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Just to add: last year we caught two swarms at the same tree. However, this year my daughter and her husband decided to try living in a tent about 20m from the tree. They heard the swarms - hence why we have so many more. In the past it was coincidence that we happen to have been outside when a...

It's been in the same spot for years, under the same tree. In fact, we've caught two swarms this year (this is now the 3rd) in or under the same tree. We caught two other swarms within about 10m of the tree (so that makes five swarms this year alone). We've not dowsed but quite keen to do so...

We had a pleasant surprise yesterday when a swarm moved into a traffic cone. It's actually the third lot in that cone! Moved them into a nuc before they waste energy/resources building comb ... hope they like their new home. New hive arriving shortly.

Yesterday the drones were going crazy flying out and in.

Thanks for the tip. I have a pair of “rubber” gloves from Simon the Beekeeper but weren’t with me at the time. But you are right, the leathers are somewhat clumsy.

I have about five frames that appear to be “overrun” with drones. I would say that the workers are vastly outnumbered. Is this something to be concerned about? The hive still has good stores, unfortunately while I was out of the country this particular hive swarmed at least three times.

My hives have been reasonably quiet for the last week or so compared to what they were doing a few weeks ago. I was actually about to ask the forum so this answers my unasked question.

My definition would that a "Complete Hive Kit" is everything that is needed to make up a hive with all it's parts at the time of purchase. It wouldn't include parts inclined to require replacement in future. If you buy a car it would not be considered complete if you only had three wheels. ...

Agree - in fact the "spare space" can fit a 12th frame although it get a little crowded in there.

To be sure it was a very inexpensive hive. My cedar hives cost much more (but I bought them without frames).

I guess something like this would qualify as a “complete kit”: https://bee-equipment.co.uk/products/b-s-national-complete-hive-kit-flat-pine-with-rite-cell-plastic-foundation I decided to try out the plastic foundation - simple curiosity. Fascinated by the colour of the DN4 foundation. The...

In my case I bought a complete hive kit. To be fair they clearly stated that it comes with 10 brood frames, but clearly I need to buy some extras to “complete” the kit

I was wondering … if it’s good practise to put 11 frames with a dummy board, why do sellers include 10 frames as standard? Why not 11?

Thanks for the very helpful info. (y)

I had wondered if it was ... I'm still too new to this to know the different variations of brood. In other hives it is so obvious. Maybe being such a big swarm their first priority was stores.

Here are a few photos. With my order being delayed I didn't even have decent foundation to put in, so used a 2cm strip meant for a Langstroth frame. This seems to have pointed the bees in the right direction for now. Inspected again tonight, didn't see any brood. All the frames look very...

So ... we wait until the weekend to see if there is brood? (one week after the previous inspection)

Looks quite normal to me ... just like any other queen.

Looks like plenty of food. And the workers are bringing in loads. Currently my busiest hive by far!

We had a very big swarm stop by in the tree above our hives. Loads of bees. Managed to catch it in a nuc box, delays in shipping new hive so they stayed in the nuc box for about two weeks (not ideal I know, I eventually made my own hive out of desperation). When we moved them into the hive there...