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I’ve left a unused nuc out as a bait hive and noticed some (5-10) bees sitting in the entrance earlier today, not scouting or measuring just kind of blocking the entrance and not moving much. i went out this evening to check if a swarm had followed, but found these bees now inside sitting in a...

I put some extra cardboard/paper for the smoker in a 2l black plastic plant pot once and left it in the edge of a hive stand, the bees started hitting it like hailstones

on some other forums you have a 5min window to edit your posts for typos etc after that the post is locked. I think that would make sense and avoid some of the problems mentioned in this thread

I'm not a scientist and don't have 1000s of hives to achieve a significant sample size so use the trial and error method. I think most beekeeping habits have been derived that way up to now. The internet allows somewhat for a consensus check of ideas but I will agree there are a lot of crap...

I've run both with and without QEs n parallel, its not scientific and I'm not claiming it is but I've noticed that those without QEs move up sooner. So not just quoting mantras. My un scientific guess is that larger bees can't travel up as easily as smaller bees (as evidenced with dodgy QEs and...

Well you’ve seen an instant response from Swarm proving my point, you’re the one whom claimed it was nonsense so i think it is up to you to prove your claim

not from my experience, can you prove otherwise?

Two reasons 1)some of the plastic QE's can be badly made and the holes are smaller than required limiting the travel of the bees so you will just get some smaller bees going up 2) bees will generally move up easier if there is no QE, even if it is just to the bottom of the super frames. as they...

Take out the QE

do you use a smoker?

maybe try banana essence or these sweets next, the warning smell the bees emit is more like the artificial banana smell fm the sweets...

none but one super almost full this year so definitely worth leaving the bait hives out later in the summer

caught a late swarm on 19th July last year, it’s filling double brood boxes this year

would be interested to see the app. Would also need to track feed and treatment. there are some good templates out there as a starting point. Freeform section for comments that don't fit elsewhere

"We use no chemicals whatsoever in the grounds"....not even soap before the hand harvesting?

I have some shiitake plugs in progress. plugs put in freshly cut willow logs in October then put damp in a plastic bag in a shady area until last month. Took them out and stacked them on a larger log last month in a wooded area but no growth yet. probably needs a bit of warmth to get going. I've...

Yes cost and effort, its not as easy as shaking some sugar into your hives

i don’t think you do. Do you think it‘s wise for a new beekeeper with one or two hives to start developing their own cures or starting to try breeding their own resilient strain of bees? Learn the basics first ( which will take more than two years in almost every case) then when you have...

We've had several new members join our association and instantly want to not treat their bees, most suffer losses and probably raise the varroa levels in the area. I would suggest getting a few more years under your belt keeping bees before starting experiments. Learn to walk before you run..

Been around for a while https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/threads/selling-a-complete-frame-of-honey-instead-of-extracting.31470/ This crowd put some marketing spin behind different honey types being worth much more, city honey is worth 120 vs 80 for dorset honey...