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This may be of interest to someone The National Bee Unit has vacancies for 2 Seasonal Bee Inspectors (SBI) in the East of England and preferably Norfolk, South Cambridgeshire, North Hertfordshire, and North Essex areas. If you are interested in applying for the job, please follow this link. If...

Someone asked me how full my cell raisers are. Well - when they line up like this looking at you, you're about there.

When the frame has too many drone cells in it.

Yes. Wax is a valuable commodity to bees and they will frequently re-use it. EDIT: When there is a nectar flow on and the colony is expanding, there is usually lots of young bees hanging from the bottom bar in clusters. These are wax producers. When you have this new white wax being produced...

I usually have problems getting bees to accept grafts after mid-summer. This year is quite different. The late start is keeping them interested. This colony has 60 grafts (36 from NL-55-35-15-2020 & 24 from NL-55-35-31-2020) which are destined to be inseminated with drone semen from The NL.

"No plan ever survives first contact with the enemy"

They wouldn't hear it all the way up in their ivory tower Brian.

I have a Stanley inverter generator that I use whenever I need power at the apiary. I bought the 1700 model rather than the 2000 because there are more power outlets which can come in handy out in the field.

The weather is bound to put a dampener on things. Everyones season is bound to be "different" this year. I remember a couple of years ago people saying my plans to start grafting on 1st May were late. They all said they were starting much earlier. This year I didn't start until 17th May - but...

There are always "quantity discounts" to consider if they bought in volume, but you indicated this would not be the case. So, I'd ask what size jar it's being sold in? There is a lot of labour-cost (not to mention jars, labels, etc ) that goes into the small pots you've shown. It can actually be...

Just a question: if you scrape the frames, does it damage/deform them in any way? I'd hate to think of bits of plastic floating around in the honey as this would defeat the purpose - not having to process it. All the ads I've seen show liquid honey flowing from the hive.

I would have thought the answer was in the name "FlowHive" i.e. it is not suitable if the honey doesn't flow. Heather honey is thixotropic, so doesn't flow OSR is a member of the brassica family and sets rock solid in no time, so it doesn't flow. JBM and Erichalfbee have correctly identified...

It's a good idea to put that on your profile. It helps when people offer advice if they know the approximate area you live in. Conditions can vary between regions quite a bit.

Yes. That would work but you'd have to modify the National frames slightly (take a little off their length). They don't quite fit inside a Langstroth frame otherwise. It really depends on which direction you want your beekeeping to go. There are advocates of Langstroth and National who will...

National frames are incompatible with a Langstroth brood chamber. I've never heard of an "autoflow". Do you mean "FlowHive"?

I don't think public liability insurance would negate any damage to your reputation if the product turned out not to be what you thought it was. It seems to me that this is a risk.

Pollen = protein. Don't burn it! I have colonies on double Langstroth that have an entire BB full of pollen. It's a valuable commodity and represents the pollination work your bees did during a period of fairly unpleasant weather. It would be a criminal waste to destroy it. Do you have nucs...

Is it possible that there might be some brood in the super? If your queen has somehow laid eggs up there, it can be very difficult to get them to abandon it.

If you buy someone else's "honey" to rebrand it, you're accepting it as your own. Is it worth the risk?

No. If you need them to move, blow on them gently and they'll move for you.