let them out. Years ago put queen in clip and put clip in bee suit top pocket to keep her warm but she got out and was running...

For most colonies you need about 40lbs of stores = 8 full BS deep combs to get through winter to April with most being eaten in March as the colony expands. I keep large double brood colonies so need a little more in the way of stores.

If acids (oxalic, formic etc) lower the pH of the body fluids of the mite then this will affect the 3 dimensional shape of their enzymes which basically work on a sort of lock and key principle with their chemical substrates. A change in shape would thus render them ineffective or less effective...

I have always found bees to be more defensive when being manipulated an hour or so before a thunder storm and believe (without evidence) the bees are affected by the build up of electrical charge.

I clip my queens. Since I switched to mesh floors I have found that the clipped queen of the swarm sometimes ends up under the mesh floor to be joined by the swarm when it returns to the hive from a nearby tree. If not dealt with ( eg if happens while on long holiday) they soon build comb under...

Been a decent sort of year. 2050 lbs from 25 production colonies = average of 82lbs per colony plus only a few will need any feed for winter. All hives now static as gave up migrating beekeeping over a decade ago when it was then possible to get 3000+ lbs of honey from moving several hives to...

Has there been a proper scientific study done on the effectiveness of Thymol on nosema other than the one done by turkish researchers (from two of their univerisities but for some reason published in the Pakistan journal of biological sciences ) to confirm the effectiveness or otherwise of this...

Wasps have started here big time. Completely wiped out a 3 and a 5 comb nucleus at the out apiary taking bees, brood and honey stores. Both had queens reared from my best colony.