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I'd dispute that honeybees are in continual decline, there seem to be some very dodgy statistics trying to back that up. Certainly well managed colonies that have their varroa, stores and general health monitored and acted upon (I know this is not the point Chris was trying to make) seem to be...

Received this morning from the National Bee Unit: After colonies have been treated, beekeepers should then reduce colony entrances and assess whether feeding needs to be carried out. Lift the roof off of the colony and heft the hive from each side of the brood box. If the colony has sufficient...

I'd suggest going cheap(ish) initially, all in one or seperates. Then once you have your bees and are convinced you will be keeping them, you will probably want a second suit for interested friends so splash out on a good one (sheriff or bbwear) for yourself. I still use my 5 year old ebay one...

Was worried a week ago that one colony was broodless, and consequently put in a test frame. Much relief today as an inspection showed not only no queen cells, but also plenty of capped brood on frames that I had previously thought of as empty (bearing in mind that I didn't shake bees of any of...

Put on clearer boards to get the refed supers off to be replaced by rapid feeders - they don't seem to be taking much nectar in at the moment so might as well start. Inspected at same time and one colony has no brood that I could see, they also are techy-er than normal. Test frame from other...

My summer crop has produced a lovely lime flavour, no nasty additives! I seem to recall a conversation a few years back questioning if nectar from lime trees gives a lime flavour, if I recall correctly there is little or no relationship between the lime trees and the lime fruit - if not I'd...

Like it!

Filtered off into new demijohns, and I was very pleasantly surprised with the taste. No idea if it will improve, but I'm going to exercise restraint and not bottle it until close to December. No finings applied as yet, will wait and see if it clears further of its own accord. Gravity was...

booger! :nopity: Well done Steve F who I think peruses this forum

Thanks - I think I saw some discussion about not leaving too much air space, is that relevant here? I'm guessing that the two demijohns, which are currently about 90% full will be 70% after syphoning off (after dfiscarding slices of oranges and god knows what)

OK, now I'm feeling a bit of a fool for thinking this mead making was all straightforward. I started two demijohns something less than a month ago, it was bubbling, but is no more, and isn't remotely clear either. So - do I take the plunge and syphon it into new demijohns (or bottles?), throw...

If placing above then QE probably wise, if placing below with the intention of leaving it all winter then no

No need to extract. put them in a super and either under the broodbox and they should move the stores up, or above an empty super and feeding board (crown board with holes open).

Granted! Yes they have plenty of room

Took a jar of set and a jar of runny down to the local show. Fingers crossed ................

I've popped back onto the hives a couple of supers with crystallised stores in them, separated by a feeding board and empty super in the hope that the bees will move some down. Its difficult to judge if this is happening though, if it is its pretty slow. I doused one of the supers in water ...

(yesterday) Removed supers, swapped one brood box, spun and put a couple of supers back on for the bees to clean. Harvested less honey than I'd hoped for, a lot of it must had been from later flowering OSR as it had set rock hard, but the flavour of what did come out was absolutely top notch.

(yesterday) - off with the MAQS, on with the clearer boards

Made up a couple of gallons of thymolated 2:1 syrup and started cleaning a poly box I'm going to move one of my colonies into next week.

I tend to put some fondant on my 14x12s January-ish, more from a better safe than sorry viewpoint - not 100% convinced in my hefting abilities. They do normally consume it but that may be just greed, not convinced its absolutely necessary. Will put on some Neopoll February-ish to give them a...