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I have been warming 30 lb buckets of last year's crop at c. 40 centigrade in an insulated hot box. After three days the honey was not fully liquidised. I read somewhere that honey is good insulation - so it takes a long time to warm through thoroughly. In future I am proposing to leave it in...

How can a beekeeper talk to the bees if he is dead?

When the moon is in the seventh house, and Jupiter elides with Mars, shurely?

I had a small bunch (couldn't really call it a colony) of queenless ? bees that I left alone waiting for them to die out naturally. 4 weeks later they were still flying and there seemed to be more of them. Opened the broodbox and found new brood and now fingers crossed they are strong enough to...

B & M? Hacked off with Farmfoods. How can they justify a 10% price increase?

I am sure we all go through that experience and probably more than once. I brought two colonies through the winter and then new brood and both queens laying and bees gorging on pollen etc. Then come May both queenless. Where had they gone?! Re-queened and what with a new swarm and successful...

Why?

Half my hives have landing boards and half don't. The landing boards on hives that have them are also used as toilets by the local pigeon population and any other passing wildlife so have to be cleaned regularly. The bees in the other hives that don't have landing boards don't seem to mind...

Much obliged Eric****:)

Pulicaria dysenterica aka common fleabane produces bright yellow honey and also stains frames bright yellow almost fluorescent. (There's a picture on a thread from September last year. Sorry, I tried to copy and paste it but it didn't work :()

OK. The mid 40's have it. I'll let Ted Hooper know:) Thanks for the advice, folks.

Good stuff! Many thanks!:)

Ted Hooper, Guide to bees and honey: "....heat after bottling for 62c (145 f) for an hour in a water bath". Is this not recommended practice?

I have made a honey warmer out of an old wooden chest, and an external thermostat with sensor probe. The heat source I used was a fan heater, but I think it overheats and cuts out. Ideally I would like to heat up to c. 60 centigrade. I was thinking of using an infra red bulb to provide heat...

Awesome! But if you want level 5 Food Hygiene Rating you will need a second sink - one for the equipment and another to wash your hands.

I stopped using cling film. It's messy and takes off a lot of honey as well. Now I just carefully spoon off the scum once the honey has cooled and shake it off on to a plate. You can get rid of the last traces of scum by carefully collecting it on one side before spooning off. Much quicker and...

Too hot on Thursday so went to the pub with the missus after buying some foundation. Not a good idea to leave it in the car (the wax, that is).

Chinese imports to the USA are banned because of contamination with heavy metal pollutants, noxious antibiotics and sugar adulteration. Import into EU was lifted in 2004 (?) because of commercial pressure. A lot of blended supermarket honey is labelled "Product of EU and non EU countries". Yes...

Yep, welcome to the group. Best advice I got was if in doubt leave it to the bees to sort out. Best investment I made was a £2 diary where I record everything: bees, purchases, notes on inspections, honey produced, sales etc. If you've joined your local association then you're good to go.

That's encouraging. Should I squish the QC, or is it worth trying to introduce it into a queenless colony?