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I agree that a mentor is essential so you can get proper experience before acquiring your bees, but I don't believe a single hive is a 'non starter'. I have one hive from choice - I don't want to have 2 as there are going to be periods when you'll be looking after 3/4 hives, even though you...

Good video demo, thanks! Bit shocking that his first hive had died though - I would've been gutted! Mr Abeille - cheers for the link. I bought the wrong thing from Thornes as when I looked for Oxalic acid, the only thing that came up was the 'oxalic acid technical', which I now realise is the...

Sorry if this has been answered a thousand times, but I'm not 100% clear still on how to apply oxalic acid. Adding drops to 'seams' of bees - does that mean the gaps between the frames where they are? And do I have to make sure I don't drip too much on individual bees?

Thanks for the replies and advice. I'll block some of the mg with tape temporarily and if it's warm enough will have a quick peek inside this week.

Hi, I put my mouse guard on last weekend as I thought it was getting sufficiently cold that the bees weren't doing much and hadn't seen any wasps for a few days. However, whenever I've nipped down to look at the hive, I've seen a few wasps hanging around and a couple going in through the mouse...

Do the bees really get tricked into coming out when the snow reflects? That doesn't make sense to me as surely they must feel how cold it is, and what do bees do in the wild? Maybe the dead bees are ones that have been booted out as normal and they're just highlighted in the stark white...

I don't see a problem with advertising as long as it's done in the right section. Perhaps you could charge a percentage of each sale to go towards the forum, so the commerical beekeepers pay proportionally more than 'hobby' ones.

I like to take a beer into the garden and sit to the side of the hive and watch them - it's very peaceful!

Great, thanks for putting my mind at ease :)

Going slightly off the thread: is it ok to mix thymol in saucepans used for cooking? I've been mixing my syrup in with the thymol in a large saucepan and then thoroughly cleaning it after, but just had a thought about whether this was sensible?

Oh. So I should be measuring the mixture once it's got the sugar added to see how many litres it is, and then add the thymol solution? Does anyone who's good at maths happen to know how many litres that would be for 1kg sugar + 0.5 litres water?

Sorry, should've been clearer: I've got the made up stuff from a friend, but I'm only adding it to small quantities of syrup a bit at a time.

Thanks for the replies. 0.6ml should be about right then. I'm intending to treat for nosema so I want the higher dose, rather than just stopping the syrup from fermenting. I also prefer making smaller batches of syrup and checking the bees every couple of days to see if they need more.

Hi, I've got some of Hivemaker's thymol recipe but am unsure how much to add to my half litre of syrup. I only have one hive so I only make up 1kg of sugar at a time. It says add 5ml per gallon of syrup, so how much is that for 1/2 litre? Google says 1 gallon is 4.5 litres so does that mean I...

That's very true. Companies do like to jump on the 'environmental' band wagon. I'm at my pc looking at a free packet of bee-friendly seeds that came courtesy of Banrock station wine/The Observer at this very moment.

It's all the rage in London as more businesses are getting into it in the city: http://londonist.com/2011/08/free-beehives-for-businesses.php I'm trying to persuade my company to do it!

Ok, I'll just chill out. I guess I'm worrying too much about it and as you say, they know what they're doing! Thanks.

Yes, but if the new queen doesn't mate and the old queen wasn't properly mated in summer, then she'll run out of eggs before next spring, won't she?

My bees want to supercede their queen, something I understand is apparently fairly common at this time of year if she's not properly mated, injured etc. However, it seems to me that it's a bad time for them to attempt this due to poor weather conditions. By the time she hatches and flies, it'll...

Hi, thanks for replies. I'd prefer not to use oxalic acid due to the fact that I'm quite clumsy and don't like the idea of handling it. I know that sounds a bit wimpish but that's why I'd like to find an alternative. Would feeding a thymolised syrup be sufficient after apiguard to keep the...