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Thinking about this, if you have a brood box with a laying queen, a queen cell from a laying worker above the queen excluder would/could this trigger a swarm?

In my case it was and it had contents. At the time I was more concerned by the colony swarming rather than the question of eggs being moved so I didn't investigate fully. However, there seems to be plenty of other reports so it makes me wonder. I would say it is possible but probably very rare...

No idea, I've just started to read up on it and came across this from the NBU. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/221152/bee-health-consult-nosemaprofile-20130110.pdf If there's any better, more recent advice, I'd be glad to see it.

Yes, but not necessarily a sign of Nosema? I've looked into N ceranae and I will try and see if the colony has it. However, as it seems fairly common I may find signs but that may not be the main reason for the slow build up? I've taken all the precautions I found, I've not fed sugar to this...

So if the consensus is eggs are not moved what happens when you find a Q cell above the queen excluder and there's no other brood up there? I've had this once on a colony where I had broken down the Q cells a few times and a quick search shows I'm not alone. The Q has slipped through to lay a...

No obvious signs of nosema and a very low mite drop (I don't fancy drowning a load of bees to do a proper mite count in a small colony). I'm more curious about the size of the queen. Can they get overweight or block up at all? I vaguely remember someone saying they can.

I have a colony that did well last year. It was over wintered on a double brood and had decent stores, the Q is about 1 and half. Treated like the other hives for varoa and no obvious sign of diseases I'm aware of. This year though it hardly built up at all, just a frame or two of brood whilst...

Did you get round to inspecting them? I have a colony that has workers just standing around the entrance but they have been very slow to build up with little brood this year. There's hardly been any orientation flights of new workers so the standing bees have been more obvious. I'm not sure...

I've just put up a bait hive at about head height. I noticed something inside and couldn't resist peeking in the entrance only for a queen hornet to fly out at me! Luckily I'm used to them flying around the house and garden at this time of year so I just ducked out the way.

Yes, I mean Linaria vulgaris I don't have a picture of the bee. It was the only one I noticed walking across a frame when doing a full inspection. So, I assume it wasn't something the bees were really going after. We do have white dead nettle about, plus that Variegated yellow archangel feral thug.

I thought I saw someone post that a few days ago but I think OSR covers the front of the head, not the back of the thorax. The best I can find is toadflax but the patches of it in the garden are not flowering yet.

What leaves a little pale yellow dot on the back of honey bees at this time of year?

Well the hive in my original post does seem to want to swarm. Three more charged Q cells today. 2 supers being filled but with room. At least the drones are flying around here now and the Q in question was mated in early May 2018 so not far off that now.

So am I. It's mostly pasture where we are with some fields having a decent amount of wild flowers. Along with gorse we have a decent amount of dandelions about along with blackthorn etc. But nothing in abundance, even the hives don't smell as strong of dandelion as they've done in previous...

A belated update on this post. The Q- split did indeed end up producing a laying queen. Which is just as well as the new laying queen in the Q+ split disappeared (didn't seem to swarm) so I ended up merging them after all.

One of my poly hives is rather full, it's on a double brood and there's about 10 frames of brood in the top box and 7 in the bottom. I was a bit late on the first inspection which I did a week ago and I added the first super. That is 3/4 full now. Today there's a Q cell that's has started to be...

Move to Devon and the councils don't cut hedges, even if it blocks the road. I'm not a fan of the flailing of hedges at this time of year but as an owner of a roadside hedge the roadside gets cut when the local, private, contractor is passing. It was done a month or so ago as he spends the next...

What happens in spring if they don't use the sugary stores? I have the same problem as Shiny, i.e. some super frames with uncapped stores. They have a double brood box which is filling with stores now, plus a load of ivy to follow so they should have enough stores to overwinter here. They...

I've switched to a thinner tool and with care cause less damage but the softer poly hives still easily dent. But even parts where the tool isn't used can become damaged as our bees stick them together thoroughly. I know I could re-queen, so far that's no 89 on the list of reasons to re-queen. ;)

Well last winter I had a mix of poly and cedar. The one that had the most stores left was poly, then a cedar. The two that had the least stores were a poly and cedar. Interestingly a cedar hive that's only been on a brood and a half this last year was the slowest hive to build up but has...