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Last week I bought 2 packs of 10 brood frames to put together and only needed 1 pack of foundation as I already had 1 pack at home. Today I put 10 frames together but was surprised to have an empty one after I had slid all the foundation in. Only 9 sheets in the pack! So I put the other 10...

One of my 3 garden colonies is looking very weak. They’re on 14x12 BB with undersuper and fondant on top of BB. Peeking through the perspex crownboard, the colony looks too small. They are taking fondant, very slowly, fewer emerging to forage on warm days than the other colonies and I haven’t...

I was stung last May and had an anaphylactic reaction - dropped blood pressure fairly catastrophically, collapsed etc and required paramedics. My GP referred me and I finally saw an allergy specialist in January, allergy confirmed by blood test, and am now on the list for desensitisation...

What about Nozevit +? This appears to be a supplement, rather than medicinal, as I had thought. Is there any evidence that it does help build up?

Hi all. I collected a swarm this time last year and eventually split so now have 3 colonies originating from the same queen. Understandably slow to build up over 2017 and no spare honey. Got them all through the winter and now doing nicely. Extremely docile and all 3 queens laying well, but...

Thanks both. Yes, OMF, celotex insulation above eke containing the box of fondant. Maybe I should remove the perspex crownboard and put the fondant directly across the frames. Doesn't it make a ghastly mess of the frames and slump down into the frames if they don't take it? I have wondered about...

Hi all. Each of my 3 colonies, all on wooden 14x12s, were given a 2Kg slab of fondant before Christmas. I put the slabs into lidded plastic food boxes with a hole in the bottom onto the clear crown board hole. There are quite a few, ?? 70 dead bees which look as if they're stuck in the fondant...

Me again, original poster, mother of the clipped queen. So, what about all that piping and the first queen out fighting and killing the queens still encased in their cells? If, when I get back home to them, the original clipped queen is lost/outside the hive, I should split and leave only 1...

That's exactly what we saw. We scooped and brushed the bees clinging to the bottom of the OMF into a box and left them while we inspected our other hives, intending to put them into another hive but they all went back into the original hive and there's still a ball underneath. We then had to...

Thanks Essex gary, I'm going in......

It's as if they knew we were going away in a minute! We had a clipped queen in a 14x12 with plenty of supers. An hour ago a huge swarm emerged and landed in the very top of the neighbours fir tree. We got a spare national and placed it under, in the hope they'd find it. No sooner had we done...

I've just changed from National deeps to 14x12 and it has revolutionised inspections. They're in the garden so not much lifting around (they are heavy, fully laden) as previously we were on brood + 1/2 so going through all the frames just took ages. Now 11 frames per box to pull out instead of 22.

We've just done a comb and box change on our 2 colonies and all is well. We put the new (14x12) boxes with foundation on top, they drew it out, one much faster than the other, and then we put the new box under the old, found and put the Q in there and a QX on top to keep her there and the old...

We had this problem with wild comb under the 3 deep frames yesterday. They had built beautiful wild comb. What did you fill the space with? I was wondering if we should have removed the 3 old frames, which were jammed full of brood, although no eggs but we would have been sacrifying so much that...

We've just converted from national deeps to 14x12 and have woken up to the fact that when we need to do an AS we won't fit the 14x12 frames into the polynuc we have. Off to buy a polynuc eke, more frames and foundation tomorrow....

Interesting. Is that your first ever bee sting? It's not anaphylaxis, but an effect from a sting away from the original site of the sting is a bit suspect. Were you very nervous and expecting a reaction? That could cause you to get a bit sweaty and spacey but I would take a precaution and obtain...

Thanks all. Job done. 1 colony almost fully drawn out in the 14x12 and Q laying in there and so I've taken the syrup off, the other colony slow on the uptake so will continue but there are a couple of frames ready for laying up so more syrup on and we've shaken em all into the new big box and QX on.

Sorry, that was an answer to Beejaybee's question about whether I have removed empty frames from the old BB. Why didn't I think of that. When I inspect, I have a plan, but it all goes to pieces when I'm looking for BIAS, Q, disease, stores, avoiding people getting under my suit......it's all too...

What a twit, no I have not. I will do it today when I have a look.

I am halfway through a Bailey change to convert to a 14x12 with foundation. We've been feeding 1:1 syrup and they are gobbling it down. Empty again today so I'm refilling whenever they finish it. When we inspected last Thursday, the Q was laying in the new 14x12, but only a few frames drawn out...