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Hi all, Was looking at my wife's hive with her this afternoon. This is a very advanced colony for this time of year. 14x12, with 8 frames of BIAS - much of it wall to wall. Great looking brood pattern, cappings, and larvae.The bees were great in number, and were calm and healthy-looking. There...

QQ - If you (UK) guys have the odd colony to sell to the great unwashed, could I please learn where you have success advertising? The specific reason I ask is that I have previously used both Gumtree and Pre-loved, but these have become a royal PITA, as the AI bots routinely reject ads with...

Just speaking from personal experience, I have had Virgin Queens mate very well in mid-March before (and late September, for that matter). There always seem to be residual pools of drones. Furthermore it has occurred to me more than once whether the proportion of drone laying colonies exiting...

I borrowed a Thomas extractor like this from my Association a while ago (same thing, older model), and really liked it. I thought the quality was very good indeed, and I really liked the straining directly into the settling tank. It prepared the honey for a subsequent filter, without having to...

All good - in relation to sizing indications, I guess - but you are still going to have a cohort of fatigued, stressed and disorienteated OTHER insects who don't escape, and who exipre. Anyone who has ever set a wasp trap (of whatever design) must be able to relate to that. If people with a...

Great feedback, Eric, from someone who is in an area which is potentially (though hopefully/likely(?) not) impacted in 2024. The whole importations risk is never going to go away, sadly. I forget whether it was Hull last year (vs. the year before), but I do seem to recall also a nest found in...

I was going to post on a new thread, but seeing that the AH springtime strategy banter has kicked off here in earnest, in what is an exhaustive (if not exhausting) exchange ... The stalls at the Beekeeping Show on Saturday were (worryingly) awash with traps and gadgets to deal with the Asian...

Other than the snowdrops and the crocus, nothing of note cracking off in my corner of Leicestershire yet ... though (to continue the previous chat on Blackthorn) the prunus spinosa is about ready to burst. Also spotted some nice pink flowers on the other side of the hedge, near my hives...

Most of it in my garden 😀 It really is extremely prevalent in Leicestershire. In my experience, it generally flowers much earlier than, say, my wild cherry (prunus avium), though there are no signs of blossom here yet; though it won't be long.

I've read Honey Bee Democracy cover to cover. Brilliant as it is, illuminating as the studies are (indeed they have informed both my bait hive placement, and my beekeeping more generally), and as amazing as the site selection process is, I do not recall any statistic of "95%" optimal decision...

To some degree I have to take that as being a fact. This is a well sealed wooden hive with 22mm walls, a solid floor and a small entrance, and as you identify (irrespective of bees) the internal temperature is tracking the external temperature, so implies only limited insulative benefit...

Insightful! Thanks 👍

... In which case, that would mean since mid-September (until now), which is at odds with other colonies which, due to the mild winter, have continued rearing brood through much of the winter.... ... And whilst I appreciate the 34/35 degree figure being that at which the bees need to maintain...

Hi all, thoughts on this are appreciated. Attached is a video taken at the entrance of my Warre hive today, before the storm. It being mild, the bees were out on (presumably cleansing) flights, and some corpses were being ejected. So all fairly positive, and, for now at least, it appears the...

stimulating, cliquey, divisive

Does anyone know why there is no show in the calendar for 2024? Obviously, the boycott by some big suppliers was then followed by the successful, inaugural launch of the Telford show, which looks like it's probably going to be even bigger this year. Difficult to see how Patrick can recover that...

Not true. Say you are a big VAT registered honey packer. Lots of inputs @ standard rate or reduced rate to reclaim. Zero rated outputs. Consistent VAT refunds. That's VAT. The size of your enterprise is immaterial.

Completely untrue. They will not and cannot refuse a voluntary VAT registration for even the smallest enterprise, as long as it passes the test of not being just a hobby venture. Anyone who makes regular commerical sales can be regarded as a business. Per VAT notices 700 and 700/1 there is...

So, I find it really confusing. The mass exodus happens within the space of 10 minutes. The monitor records weight snapshots every 10 minutes, and it invarably happens in one of these slots. ~1 to 2 kg of bee-weight is a lot of bees (or a lot of poo). If it were cleansing, or even, I guess...

Thanks Murox, the data above was collected by the scales which accompany a Hive Heart (which collects temperature, humidity and audio data - the latter being used to predict swarming). A fascinating little venture - just for the sake of it, really. I am already 4 years into doing the NHMS...