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before you get a total meltdown about the QX. I'll just like to mention that a fellow beekeeper who like in Southern Hampshire has never removed her queen excluders in winter and has never had any issues, so don't go trassing the whole colony if you're not entirely comfortable about messing...

only lift if a few millimetres off the floor, any further and your mind will play tricks with you. Mine does anyway And I won't mention the voices in my head

a slab of celotex over the crownboard summer and winter (mine are permanently fixed in the roofs) does no harm and probably does a lot of good (if for no other reason than blocking off those ridiculous vents on the roofs) but faffing around with wraps and 'cozies' smacks a bit of silliness.

no, the fact that open feeding offers a bulk of 'free' honey (rather than nectar) in a small area means they pile in tightly to get at the food and may even fight over it

same concept as staddles over here

buy a large traditional tin opener

well it doesn't look like they've learnt much since

never done that, they're just at whatever temperature the room is

what a bunch of absolute cuckoos

what an absolute load of misleading bollix most of their hype is firmly entrenched in cuckoo land

the forecast I've seen, they are scraping to justify calling it a fresh breeze, it's going to be a bit damp though

what's 'nasty' about frosting? one trick is not to bottle seeded honey until it has set to a consistency where it is nearly finished setting but it still mobile enough to bottle using a standard honey gate. takes longer to bottle and you have to allow it time to settle and fill all spaces in the...

the strips are just a hangover from the time of gaping holes in crownboards and vents in the roof to ensure 'good ventilation' I haven't incorporated any of those battens in my hive roofs since my first hive, nor have I any vents in the roofs. the battens don't offer any structural benefits...

AKA the gravy train

nowhere near - 2.25g and Lasi have never explored multiple vapings. Ratnieks flatly refused even to trial it. and as for treatment ten days apart - you might as well just dab the damned stuff behind your ears.

hasn't really risen above freezing here since Tueday, had to go up and get something from the shed earlier so had a look around the apiary - saw one or two tough nutter bees flying from one hive!!

In the end, this midwinter OA routine started when the only delivery method was trickling, and as multiple trickling is harmful to the bees (especially the queen) people had to find a broodless period, usually midwinter, for one good hit, then the usual suspects rolled up and invented this...

no, it's certainly not a brood frame and definitely not 14x12

over the winter, one dose is sufficient - done a little while after a cold snap, anytime after now really