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I'm in the process of clearing a site of invasive rhododendron to plant a mixture of alder, hazel and willow, together with a bit of hawthorn and native cherry. It'll be autumn before I start planting, using container-grown trees from Christie-Elite or Alba Trees. The intention is to improve...

Perhaps Lancs Lad is confusing the responsibility we should have as beekeepers (for the health and welfare of the colony) with the apparent contradiction in the need to sometimes kill a queen? Albeit confused with artificial swarms and financial gain ...

Otherwise? Just because it's a hobby does not excuse not being responsible. If it was a dog then I'd hope anyone "unintentionally or otherwise" not looking after its welfare would be criticised.

Trickling will leave capped mites untouched ... if there's significant amounts of sealed brood (and who knows?) then OA trickling will be of little benefit. I'm not worried about the unsealed brood, I simply commented that trickling will damage it. If there is unsealed brood, there's likely to...

Too late to treat for Varroa and have any hope of protecting your winter bees. It might mean your Spring bees aren't riddled with disease but having any of those is dependent on the colony surviving ... which might have required treating in late summer/early autumn. Catch22. Don't bother...

The prices I quoted are retail in up-market 'artisan' shops (with lots of truly local produce), with their markup. I don't think there's any suggestion that customers are unsatisfied. Repeat sales from the door suggest the same. Watch the price ShinySideUp ... prices that avoid having to make...

The few times I've bothered looking at the stuff in various supermarkets it's all been blended 'EU and non-EU' (other than the Manuka-types obviously).

£6.25 to £6.95 for 227g here retail. 340g are £8.25 or more. Almost no demand for 454g jars for retail - perhaps unsurprising as they'd be over a tenner - though I sell 'from the door' in that size.

I rob banks and then spend the fivers I liberate in Thorne's ... from there they get used as change for beekeepers who themselves use them for customers buying single jars of honey with a tenner. From there they cascade on down through the population.

That wasn't really what the survey was about - it was primarily disease and management. Survey should have a note at the beginning that there is a Q about colony losses over the last X years (and to look it up in your records first) ... I suspect the answers received won't be particularly accurate.

Great video. Are they speaking Polish? It sounds like it. My Polish is only just passable but I think the one in red is defending her use of Dieffenbachia leaves as a prophylactic Varroa management technique.

No mention of it here or here.

Please send the link. I'll have access to it.

I know what TakTic is and wasn't suggesting you need it. I'd be interested in seeing the peer-reviewed papers that show rhubarb works - could you post them? I know there's a lot on the web, but have found no controlled evidence. OA levels in rhubarb are pretty low - no more than 1.5%. What...

You must have a lot of mites (incoming or endogenous) to need that amount of OA. I know it's popular to treat a lot in the States amongst the commercial operations - particularly since TakTic was pulled - but under normal conditions you should be able to use fewer treatments in the UK. Early...

Hardly surprising as 'it is known as a plant in which there is a cure for any illness except death illness' ... tell us something we don't know ;) Disappointingly the writer states that the "Results were astonishing", without indicating what the results actually were. We can guess.

Not Cornish, but a recently published metagenome analysis of the honey bee genome ... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-07426-0 ... which includes comparison and discussion of Amm, including this: Given the level of bee imports into Scotland, it was therefore reassuring – and perhaps...

A blunt Stanley knife blade works very well. Use one of the 'handles' that are designed to hold the blade for scraping the paint off windows. Blunt ... because if you use a brand new blade it tends to dig into the perspex. These are much more efficient ways of cleaning off wax and propolis...

But sound vibrations are a great way to clear a hive of those pesky Varroa ... though I think they use ultrasound (14.5 - 15kHz)

I'm with HM on this one ... pound jars and charge accordingly. It'll make the wedding memorable to the guests and you'll get a tidy little profit. 1 lb jars are also a lot less of a pita to fill ;)