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you don't want to be doing it during a very cold period as the bees will be tightly clustered and you want theem to bee loosely clustered (or not at all) so that the OA is spread on all the bees as soon as possible, I reckon you will be fine doing it once it warms up a bit

this year? which is almost at the end, or do you mean next season

doesn't necessarily have to be the solstice (that's a bit of an old wive's tale now) even if this cold snap doesn't continue, it has been found that most years, end of November/early December is the time most likely to find them broodless.

ah yes, of course, busy today so not paying proper attention!

what sort of hive have you?

even buying from B&Q (so not the cheapest) an 8x4 sheet of Celotex costs under thirty quid you can line over a dozen roofs with that (some will need two smaller pieces rather than one whole), one tube of stickslikeshit adhesive to fix it into the roofs, so you are looking at about two and a half...

why do you obsess about ventilation? have you ever read Wedmore's 'On the ventilation of beehives' it's just a classic example of 'baffle them with ******** and meaningless figures' most of us here don't give the hives any form of 'ventilation' but leave it to bees, as do most of us not obsess...

oxalic acid, either trickle or sublimation is the only sensible winter treatment, and yes, you can still use the shallows and the comb for honey supers next year.

I have two outhouses which seldom creep above 14° at floor level my Royal Welsh award winning softset this year was made at the end of June, and apart from the initial quick chill to get it down to temperature (ice packs in the switched off warming cabinet) I needed no further artificial cooling.

spring onions have never been a thing here in Wales shallots are either harvested young for salads or left to mature for the bulbs (but that's not such a big thing) it ws the green leaves that were the essential salad ingredients and in later years my grandfather would just treat much of his...

it is, for quick granulation when making soft set (I find 13° best) but keeping it a little below that won't slow down natural granulation I have retailers such as butchers and greengrocers whose premises stay well below 14° (Tanya's stock feed premises get so cold that in the winter it gets...

keeping it in a garage or a cool room will make it granulate sooner, I keep mine in a warm room, not often does it stay there long enough to granulate again, if it does start to get cloudy, I pop it back in the warming cabinet for a few hours. if it does crystalise in the shop, I do offer to...

Reports of snow from SWMBO's office in Merthyr Tudful (she works from home Tuesdays) also had reports of snowfall in Swindon from a colleague travelling to London and a fair bit of snow in Bicester (girl I was in school with) we have a bit of sleet here and snowfall around Llandeilo. Also my...

I have a stack of PIR with unprotected cut edges sat outside the shed for the best part of ten years - maybe not as dry as they were on the day they were cut, but definitely not sodden

Darwinian theory in motion - weed out the worst of the simpletons

I'd be surprised if mine didn't to be honest - it would be a first for me.

The cold may be an easy target to blame, but was that the case? in general, last year was pretty mild. There are plenty of other factors that may cause the demise of a colony, the usual suspects are inadequate feeding, queen failure/poorly mated queen, low bee numbers/poor colony strength going...

I'd forgotten that you said you'd used wool - and that you had a gabled roof. Yes, wool would to the trick, same, I woild seal off the vents then pack the whole roof space with wool. Dani's idea of just putting a slab of PIR on the crownboard would work too, trouble with fagle roofs is you...

noone in the UK, in their right minds wraps their hives. But what you should do is cut a piece of 50mm PIR (celotex) to fit snuglu inside the roof and fix it permanently in place - after blocking off any 'vents'