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Hi Farbee, not the one that had the holiday in Kent, it is doing very well (or appears to be) Hope yours are all well and you had a good year. MM have already binned them or would have taken you up on the offer, if I can get to them on Tuesday I may send a sample of what remains, I plan to make...

was a poly hive, 14 x 12, OMF open, plastic crown board on top and then lid. Heads in cells for a lot, but most in heap on omf, was surprised and suspect it could be something else ... two colonies next to it were fine as were my others on another apiary and small nuc in garden. There was also a...

Out checking on my hives today and found one that has all but died out....handful of bees and the queen is all that remains. Looking through the frames it looks like they have isolated themselves and starved as a few frames in from where they are there was another 7 frames of stores. Have...

cheers Protheroe, Will give it a go... try a couple of different types.... dry, sweet, medium and perhaps add a bit of fruit :)

Just a quick question peeps..... Has anyone made Mead from ivy honey and, if so, did it taste ok? I know ivy honey is an 'acquired' taste for some but would be interested to hear from those that have. I have some in bucket and about 5 supers full that have set (will be aiming to feed this back...

watching this post :) as I have it pouring into my hives....took 5 supers off 3 colonies on Sunday and tried to extract only to find most had set, done 2 supers and got 40lb off as rest was solid :( The 40lb had set in the bucket by Monday night. Haven't had time to extract others but expect...

It is an acquired taste :) ivy honey, no idea about a ferrets leather jock strap but will take your word as gospel. I've just removed 5 supers from 3 hives ........... full of it and left a super on each as they are filling everything, brace comb between frames, top an bottom, side walls...I...

From a sales perspective YOU have to believe and have confidence in your product. Your passion for the product, its quality, fresh, un-blended, unadulterated, from flower to spoon, process conducted by your bees and free of chemicals will ensure it sells for your asking price..........do not...

Follow up to an earlier post re laying workers in one of my hives and several failed attempts to requeen with bought in queens. Shook out all bees from hive 100' from hive location two weeks ago and destroyed as much of the drone brood that I could see. Next day I placed a small swarm colony on...

I just put a couple of strips of thin timber on top of the frames and it holds the cover high enough to allow the bees to move over the tops and when the lid is put on it holds down Round all the edges....

I use one for doing the cappings, works fine for that and leaves a nice block of wax / pollen etc for melting down, or as I did this week, soaked them in vodka after pressing down and strain ...... Lovely little mellow during 😛

Many thanks for the ideas and suggestions folks, much appreciated. I do have a 'spare' queen in a mini mating hive / nuc that I thought I could use but was worried they would kill her like they appear to have done with previous attempts to requeen. That is why I thought I could replace the...

For clarity, no frames of brood have been added and all (healthy) bees are flyers. In this apiary I have one other colony but there are others who have colonies and I don't want them to get my bees :) I suppose I could take a frame of eggs / brood from the other colony, set up a nuc on the...

One of my hives which is queenless, has failed to accept new queens now has laying workers. To address this could I move the hive off its spot, replace with a small queen right colony and allow the flyers to return to the new one and gradually drain off these bees for a week or two by changing...

I used a 'fruit press' last year with good success (got it off freecycle brand new). Put them in a straining bag, which kept the wax in, then used the press, topping up bag as I went along, then put the strained honey in a bucket to settle..............nice compressed wax for melting down and...

cheers Beeno, intended to go tonight to check them but with weather so miserable it will have to be tomorrow.... will soon know if they have made up their minds. They had been putting holes in the sides of any queen cups with an egg in it.. had put up a post about it a week or two ago as found...

Hi hedgehog, appreciate your input, yours was after it swarmed and may have been easier to accept new queen. I am trying to avoid a swarm with the thought of doing an AS and adding a new queen to the queenless half of the AS because I am short of time to keep the QC's under control.

Hi Ratcatcher, the last check on Monday had a couple of QC's with egg that I knocked down. On previous inspection it had a few QC's where a few had eggs but the actual cell had holes in side of them. Being uncertain whether they want to swarm or not, and with me going on holiday, I was looking...

Hi Enrico, my thoughts were to do it as an AS and then add a queen to the queenless colony after doing the AS rather than leaving it to raise a new queen. It was the timeline after the AS before I could add the new queen I am trying to ascertain. Also the thoughts / suggestions from the forum...

Two weeks. My main worry is that if I leave them to it then several queens will emerge and the colony will swarm out, I was hoping to avoid this by adding a queen after the split with a view that they will no longer raise QC's and will settle down to establish themselves as a colony. As I have...