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Thanks! Hoped that would work rather than the newspaper merge route. It will be 36 hours they will have been seperated and not the nicest of bees hence the wish to requeen

I took 2 frames of brood and bees into a nuc yesterday to introduce a new queen. For various reasons that didn't happen, what would be the best way to recombine them to the original hive. It's a strong colony with 3 supers on.

I have one of those barrows, works great. Mine came from Coopers, mail order/online catalogue rather than ebay

Thanks for the information, went to Morrisons today and got stocks in. They are also saving damaged bags for me...result!!

I was asking as someone in this area is selling 'grass pollen raw honey' and I wondered if there really was such a thing

Please would someone tell me if honey bees collect pollen from non nectar sources such as grass pollens.

I had this problem in one of my hives earlier in the year. I had tried giving them lots of extra space which hadn't helped. As it was very close to 7 other hives, not all of them mine, I was anxious it didn't spread. I caged the queen and shook all the frames out at a distance having given...

Thanks Fritillary it was very sad to do that to them. They were lovely bees but actually have not produced much honey...until this season when they were doing really well! Now it will be a major clean up job, 2 x complete hives. I've ordered some Vikron which is Defra safe and after the usual...

Yes all completely fresh hive components, I scorched the stand, put on a new clean floor, brood box, queen excluder, supers, crown board and roof. I even washed the straps I have on the hive and changed the ground cover I have in front of the hive. Obviously I have been washing suit gloves and...

Yes I've tried that, removing the queen, shaking out at a distance, fresh frames, regularly removing the dead bees etc and it hasn't made much difference. I don't want to run the risk of it spreading to the other hives

What virucide wash/soak do you use, the usual washing soda solution? Is it worth using acetic acid so the frames can be re-used? (Never used it before)

One of my hives has been badly affected by CBPV and I've tried a couple of ways to reduce the viral load but they're still dying. I think I will have to kill off the colony, it has one National brood box and 2 supers. One of the supers is almost full of capped honey. There are 6 other hives at...

Yes for the Dayglo pink, had it for 3 years now and still going well both on the bees and in the pen.

I use the bright pink, easy to see and I know it's definitely one of my queens

According to Beebase there are 112 within 10Km of mine, really not possible!

Thanks everyone. I had been using greenhouse glass inset in the lid of a large poly fish box! Worked really well but I thought as I have to replace it maybe Perspex would be safer with young grandchildren racing around the place.

Title says it all really. I broke the glass top to my homemade solar wax extractor so do I replace it with glass again or would Perspex do the job as well or is it less efficient?

Yes it's the side bars top and bottom of the sides of the brood and supers, It couldn't be more wrong if you tried! The chap who made them hadn't come across a national hive before, (not from UK) doesn't 'do' instructions and certainly wouldn't have asked for help but then they didn't know any...

Yes I was intending to swap the floor as well so I could check it.

I had been asked to check on a colony of bees in a national hive, the owner is a complete novice and there's quite a back story. The hive and colony were set up in June and are doing ok, a bit short on stores but otherwise fine. The problem is the brood box and supers have been made up...