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Incred flow on here every available cell filled with nectar. No kit left. Queens mated 4 weeks ago are trying to swarm,supers of plastic foundation added 4 days ago are drawn out-mental!

Monster clover and bramble flow on here after yesterdays big thunderstorm no space for the queens to lay and swarming starting up again. Out of supers arrgh

Got the kids in some £1 Simon the beek suits I picked up in the sale.

Well the June gap (which lasted all of 3 days) is well and truly over here,good flow on from the bramble which is well in flower and the clover that's just coming out. All my virgins are well mated and the bees are incredibly calm-happy days!:love:

A simple trick i use is to freeze a bottle of water the night before a day in the apiary, the next day you have ice cold water all day.

Inspected 15 of mine today I would say there's a trickle of honey coming in nothing more. The nuc splits i made are doing really well and 3 out of 6 of my virgins are now laying. Took 5 supers of honey off,not much of it was capped (maybe 20 %) but it all passed the shake test so should be ok...

Hawthorn and holly fading very rapidly here,but the bees have done very well from it. Lots of buds and a few open flowers on the blackberry so shouldn't be too much of a gap.

If it was a full size colony I would destroy all the other cells as long as you're sure there's a vigin still in there to prevent casts. In a nuc you're probably safer from casts and it's probably better to let the bees choose which virgin they want.

Added supers .. lots and lots of supers.

Inspected 12 of mine today all doing good with queens laying well , plenty of Hawthorn and sycamore nectar coming in too. The colonies that haven't been split so far showed no signs of swarming either which was a pleasant surprise. The 1 disappointment was my failure to deploy;

Bad day at the office today one of those days when you wonder is it all worth it :(. Visited my out apiary for the first time in 8 days of the 12 hives there i had already split 5. All the other 7 had sealed cells in ( at the last visit a couple had cells with eggs but nothing more) Found the Q...

Inspected 15 of mine today. We have had some pretty nice days so was hoping some of the 5 virgins i'm waiting on would be mated but nope nothing laying yet. I think one of the virgins must be lost because although they have room there was nectar and pollen in all the brood box frames and no...

Went to get a stack of stored supers from winter storage and the rats had got to 8 of them :mad:

Inspected 15 of mine today, the 3 demerees i set up on 11th April now all have virgins in the top boxes (with their own entrance) and the queens below are laying in an epic fashion,I was hoping they might be good for the year with the early Demeree but no chance they will be trying to swarm in a...

Inspected 12 of mine today all working very hard and a strong flow on. Was expecting to come across plenty of cells today so was prepared for splits but only 2 had cells in them and they were just eggs and very young larvae so I'll leave them till next week before splitting. Mostly well behaved...

Cold today at 10c but felt I had to inspect a couple of my strongest hives and a good job I did too as one of them had sealed cells in. Looks cool for the next few days but a big improvement next week,could be a lot of swarms in trees.

Did a pre-emptive split on a very strong colony with eggs in Q cells. All the workers were home and not happy about being disturbed but next week looks too cold for inspections so thought I had to get it done today. As per the Q was on the very last frame I inspected.

Checked 11 of mine today,most very strong on 10 to 16 frames BIAS with a few pounds of nectar in most supers.Strongest one had 18 frames brood and Q cells with young larvae so did a Padgeon on them,they are my most feisty colony so i'll requeen it next week. Was pleasantly surprised to see all...

Inspected 8 of mine before rain stopped play. All apart from 1 doing very well with between 8 and 16 frames of brood ( I run brood 1/2) The one weak colony only had 2 frames of brood but the laying pattern was good so I gave then a boost by adding a frame of emerging brood. All had plenty of...

Keep an eye on Ebay a maisy's poly hive with 2 x brood box and 2 x supers +floor and roof etc went for £40 last week. Yesterday I got a complete unopened Thornes14 x 12 grade 1 wrc national flat packed hive with 2 supers ,floor , roof, wire excluder frames and found etc for £46! They're £420 on...