Search results

Putting a swarm is quarantine is never wrong, however as the others have already said:- 1.You need to leave them in quarantine at least until you can assess the sealed brood. 2.If you collected the swam locally then generally it was from a colony that is local. (Tend to find swarms initially...

Valid point but given the lack of space under the frames I find the bees will make queen cells at the top and find it easier therefore to spot them before removing the frames during manipulation. Also tbh I just find it very easy to make these boards from a bog standard feeder board! (I'm lazy...

Take a standard crown / feeder board, cut a slot entrance in one side and cover the holes with a piece of old queen excluder. Place this board on top of the supers and under your top brood box and this allows the bees (especially the drones) to exit whilst keeping the drones out of the supers.

I have, a couple of years ago one of my field apiaries was in a field of winter sown OSR and I was just finished removing and extracting the supers from that when the field across the road burst into flower with Spring sown OSR. Speaking to the farmer whose field I was in he said that due to the...

Personally with just 1 hive I would recommend extracting at least 1 of the supers. Why leave it on if it's capped already? Personally with more hives I tend towards extracting when I reach a certain number of supers ready but that is just due to my extracting setup and time. Only word of...

TBH The best way to avoid vandalism is to keep the hives out of public view. My hives are all on private farm land, however at least 2 sites are either close to public thoroughfares or visble from them. I just don't make it obvious when I visit these sites to not advertise the location of the...

IMHO best use for cappings wax is to melt it down, filter it and make either show wax exhibits or candles.

Plastic food takeaway containers! They are clear so you can see if the bees are using it and how much is left! Wash out thoroughly after consuming the food. The type my local Indian supply hold roughly 625g at least I think I filled 20 of them from the 12.5kg block I cut up the other day. Cut...

:iagree: and would add that having used it for just the last 4-5 seasons you can / will end up with very large colonies (when successful) so it may not be for everyone!

I think you need to re-read the sign. There is a "/" in the middle. Without seeing the rest of the jar / shelf I think the sign refers to 2 different honey types. Of which I'm betting the set honey is claimed as English and the other is the 'Organic Wildflower' honey as I don't see 'English'...

I'm not doubting your method for draining the honey but why rinse the cappings? My point is there is, imho, no better method of cleaning the wax than to let the bees do it. As well as removing every last drop of honey the benefit is that the bees get it and it's not washed down the drain.

I didn't say I was in a rush and I definitely do not NURSE my bees all year round. However I work full time and keep 15-20 hives as a hobby, so yes my time is limited.

Ok, obviously the way I un-cap using a fork means a lot less honey in the cappings as I would guess max 5-6lbs honey in all of this years cappings. I'm not losing the honey, I'm just feeding it back to the bees and getting the cappings cleaned up ready for using in the process. I'm quite happy...

Of course you can press your cappings and yes I know how much honey can be contained in cappings but personally rather than mess about with a press I just give the bees the cappings back in a feeder and let them clean up the wax. It saves me the time and effort of trying to extract the honey...

from twitter

The data set is still too small at the moment. Poly appears to outperform wood in terms of yield however colonies vary so much in the same material I would like a lot more data before making any statement.

I created my own spread sheet and record super weight before / after extraction (each super is labelled so I know which apiary/hive it comes from) Therefore I can collect information about how much each hive produces. I log bucket numbers / weight / moisture content. Then I log which batches are...

I agree although if I have the time I now tend to prop the clearer board against the entrance and all the bees walk / run into the hive. A bit gentler than shaking them into the box below!

And that is the other reason they would never officially admit a mistake!

What would you be looking for? Personally any colony that is in the process of re-queening be it supecedure or post swarm gets left alone for at least 3-4weeks. If they have supers on I may well check them for space but I do not touch the brood box unless I have an urgent reason to. Even when...