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are you able to move the brood box to the side and place a spare brood box in its place, wait 10 mins and then go looking for your queen, sometimes with less bees you will spot her,

the bottom box would have been filled usually with several frames of foundation, so those bees will have a lot of work to do and a super over a queen excluder so should have plenty of room, they should not need disturbing for several weeks, if however you do feel you want to see what they are...

yes leave them to it until you return ,there are a lot of good write ups on the snelgrove board,

i have used the snelgrove board many times although not for some years, with success, its so versatile especially if your bees are local ie in the garden, what i would do is wait until the bees in the top produce a new queen and you have evidence that she is laying and have some sealed brood...

yes it worked

im liking the idea of tools having several uses

what do you use the steamer for ?

i never knew that, is it ever promoted ?bee-smillie

the pole/bucket method can be tricky , imagine the weight you may have in the bucket,at an extension of 5 mtrs alternatively if you can reach the branch they are on, is to use the pole with a hook attached and give a violent shake to the branch to dislodge them, having placed a bed sheet on...

its a strange world, all that happened last week and i feel very lucky, lessons learned 1, dont have your hives in public view 2, risk assess your hives location if possible 3, if it all goes wrong - keep smiling :sunning:

swarm boxes are now sited , and half of the tree chopped ready to split and stack , will keep me going for a year or two im sure

how about the Asian hornet ?

the few bees that were left (about a mug full) are now in an observation hive, i think they are q- and so not really worth sending for a new queen, i have set up some bait boxes so fingers crossed, there dosent seem to be much availability from the local bee farmers the 2018 nucs all taken

i think i had used up my luck allowance for quite a while :sunning:

yes after the event, it made me think how lucky i had been

last week i introduced an imported queen into a weak failing colony,after removing the drone laying queen- this was my only hive, on the Monday it was vandalized by kids throwing rocks, so i moved the remaining two frames of bees into a small nuc, and moved the now empty hive the other side...

yes i have tried just using smoke alone when at an out apiary and thats all i had available , and as you say used lots of smoke to cause confusion, i have also resorted to using a mapbook which i had in the car, they even chewed their way through that without a problem

i suspect you have a smoker with too tight a tolerance on the lid, my solution would be to take a small hacksaw,with fine blade and cut a slit on the lid rim,not ideal but should work my own smoker is one i made 35 years ago from copper plate and a piece of welders apron for the bellows , it...

PH you are right, its been in my kit for a long time and was very rarely used and then only on the odd occasion for a stray bee in a super, its good to have a de-clutter,

yes ,im very happy to use smoke for my bees and i have been for years, just like beekeepers all over the world, wood smoke fires happen in nature ,thats why we use it to smoke bees , it all depends how you want to keep bees,i have always stayed as close to nature as i possibly can , there are a...