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Since when has completely unremarkable meant worse? :)

Why have you got an extractor in your apiary? That must be a recipe for an orgy of robbing unless you extract in the middle of the night.

I've got a bit of fishing gear, but that's ridiculous ... you could probably shift a small trawler around on it ;)

I think the problem is with the bottom of the box, not the top. A bottom bee space National box is not supposed to have space above the top of the lugs and below the lip of the box AFAIK ... quote from Cushman "The frames in a beehive are shorter than the box they fit in by a "bee space". If the...

D'oh! Just realised ... perhaps they're so closely related genetically because the feral colony was so prolific that the swarms it produced were used by all the local beekeepers as valuable stock to fill their hives with. That explains it ... ;)

But there is evidence to support the colony expiry and church tower/soffit/wall re-occupancy by a swarm ... in every feral colony tested genetically by Kate Thompson a few years ago. In each case I believe that the closest genetic match was to the geographically-closest beekeepers bees (not as...

Pleased I'm not keeping bees anywhere near that colony then ;)

Multiple vaporisations ... look up stuff from Ratzicki (sic) listed on Randy Olivers scientific beekeeping site ... once a week for a season if I remember, but the original paper is published in Italian I think. For completeness here is the VMD documentation (Word document) ... this includes a...

4. That bees are declining due to CCD in UK 4. That 'product of EU and non-EU countries' and a price-tag of £1.05 for 500g is any indication of a quality product on the supermarket shelves (see B+ above) 4. That honey helps reduce hay fever 4. That Apiguard works in November in the Midlands 4...

Thorne's Everynucs also come with a crownboard (made by Bayer ;) which always made me smile). These are Langstroth-sized (or more) boxes with feeders to shrink them to National size. However, they're advertised as such.

It's one of the many ways cerana copes with Varroa, and not one that's going to appear anytime soon in Apis mellifera. It's a nice paper, but hardly a game changer surely?

Surely you should treat? Leaving a fresh swarm with an unknown mite load - but it could be substantial - for a year amongst other colonies in the apiary is a potential problem. Might not be an issue with a shook swarm, but I'd want to be sure they had a very low mite load to start with.

Remember ... at this time of the year there should be more and more brood being raised, so brood should exceed mites. That being the case there remains ample opportunity for them to 'hide'. I'm not sure anyone has really calculated the likely drop with the presence of absence of lots or little...

Confused ... ample opportunities. I remember a friend demonstrating the classic Pagden method to the "beginning beekeeping" class a few years ago. He did pretty well except for trying to correct the left and right instructions to take account of the fact that he was facing the audience ... his...

DanBee has already posted his version. This is mine, which rotates the hive on the stand to redirect bees.

Depending upon whether I want to make increase or reunite ... Nucs for the former, or a vertical split for the latter using a simple split board. PH has explained the benefit of a nuc already. Vertical split I find easy and I then just unite again over newspaper to requeen as needed. My...

Single-doored split board and a 180 degree turn of the hive after a week is probably easier to manage to get the same result. Split board can double as a floor in between times if needed.

Not too late to catch the founder of next years AH queens though ;) OSR ... oh how I laughed. It's about 4" tall here and there's still snow in some of the ditches.

Yes, but no .... Usually a footballer, third grade TV "star", tabloid journalist, BBC special correspondent, union rep, junior doctor, minor royalty, backbench MP, 'man in the street', witness, city trader, teacher i.e. anyone at all. Does my head in. Know what I mean?