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I use boiling washing soda, the boiling action really helps to clean the frames. I then let it go cold, use a sieve to removing floating wax and pour it down the drain. Im not sure its cost effective with e small quantity I clean . I'm looking for a 2nd hand Burco heater as the barrel I've got...

@Carpenter Bee. Welcome. Ive only been keeping bees a few years but I've found this forum to be very helpful and full of people with lots of experience. BTW The Merry City is my "hometown". Went to QEGS. Been away a long time though.

Happy to report that my colony appears to have recovered from CBPV after being left for 6 weeks, raised up on breeze blocks and bricks and without its OMF. Full inspection today; lots of brood, calm bees, 3 supers well on there way to being capped. Could not find any evidence of CBPV - no black...

I too have been collecting used brood frames as I've had to do some reuniting (from nuc AS) following 3 colonies failing to generate a mated new queen; the QCs all hatched but nothing useful resulted despite waiting several weeks. There was a period of poor weather around that time so maybe that...

How often are you inspecting your hives during the "swarming " season ? Out of interest have you been on any beekeeping courses or are you a member of a club ? Not saying its mandatory but it makes solving problems sometimes easier if you can discuss things quickly and in depth with people...

IIRC some cardboard is impregnated with fire retardant - hard to keep the smoker going with that I imagine.

Dried straw from the strawberry beds to start it off, then a mix of dried moss raked from the lawn and saw dust from the builders merchant (I bought a £5 bag 4 years ago and I'm now half way through it).

When I had EFB in a colony 3 years ago - it was too late in the season to consider a shook swarm. With advice from the SBI the colony was sealed and culled with petrol. Its all over in a few minutes but was quite emotional. Next day a pit was dug and all the frames (brood and super) were burnt...

My WBC boxes can take 11 Hoffman frames but I use 10 plus a dummy board. Simon the Beekeeper sells his frames and foundation in packs of 11 which is perfect for a National box with a dummy board.

Some suppliers are better than others in terms of manufacturing consistency of wiring and thickness of the base layer of wax. You get what you pay for. But as the bees don't seem to mind which I use, I go for the cheapest (which happens to the nearest too) and put up with the wires not always...

Thanks - my plan was to burn the brood frames, but wasn't sure about the supers.

What are people's thoughts on reusing brood and super frames (with comb) from a colony that has had CBPV ?

The holes in the crown boards are for feeding, aren't they? In my first year I kept a hole for ventilation and got lots of condensation and mould. Since keeping the holes closed Ive had no mould.

Just joined the UK Bee Removers FB group this week - very interesting. Some of the roof nests are huge ! The removers take things apart but get scaffolders, builders and roofers as needed unless they themselves have the skills required. I turned down the offer of a chimney swarm this week. The...

That happened to me last year - do they do it to confuse us ? It worked in my case.

Ive just bought a pallet of jars and lids from Rawlings/Compak to divide up between club members. Did the same last year. After their Jan price increase they were 38.7p per 12oz Hex jar which was 20% up on last year. But we paid 34p/12ox hex jar inc lids and delivery - as it was a special offer.

The trouble with tangential extractors is that its easy to break the comb and you have to swap the combs around - which slows the whole process down a fair bit. Im looking to change from my manual 4 frame tangential to a 4 or 6 frame electric radial. Any recommendations , ideally at a price...

This is the best I can do for now

Thats an easy way to raise the brood box - (though they might fill it with comb in time, but not when they don't have a laying Q). I'll try that and also remove the coverings. Building something strong enough to raise and support the whole hive will take me a bit more time.

The sole remaining QC should be hatching in 2 days - will that do?