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You shouldn’t be doing any treatment or not on cost alone. That’s not an effective method for treating anything.

To starvation, my fault, I believed what someone else told me they needed, and didn’t check enough later. Haven’t made that mistake again!

None. I haven’t lost any of my colonies over winter since 2010 when I moved to this Apiary. I have no idea why, except they are very well fed, in an extremely nice spot with no damp, plenty of sun, and quite sheltered, and are obviously healthy. I say obviously, because they haven’t died! Before...

I’ve got others in the County trying out what I do. It works for me and my bees. I haven’t lost any to varroa, or varroa related conditions in 15 years, so it can’t be all bad. I gave up using Apiguard as it didn’t work, but that might have been I also didn’t use it at warm enough temperatures...

As Dani says, ignore those you disagree with, or those that argue with you. There’s a lot of useful information, and discussion on here that makes it well worth looking at.

I agree. I’ve had bees for several years now, but those who’ve had them 40+ don’t like some of my experiments. Like, making cylinders from coloured wax, putting them on the crownboard and watching to see what they do. The answer? A couple of lovely drawn vases, highly coloured in the middle, to...

I don’t, but I’ll have to find it.

I use icing sugar every time I go through my bees, and find I quite often don’t need to treat in Autumn, but you do need to keep an eye on varroa levels using the bottom board. I do always do it in particular after swarm control though, as one hive is virtually broodless, so any mites are...

They do like to test us, don’t they.

I had several chickens, one black, and that learnt quite quickly that when I walked over to the hives it meant bees flying around, and legged it to the other end of the garden. I’m not sure if it got stung once, or just buzzed, but I watched it run away fast the first time. They do like larva...

No, it’s my iPad, it quite often only loads half a picture the first time, or first few times, if I persevere, I get the full picture, both on the iPad and in my brain!

Made more difficult because I only get half a picture! But I found her after a couple of goes to load the full picture.

So I can conclude from all the points raised that if I did want to increase ventilation in my hive, I need to get a battery fan, my Apiary isn’t on the main grid. But do I put it at the top or the bottom of the hive, inside the roof or under the mesh floor, outside the entrance or just...

Thanks for all your help and suggestions. It looks like I shall be keeping her company this year with her beekeeping and making some changes to what she does. If I remember I will come back and report any successes next year.

She doesn’t. If she can get a swarm this year then I shall mentor (monitor) her a lot, and try and work out what she’s doing, or not doing.

Yes, I gave up using it a few years ago, decided it didn’t work for me.

No, she moved the last acquired bees on my suggestion to a second site to see if it made a difference. I am beginning to think that it might be her, and yes, that I will have to take a closer interest in her beekeeping. Oh well, I’d nothing else to do over the summer!

She used apiguard in late summer, every year. And I know oxalic acid one year in December, as I did it, but not every December.

She acquired another colony last year, from a Beekeeper who was retiring. This was put in a different location, and I think they absconded, there’s about 100 bees on the hive, which were alive in February, but probably no queen. I’d expect them to be dead by now. They hadn’t had any varroa...

Well, I know the bees were ok during the summer, as I did ask for a look in each year, and they were healthy then, but over winter they died out. I didn’t have a good look at the dead bees, so can’t say. But I know they were properly treated for varroa, fed well, going into winter in as...