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I'm in a very good area for the bees lot's of old coal mining land that's too expensive to redevelop so is left to go wild with no disturbance. The Balsam certainly helps too!

Inspected the last 8 of mine that haven't tried to swarm this year,i've been pretty bad with routine inspections recently due to time pressures and poor weather well that's my excuse anyway. 2 had swarmed and 4 of the other 6 had cells in them so made up some nuc's with the queens. Weather has...

Took off 10 supers for extraction today, only about 1/3 capped on avearage but they're coming out at 17.5% so all good there, flow has come to a complete stop here.EVERYTHING is in full bloom here ( privet,blackberry,thistle,rosebay and clover) but we only managed a truely pitifull 13 celcius...

Inspected another 12 this evening. First 8 are swarms from my bees from this year on brand new 14 x 12's. All doing really well,the earliest one has drawn out and filled a full 14x12 brood box with 9 solid frames of brood and filled 2 supers since the first week in May and is now putting up...

Checked 8 of mine that were waiting for virgins to mate, 6 had laying q's and the ones I saw looked really well mated. Had a peep in the supers of all my colonies and they,ve really been piling it in during the nice weather earlier in the week,,flow has slowed right down now as it's cool and...

Had a quick look in a few of mine today,bit too hot to be doing anything too energetic. Bees are all now super calm due to the monster nectar flow that's on, supers filling up fast! Waiting on around 15 virgins to get mated and if they don't manage it this week i'm not going to be happy...

Something i've noticed is that when the bees first start to make swarm preps they build one or 2 cells a couple of days before the main cell building commences, i'm guessing these will be the virgins to go with the first cast. No proof just something i noticed.

Got back from the bees to find a virgin on my veil Doh! Flow really getting going now bees flying with purpose.

Inspected 4 of mine that hadn't attempted swarming yet this year,2 had loads of cells the other 2 are ok for now. Quite a bit of fresh nectar coming in now and the bees are calming down a bit, I always find June the worst month for temprament with the gap and lots of colonies not queenright...

FINALLY a bit of nectar coming in today, nothing spectacular but it's a start!

I'm more than happy to see some of my bees supporting the other local wildlife.

Howdy I use hessian coffee sacks for my smoker which is a great fuel but a right pain to cut to size.i've tried scissors,jigsaw,hand saw but it's hard going,any suggestions?

Checked 3 colonies with virgins, wasn't too hopeful with the weather the way it's been but surprisingly 2 of them are mated!

Impossible to go into the hives at the moment,11c strong winds and heavy rain, I have lots of hives that were split 8 days ago so need to thin out Q cells and am going to have to do it in terrible weather during a really bad nectar dearth. Not looking forwards to that atall! Guessing some of the...

Took the last of the spring honey off, could maybe have taken a bit more but weather looks cr@p for the next week at least so left some on them. Got 17 supers from 25 hives so not great. Lets hope the Summer flow steps up.

Mad day with the bees today, site 1 ,8 hives, 3 ok,2 swarming,2 waiting for Q's to mate 1 gone drone layer. Site 2, 15 hives only managed to get first 6 done, 2 ok 4 swarming! Weather outlook for the next 10 days is very cool for the time of year with possible overnight frosts so that will...

Yeah but i'd say eveything is 2 weeks earlier these days compared to a few decades ago unfortunately.

Managed to get out to inspect 8 of mine tonight,with one thing and another i've not been able to do any inspections for 14 days so had no idea what to expect. Mixed is the best way to put it , half of them were running on fumes and queens going off lay, the other half were absolutely fine with...

Set up a new apiary site at a local garden centre.

Inspected 15 of mine today, spring flow still going strong and most have put on around 15lbs in the last 7 days and there are plenty of supers now ready for harvest. An artificial swarm I made 9 days ago has completely drawn out a 14x12 brood box! Lost a swarm from one that my notes said had no...