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Far more to temperament than meets the eye, definitely. A four year old queen at one apiary has been a star performer in all aspects until this year and even early this year they were calm and quiet on the combs. Early May and it was like a switch had been thrown and their mood changed completely.

In fairness, I've seen more Hornets in the last couple of years than ever. We've had Hornets in the garden for the last three years, previous thirty odd years we had none. Likewise at the farm, plenty of Hornets there.

Had wasps buzzing around my cider on Sunday.

Is it the 2023 queen you introduced via newspaper unite or a queen they had brought on? Have you seen this red queen to confirm the unite was successful?

Depends on a lot of things. Do you have plenty of storage space and what kind of space is it for the honey to be stored well? Selling in bulk saves on jars/labels/time, something to factor in. Wholesale price depends on the order, if it is a good size order and regular then £5 per jar is...

Nothing today but went to visit a friend on the weekend and took a few virgins who emerged with perfect timing. It was lashing with rain when I got there but it blew over thankfully and the sun came out. He has some very heavy supers and all the colonies were working their socks off, which was...

Thirteen Limes been in flower for a week now and only seen Honey bees on them one morning and not that many. With the recent rain and more in the forecast, I expect most of the flowers will be on the deck by next weekend. Nasty storm in the small hours of Sunday, I woke to find my (very large)...

I've not bothered with the humidity setting for the last couple of years, the reading has been around forty this season.

That's good news. I did a little batch of four cells recently and all four were successful, I took them to a friend's apiary on the weekend.

Yes, it's chalk brood.

Not many of my new queens enjoy twenty degree mating flights.

Better to have them hopelessly queenless if you are introducing a virgin, that way the bees find what they expect. If they have eggs they don't expect to find a virgin in the hive. You need to break down the emergency cells but you have no idea if she is still alive ( I take it being a virgin...

They won't waste energy if they don't need to, if the nectar is flowing in they concentrate on processing, sealing it can wait until they are ready. If people took a refractometer with them to the apiary, they would probably find quite a few of those uncapped supers contain viable honey.

Get yourself a scalpel or a very sharp pen knife, it's a delicate operation and you need to allow plenty of room around each cell. I generally have an egg box with me when harvesting cells and once done they are popped into the vehicle where it is warm before I close up the hive. Some people use...

I wish you luck with that Andy, it's difficult enough just finding decent Amm queen suppliers.

It was early morning, nothing was on them.

Stunning photo, SWEET.

Couple of frames of sealed/emerging brood and the bees on them, a frame of stores, a spare frame of comb if you have it and one of foundation. A shake of bees and don't rush to close them, allowing any older bees to fly back home, close them up and move to their permanent site on the stand. Add...

....And a nice drive to the supplier.

Limes in flower today, coincides nicely with the deterioration in weather conditions.