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I have made do without mouse guards since I started keeping bees as has the chap who started me in beekeeping. All my apiaries are in rural locations. My hives have full width, removable entrance blocks. The "normal" entrance is 100mm x 7mm deep but when there is a heavy flow on and commensurate...

Have undertaken 126 grafts from my own bees so far this season so I'm not doing this on a big scale. From these, 94 queen cells were drawn out and capped. Of these, 8 failed to emerge. There were no varroa in the cells that did not emerge. I have given perhaps half of these queen cells to other...

I cant point you to anything definitive save that a few years ago I got a call from my Uncle to say there was a programme about beekeeping in Greece on television. I was driving using my hands free at the time and when I got home the programme was over... I chatted to my Uncle later and he...

No. They have a different footprint.

:iagree: Spent some time on Friday evening adding feeders to nucs in a couple of my apiaries... they had taken all the syrup down by midday on Saturday. As nectar flows go over, the stores position in some colonies can be precarious. Feeding will help the colony to build up but be cautious...

That increasingly appears to be the case. :hairpull:

and on collaboration too. I understand that the participants are allocated into international teams which adds another dimension to the learning experience.

I regularly find deceased slugs in mating nucs (Kielers and Apideas). I dont use slug pellets (or copper strips) near them and the only explanation is that the bees have been able to "deal" with the slugs. On occasion, you will see a slug begin to curl up when the bees have noticed it and start...

Theres a couple of points I'll make following some of the responses. Yes, it is often easiest to extract honey as soon as you take off the supers but it is rare that you can do this if you have any number of colonies. Ideally you would do this but unless your bees have stored an excess of...

You can boost this stock of bees with young bees from another colony simply by dumping them right in front of the hive. I was offered this tip last week by a long term beekeeper and tried it out to boost an apidea or three that were a bit low on emerged bees. It works nicely. The young bees are...

Beekeepers should be aware that "hive scrapings" can and will be taken for analysis in addition to honey. If you have access to the last Bee Farmers journal, there is a write up by one of our forum members which includes his experience of samples being taken. From memory, his position is now...

A father and son joined my local BKA several years ago. The son was one of the then youngest to have sat FIBKA's preliminary assessment. They have now attended three if not four IMYB events with the son acting as a supervisor this year. Two more sons have now become involved in beekeeping. one...

Or break up a spare bottom bar and use the two halves as spacers to stop sagging. I have been doing this to let me use rapid feeders on Paynes poly nucs for several years.

:iagree: Might be a good idea to check the conditions under which your bees are in this apiary site. The "rules" may well refer to coordinated removal of supers/harvest and varroa treatment. Unless your honey is unripe or is from the brassica family, sitting for a couple of weeks is not likely...

Wrap strips of copper around the legs of the hive stand. I found that you can buy copper "tape" for the purpose of wrapping around plant pots to keep slugs away from the plants. I have experimented with this on a number of hives that are in an area favoured by slugs and am content with the...

tinfoil dish

There is no maybe about it. The mesh and floor provide adequate ventialtion and there are beekeepers who consider that from time to time the door and open mesh floor provide too much ventilation! As noted in an earlier reply, some elect to over-winter on solid floors. Some beekeepers manage...

:iagree: bees store the pollen because they will need it. If a stock of bees has adequate stores of pollen and honey they can better deal with times of dearth.

Starting to see the odd wasp scouting around hives. Since starting beekeeping in 2010, I have only ever seen a few wasps in and around my apiaries but on Saturday just past, wasps were present in three of my apiaries. I did see a few wasps being mobbed by bees when they made the mistake of...

incentives such as enough cells and bees. In a situation like this it may be best to offer a queen or queen cell only at the point when they can no-longer raise a queen of their own, i.e. wait until all the larvae are sealed.