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Any of you clever chaps and ladies recognise this?

Inspected hives for first time in 3 weeks (holidays and weather). When I last looked, two of the three were without laying queen, delighted to find brood in all now. Possibly too late to generate much of a lime/summer harvest, but bodes well for winter.

Likewise. Some had even crystallised upcapped

Put a test frame into a suspected Q- colony. Assuming QC gets formed a merge planned for the weekend. If no QC will probably go for a shake-out

Spent the past two days extracting and jarring my OSR crop, and feeling very pleased with myself until I realised that the soft set I use for seed (from a local farmer) had changed jar size - previously 1lb, now 12oz. Sadly everything in jars now so its going to have to stay a bit short of the...

To answer my own question, it looks like 6 weeks is about the limit, I left one super on for 7 weeks and lost maybe 5% to granulation.

Down to two hives this year, 62 lbs from the pair, however thats only part of the story as one hive swarmed at least 4 times (poor weather and beekeeper) and produced just 8lbs, whereas the other did a very commendable 54 lbs. I've given them the week off as a thank you.

Which wasn't the question ....... The poster has presumably decided he wants to use 14x12 (quite laudable imho, and its far easier to start off with the right size brood box than switch an established colony), and few nuc suppliers seem to offer 14x12 as an option so it seems quite a reasonable...

:bump: (poll closes tomorrow)

I cant get on with wearing glasses inside the veil and as such have practically never seen an egg. If I can see small grubs then I'm happy, though I realise this probably make me a bad beekeeper.

Its generally a good idea to extract as soon as the OSR goes over as they wont be bringing any more in and it will soon start to set in the comb. If you are leaving it as a (hard) set honey you can jar immediately - it will harden within a few weeks. If seeding with a soft set to create your...

Just a reminder that this poll closes on May 29th

I suspect this means you have spun honey that has too much water, the shake test isnt infallable. Refractometer is, I think, the only way of being sure

That sucks, bad luck

The shake is a good test, but if in doubt get yourself a honey refractometer, available on auction sites for £15ish

Does anyone have a good indicator as to roughly how long OSR will stay in the comb before it crystallises? For the second year I'm planning a two harvest strategy so as to not lose too much to crystallisation and am thinking no longer than 6 weeks from the start of a super being filled.

Mine are bringing it in by the bucketload at present, with temps in the low teens.

Two swarms from one hive (not checked for a fortnight) captured. Mother hive still had a couple of Queen Cells, but still quite viable I think. Still good amount of honey in the one super. Other hive, lovely bees, no sign of swarming, good tempered, and have nearly filled out two supers...

:bump:

Popped second super on one hive - not ready for it yet but I wont be back for at least a week and it may be too late then.