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I don't think I understand. You are going to manage their bees, cover all the expenses, and pay them a "rental fee"? In exchange you get the keep the honey you harvest and I assume any nucs/Queens? That makes no sense to me at all.

Blackthorn has been out in force for about week in Cork. Woke up to lawns full of Daisies and Dandelions in flower today.

5 frame nuc seems large for 30 bees. If you have anything smaller or else dummy it down further if possible. I am not sure what the weather is like where you are, it is still too early to go into hives where I am, but if you had any strong hives which could spare it a frame of emerging brood...

Yes. It is not a problem.

The first year extracting foundationless I was extra cautious and ramped up the speed much slower than normal. If I have "new" foundationless frame, as in drawn that year, I still go extra slow but established Frames I treat the same as wired. The only frames I have blown were wired foundation...

I use foundationless with no supports and have no problems extracting. I know some who use wire or bamboo supports. Personally using supports seems like unnecessary extra effort when foundationless works perfectly. I would have the same opinion about your plywood idea. Also you don't need a...

If it is going into swarming season you could nuc the Queens 8 days prior, then cull the queen cells down to one a week later. In the nucs give them mostly foundation/foundationless with a super.

Totally normal crystallisation. A lot of my Blackberry are like this, with the jar being heterogeneous between some nearly fully crystallised some partially there and some almost fully runny. I had very little clover mixed this year. last year it crystallised differently but I had a strong flow...

I think this will be a preaching to the choir situation. Especially if the labelling changes are all small print stuff or things the companies can hide on the back of labels. I believe the only labelling change that will get people who don't already question their 2 euro jar of "honey" is for...

If pure heather it's not a problem as has already been said. It could be used to make mead, if you are so inclined, or know anyone who is.

Harvested 72.5kg of Summer honey this weekend. From 4 hives. One a swarm this May and the other a spilt taken this spring. A little disappointing when compared to the spring crop but I am satisfied with it considering the weather here in the SW of Ireland the past month.

Horse chestnut, both the seeds and young shoots are poisonous to sheep if consumed.

It sounds like you have seen an umarked Queen in the hive that is still defensive? If that is the case I would imagine you probably missed a QC.

I had a similar incident with my bait hive this year, a swarm around 19 days ago. I was using a 6 frame, national poly nuc as a bait hive. Came home to find a swarm had arrive, bees inside, covering all 6 frames, Cluster of bees clinging to the bottom of the box. I figured they hadn't all moved...

Anyway another few weeks on and 2 of the 3 virgin queens have emerged and are marked. The 2021 queen continues to lay well, and the hive is back to its 2 brood configuration. So I don't know why that happened but it all ended up well.

I have read that when there is no nectar coming in that can reduce and in some cases stop the Queen from laying. I am wondering if that is what happened it as I diverted all the flying bees in the Queenless box for the first week. I rotated the entrances around and when I checked the next week...

Hey all, I am in my second year of beekeeping, in the south west of Ireland. I have three hives and one of my goals for this year was to may increase from my own hives. I tried to do a spilt to make increase, the bees made queencells in the queenless box as planned but the Queen has stopped...