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If it's a cast with a virgin queen and the whole swarm has been moved away to stop them going back to base none of the bees will have any idea where to go. Another of life's unfathomable mysteries. Like why does toast always fall butter side down? Time for another glass of plonk methinks.

3 swarms in two days, 5 in seven - same poor guy's garden! Is that a record?

So it's a kami kazi Asian hornet. Even worse!

Sorry to be a bit thick but I have read so much stuff about swarm control/colony increase every one with a different method (and with typos/mistakes that make the whole thing meaningless) that I would really appreciate some guidance on the best strategy to follow. Effectively I have one mega...

I'm with Newbeeneil (surely a misnomer with 39 colonies under his wing!) on this. IMHO a one wheel job gives a much smoother ride than 2 or 4 wheels over rough ground. I can see the advantages of a 4 wheel trolley, but only over a smooth surface. I'm eyeing up an old wheelbarrow for conversion...

Lucky chap not to have enough walls to bang your head against already:)

I had the same problem. The veil got ripped rescuing a hive from under an overgrown tree. I couldn't buy a replacement veil to fit so I ended up buying a veil attached to a mesh that goes down to your chest(aka hooded fencing vest). These are so, so much more convenient than a suit with veil...

Yep, not the sort of problem you want to have to deal with. The foundation came from Thorne's via one of their agents. One suggestion received was that the foundation was rolled or wired the wrong way round. I don't think that's likely as it all comes off the same machines. The supers have...

I have two hives side by side on the same stand, each with a super above the QE. One is drawing comb and building it up as the nectar comes in, just as you would expect. The other is drawing comb, but as brace comb, between the frames and proud of the foundation. In some cases the comb is almost...

It's also possible that the queen is slimming down a bit (in spite of still laying well) and squeezing through the QE. Maybe it's because the brood box is too crowded? Or the QE is becoming distorted. Is it one of those plastic QE's with slots? I've had failures with those.

Put a third super on my most prolific hive. Checked another to see what happened to a test frame I put in last week. Emergency Q cell drawn and capped but it didn't look very big. Plenty of drones in the other hive (even the big bug-eyed ones!) so hopefully she'll mate successfully in a couple...

Bees mate in Drone Congregation Areas at an altitude of around 90 feet. The experience is invariably fatal for the 1 in 1000 lucky (?) drones.

Blimey! Fund of Funds? Bernie Cornfeld. I thought he turned up his toes years ago.

Unbelievable! A lot of these old buildings were jerry-built and are totally unfit for purpose. Beats me while the conservation brigade are so intent on maintaining these old wrecks. They have no architectural merit whatsoever and replacing them with something sympathetic to the surroundings with...

Yep. Here in South Suffolk second supers have been on some hives for a week, and I'll be checking them all again this weekend. OSR coming into flower, but the flow so far has been mainly from fruit trees I guess. Horse chestnut, May, laurel and privet all starting to come into bud, and 100 acres...

Poly hives or timber? Might I ask?

If a foreign object is too big for the bees to remove (e.g. dead mouse) they will embalm it in propolis and there it will remain for all posterity (unless you remove it yourself!)

I didn't spot her last time I looked. I'm going to leave them for a couple of weeks before reaching a decision. But I have a colony in another apiary in the same state and I just recently put in a test frame. I'll see what they do. At this time of year I am reluctant to deplete vigorous...

One of my smaller colonies came through the winter ok and the queen started to lay, but has now stopped and only a few capped brood cells remain. So if she was past it why didn't the workers supersede while they had the chance? Are they suicidal or just plain dumb?

So are you saying that all strains will revert to a standard mongrel and that mongrel bees are by nature aggressive? Not my experience. My mongrels (ancestry unknown) are generally speaking very calm, except when a colony is failing.