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Needs pictures.

Well said. That COLOSS paper on survival of local vs. non-local stocks was a very questionable study. I was also intrigued that professional breeders/rearers/researchers were wrong about the stated races of their bees in around 30% of specimens analysed. We would do well to remember that when...

Sorry, missed this as I became busy with the bees. "Prolific" is a very loaded term; to Amm enthusiasts it appears to be one of the cornerstones of their practice, a rallying call, and a differentiator between what is right and what is wrong. Perhaps in the way that the terms "honey harvest"...

I've not had any incidence of a queen right queen raiser swarming in 12 years of using the NBU system. It's not a system that can be convincingly explained in terms of emergency, supercedure, or swarming impulses for queen raising. The queen cells are being raised in an upper brood box...

Queens will happily lay up whole brood frames of drone comb.

Yes exactly - that's why I was careful to quote the original sentiment of "frames with brood" rather than "frames of brood" - the two are very different measurements.

I appreciate the tone of your reply, thank you. I was wrong when I said "occupy 14 frames", the Cooper quote is actually "brood in 14 BS brood combs"; I was working from memory and didn't want to stir up the ranting fool unnecessarily. I've attached Cooper's quote verbatim for the same reason...

Agree with ITLD, it's a recent fabrication. IIRC it was invented/adopted by a French environmental protest in the mid 1990's as a seemingly credible soundbyte. No earlier traces of it were found. ETA: yes, here it is on Snopes, and the earliest documented report was by French beekeepers...

Beowulf Cooper stated "occupy 14 BS frames when unconstrained" so you may wish to check your sources. 14 National brood frames sounds like double brood to me.

If the bees need more than one brood box, add a second brood box, don't mess about mixing shallows and deeps. Brood and a half is a shortsighted compromise that restricts unnecessarily. It is the beekeeping equivalent of tying your shoelaces together, but of course it is presented as "a system"...

You came down too harshly on PH, IMHO, but you were probably still riled by making the first post. TBH the apibioxal vs. generic oxalic arrangement presents a bizarre parallel existence - oxalic acid packaged as a branded product approved for use via specific methods, oxalic acid available as...

That reminds me - is "Allard Daalder - your honeyest partner" (sp?) still going? His adverts used to make me chuckle :)

The (temperature x duration) would destroy most of the nutritional value of any pollen recovered.

Here you go :)

But it's an unnecessary faff. One door, one principal intervention to confuse/redirect to the new entrance, job done. No fiddling, no trying to remember whether it's door 3 on day 6 or door 6 on day 3, etc. ;) Snelgrove was reputedly a believer of the Gerstung theory which (wrongly) proposed...

Every one of our crown boards is a split board, so it's always readily to hand. Simple crown board with bee space batten on both sides, incorporating a twisting entrance. Feed hole to allow for gauze, newspaper, etc. Double bee space comes in very handy at times if you are on top bee space...

Indeed. Worth recording the sense of humour failure for posterity, perhaps?

Couldn't tell from your comment if it was tongue in cheek or daggers drawn. Apologies if I came down on you too harshly :)

and a slightly tongue-in-cheek one at that... coined about ten years ago, when (according to some) simply changing the container would solve all the bees' problems... ;)

:iagree: