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Is a bent QC viable? Can't photo with gloves on. It's on the bottom of a super frame (1.5 brood), sort of bent round a little, appears to be made that way. ***** here (me) accidentally squashed the other, straight one.

Further to your post @JamezF I am wanting to know, having 2 hives puzzling me, what is the spread of time when they're making QC's? Is it possible for a queen to hatch while other QC's are half done, eg open and larvae floating? Do they just abandon them? I stupidly didn't scrape all the BB...

Thanks I didn't know that. Yes all hives are brood and a half. I've left 2 QC's in each for now in case one is damaged etc. They are a long way from capping.

Just back from said 2 hives, rammed with very calm bees. I pulled every frame and doubled checked after scraping QC's. The supers both had QC's along the frame bottoms, I probably cut a dozen from one hive. This hive also has a supercedure cell. The other had maybe 4-5 QC on the frame bottoms...

Thanks @jenkinsbrynmair , hard to believe with so many bees still there. Also we are only getting warm weather for two weeks now, nothing blooming before that. Would you recommend reducing the open Q cells back to maybe 2 or 3? Or wait until a few are capped?

Opinions please and thanks for reading this saga. I have two hives (1.5 brood) that were fairly weak going into winter but with good feeding etc have pulled through and are flying well. I transferred them to cleaned and scorched hives on May 1st as they had both shown signs of chalkbrood going...

All good for you southern folk! We're busy lambing but I managed to get a quick 20 minutes while we had a brief and strangely weird warm front between fronts of freezing rain. I dare not delve in the hives, but they had made inroads to the comb of stores I had put above their CB's. So I...

Sheep farmer here. The gun down the back is for cypermethrin fly killer. It can definitely be used from late spring onwards through late autumn to combat fly strike, so before shearing July/August. Withdrawal times have to be observed for shearing because you're not allowed to present treated...

Thanks that explains a lot! I have been too afraid of upsetting them by rearranging things, otherwise would have got rid of brood and half a long time ago.

Thanks all. I'll have another look In a few weeks. -2 here today🙄 I'm at a real disadvantage because I do not have new drawn brood comb, only foundation. So yes there would be a lot of work involved on the bees' part. I am not a fan of modified Bailey because with brood and a half it means...

Further to a question I'd asked about Bailey comb changes, I really really want to go to the apiary, set up a nice clean floor and brood box full of new frames with new foundation and a clean CB and roof, next to a hive needing brood frames scrapped. The bees are all in the super with stores. I...

Had a break yesterday from scorching, filling, replacing and repairing . . . decided to do some painting. Supers are just whatever colour is to hand, but I like to do scenes on the brood boxes. Paint supplies are low, just blue, green, white and orange. Koi!

Are you doing changes now? Advice needed, I need to replace all brood comb in 2 Brood+Half colonies. Its absolutely black and so old that some of the tabs on the frames are starting to rot 😱. Both colonies still have plenty of stores in their super and no activity in the empty brood comb. I've...

I've used the tubs before but find dead bees, either in collapsed bits of fondant or drowned in sticky stuff. Tried putting objects in to help them pull themselves out. Just a mess. Possibly compounded by excess humidity as I used to leave the inspection boards in, not now on forum advice. This...

Thanks for explaining how they think. Will do as you say next Spring. No QE between, it is stored under the CB. To answer a previous question, I leave the BB because I have OMF and the hives are on rails about 16" off the ground. Not a good position, they get the north wind so I think it helps...

Thanks, I did leave the supers on until shutting them down. Their super ( brood and a half) is packed but nothing was put in the BB below. Not very hopeful, these 3 swarmed when I was dealing multiple bereavements and just had to tough it out until October.

How do you fwed honey back to bees on winter? I have full frames of wonky comb. The hives are shut down - 2" kingspan on the crownboards.

The temperature has reached 10C today so I expected to see a little bit of activity. Incredibly one of the hives is going like a fair! Plenty of bees hovering about the front facing the hive so I presume these are new bees, but what on earth are the rest of them doing? They seem to be flying...

I just use a sash cramp and screws.

Made myself, solid boards with roofing felt.