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Folks, I am just cutting and pasting from an article published here in Ireland recently. I hope it is of interest to some folk. Jim The pure native Irish honeybee is not extinct as previously feared and is living in many parts of the island of Ireland, a post-graduate research student has...

Folks A novice beekeeper contacted me this weekend and to make a long story short he has had 2 hives of bees for over 12 months and never did any varroa treatment at all. Is there anything he can do at this time of the year to treat his varroa keeping in mind that we are in the honey season...

Folks I am interested in leaving the bees go into foundation-less supers to get 100% natural comb honey. I am fully aware of the down sides of such a move and I accept it is a step backwards in terms of management vis a vis frame inspection, extraction etc, however I wish to give it a whirl...

Hello Folks Could you let me know what is the bottom line with this type of honey? Good tasting or not? Reason is I can bring my hives to a friends farm where these trees are very plentiful (white flowered not pink). My reluctance stems from being in France a few years back when I purchased...

Hello all. What thickness of insulation is being used by members for putting on top of crown boards (and under the roof). I have crown boards with no feed holes (glued with propolis) and mesh floors. My roofs are the depth of the brood box (as a second external skin to keep the brood box...

Hived a good size swarm last Friday and we are having great weather at the moment which is due to continue for the coming week. As the swarm will be this years honey producing unit, is there any advantage in feeding the swarm sugar syrup to assist them in drawing out all the comb - nothing in...

Hello all, I am looking for a bit of help please. Last autumn I put a super of honey under the brood box, and in the course of the autumn / winter I vapourised oxalic acid, in the entrance of the hive, on 3 or 4 occasions. Obviously the super underneath the brood box got the full belt of the...

Hello all, Background : I wish to have cut comb with no commercial foundation, and I have no objection to comb built naturally as designed by the bees. Goal : put no frames into my super, just use a plywood sheet to lay into the top side rebates in the super (the rebate normally used to...

Just saw an american utube clip where the beekeeper claims that japanese knotweed is the main producer of their honey at a set period of their beekeeping year. Does any one on his forum consider this plant to be a significant contributor to honey yields? This is the first I have heard this...

Hello all Small bit of guidance please. I read that apiguard should be on the hive for 2 weeks and then repeat with a new tray of apiguard for another 2 weeks. Problem - my bees have the apiguard gone out of the hive after 3 days! Does this scupper the 4 week/2 tray treatment? What should...

Hello all. A swarm earlier this year took up residence in an old empty box and has built all wild natural comb inside in it. It is a good strong hive. Is any one aware of a utube vid or information about running bees from one hive into another ? I read some where years back that skep or log...

Hello all. I have a hive that swarmed in May earlier this year and again to my disappointment it swarmed again today. I was not checking it for queen cells as I was of the opinion that if it swarmed earlier in May it was done with swarming. This is the first time I have seen a hive do this...

Hello all, little advise please. The facts are as follows: 1. Caught a prime cast in May this year 2. Weather for the following weeks was bad and I am satisfied the virgin queen never mated or did not mate properly and she is now a poor layer of drones. 3. Just discovered this...

I understand it is accepted that bees work towards getting nectar from flowers that have higher sugar content, but do they discriminate when it comes to pollen from different sources? If they do discriminate for/against certain pollen types, what are they looking for in the preferred pollen?

What do you think? I dont know the answer but I was thinking about the bees being clustered in cold weather and whether or not OA fumes adversely disturb the cluster? Has anyone the answer?

Hello all, Got bakers fondant today. I am satisfied all the hives have plenty stores but just in case the bees need it in late winter/early spring I was thinking that the fondant is better on the hives than being stored in my home. I have never fed fondant previously. Q1 - How much fondant is...

Hello all. I wish to grow rose bay willow herb. There is very little of it growing in my catchment area. For those green fingered Beeks - how best to grow this plant please? What is the best time of year , what soil preparation is best? Should I set seed, if so what is the best way to deal...

The briar/bramble finished in my locality this summer and I noticed there was practically a complete dearth of forage thereafter until the ivy started, at least a 4 to 5 week gap. I had a double nuc which I wanted to move into a full commercial hive prior to the winter. A few days into the...

Thought you all might be interested in this one ! This may sound like a joke, but bees are being trained to detect undiagnosed diabetes. A pair of researchers have figured out a way to get bees to stick out their tongues when they detect acetone in the breath, a sign of high blood sugar...

I had a double nuc that had wild cross comb running across 2 frames, so 3 days ago I decided to sort it out and put the whole lot into a normal brood box (commercial) and take out the wild cross comb. When I got stuck into the hive was messier than I originally expected and I had a good...