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We have grown them for the past few years - in dustbins (clean ones, with holes in the bottom!) just outside the back door. Wonderful with a slice or two of roast buzzard and a drop of formaldehyde gravy!

And on those really dark ays, when you just don't know how to handle them, what you have done wrong, or why you bother - just console yourself in the knowledge that they have been managing perfectly well for millenia, and are porbably robust enough to cope with our incompetence!

Alternatively, since I assume that your honey crop is going to be relatively modest (?), you could stick to plan A. We removed ten super frames individually from the super, shook the bees back into the hive, and put the removed frame into an empty super, which eventually went into a bin bag...

It's like everything else to do with beekeeping - it all depends. I have three hives on national brood and a half that will be overwintered with the smaller brood box left on (but re-positioned underneath the larger one). I did this last year, did not feed (they had plenty of HB and ivy honey...

Are you planning to produce a left-handed version as well? Will there be an additional supplement for this?

We moved from single brood to brood and a half this year. It has been OK - but a lot of work. And when the bees are tetchy there is always a dangerous temptation to forego some of the checking of the lower brood. All being well (and if the current Lady DD is looking the other way when I put...

I am no expert, and will always defer to those with greater experience. But why not do an AS and then reunite in a few weeks?

Certainly no problem with extreme heat in this part of the UK this morning! But if it gets hotter, I find that the simplest solutions are the best - extra ice in the pink gin works really well for me - and after two or three of those, I find it easy enough to leave the bees to their own...

Some excluders ARE faulty (see previous threads). But some Queens are also faulty - in that they are smaller than average and therefore able to squeeze through the holes in the excluder. And some beekeepers (present company excepted of course!) are also faulty - in that when they check their...

Patience. 8 days from sealing of cell to emerging. Then up to two to three weeks - possibly even longer - for mating flights. Then a few days before the new Queen gets into her stride. So plenty of time yet.

Call me a simplist (or whatever else you wish), but I have always thought that if you (or a Queen bee) have lived for two years, then the chances are that you are two.

:blush5:

Did you remove all of the honey, or leave them some? Are they still bringing in nectar? Is there a likelihood in your area that there will be enough of a flow still on to enable them to build up sufficient stores for the winter? I hope not to have to feed mine this year (I didn't last)...

I find that deploying the current Lady DD and her favourite bread saw works a treat for me ... I don't even raise a sweat!

I always have spares of everything ... ... except whatever it is I need at the time! Anyone need a spare beebrush or twenty?

The small quantity of honey I harvested in the Spring is very coarsely granulated. I harvested it because I thought it was rape - which it wasn't. I now think it probably contained a high proportion of dandelion. Whatever, it is going down very well with the B&B guests.

Checked two hives that look like offering up modest quantities of honey in three or four weeks (weather and everything else permitting!). Found third hive (AS in June) going great guns, and looking nearly ready for a super. Saw eggs and brood in fourth hive, which houses a swarm of two weeks...

Is it the Orthodox or the Coptic Christmas that you celebrate??????????

Last year we just ran ours from the extractor, through seives of two different gauges straight into 15lb honey buckets. Seemed to work - not too much obvious unwanted protein!

You'll have to wait another four weeks or so, till I harvest it.