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Ohh, and here's another useful one: http://www.thebeeyard.org/queen-rearing-calendar/

I am about to try the same thing... so no advice from experience, but I found these a useful starting point (sorry if you've already found them): http://robo.bushkillfarms.com/beekeeping/queen-rearing/ http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/benhardenmethod.html...

Thanks - the first outing is next weekend, so I'll see how I get on. If they get too hot, I'll just unlock it and let them fly home... if only I hadn't clipped the queen :-) .

Now adapted (with jigsaw not chainsaw) to have a hole in lid. I've put mesh inside (to keep bees in) and spare QE outside (to keep fingers out). Hopefully. with some water, some shade and not too long inside, it'll be interesting, not fatal.

I wondered about that - they'll be on a mesh floor, and under a shade but maybe I should put some mesh in the lid, so they get a through-draft. I sense a jig-saw coming on.

Made an "observation top" for a 14x12 brood box. It sits on on the bb and I can put a frame up with the q on it in the observation chamber. QE between the observation chamber and bb, two lots of bee proof mesh in the vent holes in the top (with 1/4" gap between them) and lots of locks to stop...

A gas blow-torch with auto lighter. In the summer I use it for flaming out hives (wood - I've not tried it on poly yet :-) ), cleaning floors and lighting the smoker. In the winter I use it for lighting the woodburner.

:iagree: Ours are all green, so those using the evil eye of the online arial mapping services have a harder job spotting them.

Update I went through them last evening, as it wasn't raining. They have a queen, who is laying... and they were reasonably well behaved! No stings, no head buzzing or pinging on my hat and following measured in feet not tens of yards. I have been doing weekly inspections for the last month...

:iagree: I have used homemade frame feeders until now, but needed a couple more big national rapid feeders so I added some frame feeders to the order. I put them in a couple of nucs last weekend and went to check the feed level yesterday. The bees were clearly struggling to get out and many...

:iagree: As we discovered... http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=10971

Neat - I wish I had known that (or thought about it...) before now!

We use post-office bands too, but hinged frames sound like an interesting alternative. The last lot we took chewed throught the bands in a couple of weeks and ejected them out of the front of the hive, but by then they had connected the comb to the frames - just in time for me to try to get...

having got wet requeening two hives... I decided to add some electricity to the mix, so I finished off my homemade cabinet warmer / brewbelt / incubator heater. Th**nes sell a thermostat / heater cable kit for £80, and I wondered if you could make your own any cheaper. It turns out you can...

Got wet. I hate this weather.

or: http://scottishbeekeepers.org.uk/PracticalBeekeeping/Downloads.aspx and look at tech data sheet 4 - my favourite plans, but that's just because they're all in inches...

:iagree: We did an entire evening for the local WI, who funded a hive and nuc of bees a couple of years ago (we help look after it, they have a new beekeeper member) and it was very much along these lines. Most people have never seen inside a hive before - label it all up and explain how it...

Here's another, which shows them a bit more clearly. My wife boxed them up mid-afternoon and we hived them that evening, so they had had enought time to start building inside the box.

She is indeed - and having cropped the photo down a bit to post it on the forum even I began to feel a bit more confident! I was a bit surprised to have caught sight of her - they weren't a big swarm, but here's the kind of shot I have been looking through to see if I can find her (beats...

We picked up a swarm locally which didn't look like our bees - they were lighter and looked translucent - is this what you mean? I think I managed to snap the queen by accident as she walked up into the hive (centre of second picture), but it's too blurry for me to be sure...