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Did a class on bailey comb change last week. This might be just one way, but it made sense to me. Step one. Place new brood box on top of existing box. Allow them a week to build up new comb. Step two. Place the bailey board between the two boxes, (bailey entrance at front, queen excluder...

Really interesting, thanks!

Thank you for the explanation. That does make sense. It’s very hard being a student of anything in your fifties. Lol We certainly will have a lot of poppies round here before long. Just don’t remember seeing black pollen in the bees before. Thanks for the offer, madasafish, but the wheat...

Please be gentle. Last week we were in the association apiary and we were going through a hive, watching bees come in with the eye-catching red chestnut pollen. The mentor said in a few weeks we will see bees coming in with black pollen. No one questioned it but it didn’t sound right to me. Is...

My non-beekeeper friends ask me questions about bees and to a person, they have all swallowed the narrative of honeybees being endangered. I can quite imagine well meaning people wanting to set up a hive and sit back and do nothing. I have even seen people join different forums asking how to set...

The Police will attend if the RSPCA requests their attendance. The RSPCA might be waiting a while for a response , I accept, but they are mandated to attend. Normally these things are done via prearranged appointment when seizure is planned. The relevant laws regarding animals and their care...

This is an interesting thread on a subject I had not considered. With animals, both companion and farm, even the RSPCA has no automatic right of seizure. Only the Police can seize, usually at the direction of a qualified veterinary surgeon. ( With bees, maybe the Bee Inspector will do this...

If it’s the same way of working as it is with chickens ( which I do know a little about and have clipped), the idea is to unbalance their lift capabilities. Clip both wings and they fly just as well than if you hadn’t bothered. I accept it might be different with bees, but I would have thought...

I have been digging around this subject ( wooden hives at any rate) as I am in the process of setting up and hopefully will be getting bees soon. If you can bear to make them from kits, Bee Equipment is not bad and their seconds and third ranges in pine are very cheap. Pine is generally cheaper...

I spent a decade at least feeling totally overwhelmed by all the things I felt I needed to learn before getting bees. It stopped me from taking the plunge for way too long. I am ready to go now having realised I could never learn it all, but I could learn enough so as not to be a disaster zone...

I read somewhere recently that there are six ways of doing something. Three will work, three won’t, one will be dangerous. This is why you get so many answers when you ask a question. Yesterday, I went to see a mentor. Not my mentor, sadly, as she lives too far away, and picked up many nuggets...

That’s a very kind and generous offer and yes I will PM you. xx

We do have Gumtree and I see there’s a few nucs for sale, sadly none reasonably near and again a bit too strong a price for me at this stage when taking into account the petrol to go collect them. I expect to pay if offered a nuc of course, but I can’t stretch the budget that far when I have to...

I heard a few people lost hives through starvation. A couple due to suspected varroa problems. At the association apiary, the Dracula hive survived but a couple of smaller, weak nucs expired due to varroa. ( Not keen to have a Dracula split! ) Like a lot of associations I guess, the committee...

Hi there. So I was here last year generally soaking up the ambience and learning a trick or two. Much debate was had about hive types which caused much jollity. Anyway I am all set to begin and this is officially my first year. I joined my local association, however because I am on the very edge...

I was just wondering if anyone had thought about solar farms as a potential site for hives? We are surrounded by them here as farmers cash in and turn over a field or two to solar energy, and you often see sheep grazing between the panels, but it struck me they are secure and don't have much...

Well whatever it is, the Bees just go nuts for it. I have no idea whether it produces nectar or whether it's just pollen. Flowers open in the morning but close up around 3pm. I've suffered very snooty looks from neighbours for not cutting my lawn as often as they do. :icon_204-2: Today I had to...

I once saw a video by a Beekeeper prone to woodpecker attack who surrounds his hives with a chicken wire barrier in winter and has good results. A circle of it a few inches away from the hive. Not sure if I'm allowed to mention who it is but it's a British beekeeper who does educational videos...

Here's another candidate for your mystery pollen. I'm afraid I don't know what it's called but everyone's gardens round here are riddled with it. We don't get many honey bees here but the bumbles go nuts for it! I often see a couple of dozen bumbles of all varieties working them on my front...

I have seen it proffered that conventional frame honey, which goes through a series of clarifying through spinning or crushing and straining, gets oxidised during the filtering process even if allowed to settle. Flow frame honey obviously doesn't go through that process and that accounts for the...