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Never had a problem with bees troughing syrup - unless there is a decent flow on. Have you got balsam or ivy around in abundance?

The problem is marketing and cost of production. A National sized "plastic" hive would cost about the same to make and deliver as the Dartington sized one. Sure, a bit more on raw materials, but you still need to make the same basic parts. So how do you market it? You have a Nat wooden or...

Interesting. Putting foundation in at this stage is absolutely not what I'd expect! I think I'll try it on 1 colony to start with!

Close them up, feed weakish syrup to give them water and food. They will be fine for a few days like this. If they are basically OK, after three days of respite, they wasps will be bored and the bees re-invigorated. Tube entrance (or grass stuffed in) makes the bees traverse an obstacle...

There is an argument that if the bees show no sign of varroa, then there is no point in treating them - there may even be an advantage in not treating them as they are not exposed to chemical with out good reason. I would counter with the experience that even when hives do not show any...

I would say it is loads of pollen that have fallen through the floor and got wet - even at this time of year, a full hive can cause a fair bit of condensation on the removable floor. And on to the argument, it is true that healthy bees don't pooh in their hives. Though it has to be said...

Interesting that other people's bees can't read either. A fair number of these supers originated from wet supers that were put on top of the crownboard for cleaning - and were promptly filled with nectar. I might try the "very small hole approach" next year, but for the moment I am inclined...

It would appear that my bees have not been reading their books again. About 4 or our hives had part-filled / uncapped supers at the inspection last week, and very light brood boxes. Given that we want to get the hive volume down for winter, it would be better if the stores were in the brood...

Only checks we are doing is to pull a few frames to check for existence of brood. If they have decided to supersede, kill the queen or generally misbehave then I'd rather know about it and merge them now. Agree that hefting is now the important bit.

I'm about to do the same. Got a nuc that is on the point of filling all frames, they're going into a full brood this evening. The space is packed out with celotex, and they'll have room for 7 frames rather than 5. I would imagine that hive with 2" of celotex at each end will be warmer than...

Hmmmm. Jet powered honey extractor. I've been looking for an excuse to get a jet engine and a hovercraft was just too impractical.

I've got two nucs (2 frames of brood, 2 stores, filling the third), and I'm thinking of putting them in a full size brood for winter. You're insane, you all say. My thinking is this. A full size brood with 70mm of celotex in each end and 25 mm of celotex in the roof will be a far better...

It has been a funny year. We took honey halfway through July, with the expectation that we would probably get another super off each hive by the end of August - and have plenty in the brood box. In reality, we are low on capped stores, the brood nests are still very large and the supers have...

2cm would look like the channel tunnel to the average wasp...! Close it up to one bee diameter - about 8 mm - a bit of cardboard taped across it will do in the short term. If the hive has "given up", then close them up, and put some weak syrup on to give them water + something to do.

Average year. The hives that did well, did very well and produced most of the honey - we've got about 250 pounds, mainly from 2 hives with a little bit from some others. Mating after ASing was poor. Lots of drone layers. Lots of supercedure has knocked other hives back, as well as...

One trick that can be done immediately on a reasonably strong hive. If you have a hive that is fundamentally OK, you've put the entrance block in, but it is still unable to stop wasps, stuff a load of grass into one side of the entrance, with the ends of the grass flapping about over the...

Not sure this is the case in the UK (unless you are somewhere rather extreme). Our lot survived the -13 nights just fine on OMF and all came through the winter. Bees can deal with cold - it is the damp they can't cope with. I would suggest that a sealed, well insulated roof + OMF is better...

Cold water, applied with a hose.

Like the terminator, they never give up. We have wasps having a go at one of our largest colonies - they must be nuts, but they try and get into an absolutely huge hive, and either get thown out intact (the lucky ones), or come out in pieces. Presumably they don't tell their mates that...

Reduce the entrance to 1 bee space - an aperture enough for 1 bee to go though. Once the bees have given up, they will be quickly overwhelmed, even with a tiny entrance. They eventually get to a point where they know they are stuffed, and don't try any more. If they get to the point...