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Great news on your collection Malawi. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you! My Ted Hooper book on bees led me to believe is was a wasted cause, his advice is unite them and be done with it - almost as if it were a minor irritation. But I thought, the bees in the wild MUST survive in small...

Thanks for that - I do have a Nuc knocking about. If I see queenie, is it worth marking her .. or waiting until she is laying? Many thanks Danny

This year I half heartedly set up a few unused supers in pairs as "bait hives" to see what would happen. I have two on the ground, in the driveway that I can watch from the kitchen and one on top of a flat roof extension. The flat roof extension hive now has occupants :) It appears to be a...

My younger brother was with me and helped. He has expressed an interest in taking them on, as has the Farm Manager. The farm is 40mins from me, but my bro drive past it every day so it would be best for him to step up. I'll mentor as best I can and get them booked on a local course. I've...

We have those round top feeders and had a similar problem. One solution was to put twigs etc in the syrup so any bee falling in can quickly climb aboard a twig, clean itself off and fly back to the cone. We still has fatalities but not as many. HTH Danro

My brother took me shooting (pest control) on a farm he has permission on last year. As I was dong the rounds I noticed some "over grown" bee hives. I later offered to help with them as I have recently become a beekeeper. A year later I'm invited over to have a look.. It turns out the hives...

@oliver90owner He He There were no instructions.. Each vial looks like it has a "lid" which is what prompted my question. I thought I just popped the whole vial in the hive until I read about "a few drops in the hive each week." @drstitson Excellent!! thank you! Danro

OK. Guard has come off - sister hive never had one for some reason. But on Wednesday it was lovely and warm 15Degs I had a quick peek into both hives. Saw her highness on both occasions +eggs Sealed brood in the no.2 hive. The busier hive (no.2) has more bees, both have pleanty of stores...

:eek: You are completely correct. We did replace her. (Just goes to show, I'm still new to this beekeeping lark :-))

I've just received 3 small plastic vials of "swarm lure" (smells like lemon grass...) So what do I do with them now?:o I can smell the lemon grass without removing the lid - I just place a few drops on top of a frame every week or so? This is my first foray into bait hives so any help advice...

That is really interesting. I read that at 7 degs "bees stopped moving" and thought it was unusual wording... I had expected "died" or the like. I wonder how cool that can get and still resurect? ...and for how long? Danro

I'll be off by this time tomorrow!! Promise :gnorsi: Danro

It's still too cold top open up and have a good look in, but I've been observing and there is more activity from the "stronger hive". It is still less than the "weaker hive" but there is definitely The "Stronger hive.." ..and the "weaker" one.. Nice to see they are both bringing food in...

Weather has been pretty cool since my last post, but today the sun was out so I took a trip to the hives. AS it was still only 7° I did not open them up but both hive had bees pinging in and out. So hopefully they are OK. Forecast is still pretty poor and I don't want to open them up in the cold...

Whoops Silly mee!! Sorry, I did try to edit it but I was after the 10 mins.... Danro

Ohhhh I couldn't tell you that? Sorry. The bees came to me as a collected swarm in 2009 from the swarm co-ordinator. How can I tell now?:o We split the colony early last year and requeened so we knew what we had, queen wise. But both hives are "related" I really hope you are right Sally...

Yes, I guess that will be the case... it was just that the donor was the "dodgy" hive. I need a good, warm day now so I can see what is going on.

Ohh I do hope you are right. It was such a good colony last year, we had all our hopes on that one. Thank you!! Danro

Hi everyone Last year I had two colonies. A "good strong" one that went into winter queen right, (2010 queen) plenty of stores etc. Then there was the "weaker" colony. Not sure if it was queen right at the end :confused: Considerably less bees, not much in the way of stores.. a likely candidate...

We had a hive ready and waiting last year. One fine day when I was visiting our other hive I noticed a big black bulge on the side of the hive. It was the size of half a basket ball. I carefully lifted the roof and knocked the swarm in. They were very happy there. Sadly we had a drone laying...