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Allelujah brother.

Unless you want your bees to swarm at will, some form of swarm control is a necessity. How can you 'not like' doing an artificial swarm?

United three hives I demaree'd a month ago. Two supers off each and LOTS of bees. The first time I'd used this procedure and it has stopped the swarm instinct so far. There's plenty of time for them to try again so I'll keep up the regular inspections.

I had a dream today. My best hive swarmed into a tree which was too high for me to collect. There was a thunderstorm and all the bees were soaked and died. Two thousand bees and my best queen. Then I woke up and realised I kill at least one bee in every inspection and one dies every time I...

Hello Finman The mesh in my board was not a queen excluder but mesh with small holes which will allow the heat to rise but stop the bees getting through. In the system I'm using, the supers are on top of the top box. With the boxes being closer than is usual I think some of the pheromones from...

One of my demaree'd hives has a board with a piece of mesh over a hole in its centre (as per Ken Basterfield) and a closable entrance on each side. It effectively creates two colonies and allows me to raise a queen in the top box. I left one QC in the top box which should have hatched three...

The first time I used thick black rubber gloves. I learned from my mistake and use nitriles now for all manipulations. It did take a while to get used to the feeling of the bees walking over my hands.

I use some which have a spring in the handle to open them and which have thin razor sharp blades. They are very good, even in gloved hands.

The bumble bee which likes to nest in bird boxes is Bombus hypnorum, the Tree Bumble Bee (a recent arrival in the UK). The best way to discourage them from your swift box I think would be to cover the entrance with Duct Tape. Swift arrival dates are fairly fixed and I don't think the bee...

For a new swarm in a box I'd expect to pay nothing as its quality and provenance are unknown. I would, however, give the collector something for his time and effort on my behalf (a bottle of wine perhaps). If the swarm has been housed for a while to check for brood disease and treated for varroa...

Gave my recently nucd swarm a frame of stores, which they liked, and a dose of thymolated varroa treatment, which they didn't. Woke at 5.30am thinking about my four demaree'd hives :ohthedrama::ohthedrama:

I've moved a hive half a mile between my apiaries this year using a few holly twigs outside the hive to disorientate them. It worked a treat.

Hi YorkshireBees. Rotation of frames is possible but not necessary. I mark one end frame with a drawing pin over the lug ( so as not to confuse with a QC marker). That frame is removed first and put to one side. The frames are then inspected and moved down one castellation. The pinned frame is...

It is so easy to miss a queen cell. It must happen to everyone because all the advice warns about it. When it happens to me they always land in the same place on my side fence. Maybe you have a 'lucky' magnolia.

From my observations the mortuary bees clear them out of the hive. Some get dropped immediately outside and others get carried away from the hive. 100 over 15 days would be as low a death rate as you could expect. If you get 100s in a day then you could suspect they've got a dose of insecticide...

With me it was a faulty hearing aid - must have been giving out a high pitched noise that I couldn't hear. Three stings on the left side of my neck in one inspection. Should have gone to Specsavers- so I did and got the speaker end replaced. Since then I can hear them coming.

Thanks for your help Yorkshirebees. Mine are on 14x12 so with 2 broods and three supers I need some steps to move them safely. On the other hand I only have space for 3 hives horizontally, so it's up the steps I go. Dave Cushman recommends a QE below the top box and above the supers. Does your...

I transferred the swarm I caught yesterday into a 14x12 6 frame poly nuc. with a frame of brood from another colony. I didn't see the queen but there were eggs in the old comb I'd used as bait, so it was a prime swarm. There were QCs in the hive I took the brood frame from so I then ASd it...

Because I have limited space in my home apiary I am experimenting with two types of vertical artificial swarm this year. One uses a board devised by Ken Basterfield and a technique described in Bee Craft in April 2012. He splits the brood in two and leaves half with the queen which is deprived...

CJH- Have you read what Roger Patterson has to say about naturally sown oak trees, ley lines and swarms on the Dave Cushman website? Your experience seems to bear him out. My bait hive caught a prime swarm within two days. 14x12 brood box, solid floor and roof. 2 frames of old comb, one vial of...