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How do people normally overwinter a double brood colony? Do you leave them as a double brood or remove one of the boxes? The last couple of winters here have been very different. The winter before last was very cold with a late spring, the bees overwintered ok on a single national brood box but...

IIRC, from previous posts, lime was suggested for a lemony taste. May I ask what does your blackberry taste like? The jars from what I assume are blackberry from one of my hives is very light in colour and mild in taste, wondering if that is what to expect?

My latest few jars are from freshly drawn comb (used starter strips) and are only a month or two old - so not that much chance of dirt I would have thought. Useful, thanks. 1st batch, no glittering. I'll assume pollen and I could have a look under a microscope. 2nd batch, glittering but they...

It might be starting to set, I assumed it might be traces of pollen. By using finer filters / warming etc to show aren't you just producing a more processed product? Seems slightly at odds with some of the negative comments about some of the imported mass produced honey.

Do you normally filter more if you're showing honey? For my latest jars I've just used a course sieve and settled in a honey bucket and I'm happy with the results. The honey does have a slight haze though and I assume it should be clear if you were to show it?

Thank you for the recipe Anduril. Does the Sherry yeast make much difference? Funnily enough, my first go at making mead has turned out a little sherry like and I used a special mead yeast. It's rather nice and much better than some commercial ones I've tried and has encouraged me to try some...

Does anyone have a simple bramble melomel recipe? I've made a fair bit of blackberry/bramble wine over the years and I'm planning on just swapping the sugar for honey. Will this work or is there anything special I need to do when making fruity honey wines?

On that note what normally happens if you merge two queens together. Swarm, fight to the death or something else? I'll wait a bit longer but it's been warm and sunny for the last month apart from 2 days so she's had time to get on with things. We have had a lot of swallows, dragonflies and...

Sorry for another queenless question but... I split a colony and the Q- half formed plenty of Q cells that were reduced to the best one. This appeared to hatch around 10th July (cell open at the tip). I've never seen the Q and, to date, there's no eggs and the bees don't seem to be preparing...

Minus the pipe. Thanks for that, quite useful as I've a new Austrian scythe and I've picked up a couple of old English blades for a couple of pounds in local sales. I do need to sort out a decent ash snath.

At least my leg wasn't just being pulled. "Unfair advantage" was also mentioned but then I could sell a bigger jar for the same price, but as long as the weight is correctly stated I would be fine. I wonder if anyone has actually been prosecuted or even warned about overweight jars?

I'm giving away most of my honey this year...

Do you mean Api Life Var? The instructions for that state "Do not use during honey flow in order to avoid to adulterate the taste of the honey" and you're recommended to remove the supers but I can't find anything that says don't reuse the frames. The withdrawal period is zero days as well, but...

Can anyone clarify if the following is true or not, I've been told by a fellow beek that you can't over fill a jar, i.e. if your label says 500g but the jar contains 550g of honey you've broken the regs/law. It doesn't sound logical, sensible or reasonable to me but that doesn't mean it's not true.

A clue to holding them back? Or just simply they don't need it yet? I.e. is it actually harming them?

I think saying it's a classic beginners pitfall is a bit harsh. When I've had a colony on about 7-8 frames of brood start swarm prep I've been told I've made a beginners mistake by not adding a super quick enough. Would adding a super at this time of year in the south of England really hold a...

What do the people who pay £18 or more a kilo do with the wax?

Last winter I had three cedar hives and two poly hives and there didn't seem to be much difference in their performance. One poly and one cedar ran very low on stores and one poly and one cedar still had plenty of stores left in spring. I do live in a warm part of the UK though.

My local agricultural merchant sells metal handled scythes, It's a Mole Valley store - http://www.molevalleyfarmers.com/mvf/store/products/compass-bramble-scythe-18 If you want wooden handle then you could try the aptly named Scythe Shop: http://www.thescytheshop.co.uk/

Thank you for all the replies. I hadn't twigged the sale items were more like the budget hives. That makes more sense of the prices. I've ordered an array of parts and I'll see how I get on. I don't mind the premium price but I've had '1st quality' frames from several companies and I've found...