Search results

There are a few other IWF videos which you may not have seen

The larva. They don't feed eggs

I had to do that in torrential rain during the Bee Breeders examination. For good measure, I showed them how to evert the endophallus to extract the semen - something I'm sure they'd never seen before. The classic approach of marking queens with a Posca pen is woefully inadequate as I regularly...

Natural mite drop is only reliable in the early part of the year. Once they start brooding, it's not even a reliable relative indicator as you don't know how many are reproducing inside sealed cells. A better approach at this time of year is to take 50g samples of workers from the supers, freeze...

earwig?

The incubator gives you a bit more certainty than allowing a colony to look after them. I mark my virgins before introduction to a nuc but, unless you do that, you can choose your time to make up mating nucs (usually the day before they're due to emerge) secure in the knowledge that the cells...

It's an incubator day today. 10 virgins have emerged from their cells this morning and another 18 expected before the day is out. For the Mid-Bucks people, these are from NL-55-35-15-2020 - full sibs of the ones you guys did on the 13th.

I bought myself a 120 lumen candling lamp to provide cool light when grafting. I tried it out yesterday and can thoroughly recommend it.

I have "quite a few" colonies. ;) If you want the QE for exclusion of stray queens/drones, they're ok. However, if you want them for queen confinement, they're not so good. I do a fair bit of instrumental insemination so I need to prevent virgin queens from flying to mate naturally. Their...

I have 100 Langstroth Paynes polynucs with the entrance you describe. In my experience, the entrance disk isn't a problem - you can rotate it down to a single bee-space if you wish (useful if wasps/robber bees are a problem). By rotating the disk, you minimise draughts too - of course, there are...

I had to ask about this part of your post. At what point does a "reasonably priced" queen become "expensive"? Does it apply to any queen that is purchased or just those above a certain price? Personally, I prefer the quotation: "a good queen doesn't cost. She pays."

I agree with @Swarm . Virgin queens are like growing sweetcorn. You walk slowly to collect them, then run back once you have them. I transfer virgins into nucs asap after they've emerged and they've been marked i.e. a couple of hours. The chances of getting them accepted diminishes sharply the...

I came across that one. There's a little place called "Llantrisant" near the uni where you come off the A470

:ROFLMAO:

My son is studying in South Wales so I'm making more trips there than I ever expected to, not just because of C19 but due to being flooded out of his accommodation last February. Anyway, on one of these trips, I learned my very first Welsh word; "cwtsh". What is wrong with you people? Is there...

Interesting. I would probably adopt the same attitude as you if anything like that happened to me. I have never had a problem with them though - even though I use PayPal a lot.

I've never had any problems with PayPal. I use it all the time.

Have you considered PayPal? If it's just an occasional honey sale to friends/work-mates this would probably suit you as there are no transaction fees between friends. You link it to a bank account/card but you can hold credit balances in your Paypal account itself. Then, when the sales come...

It makes you appreciate what they do, doesn't it?

:giggle: It would be if they had malicious intentions but these are very quiet, calm bees.