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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...

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...

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...

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 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...

I am trying to insert a photo and failing - but for about a month now we've seen bees hanging around outside the (full width) entrance. It's a National, on brood and a half, booming away with 4 supers, 2 extracted last week and replaced. Open mesh floor. It's sunny London, so warm, they have...

Continuing the smoker theme: is there anything that can remove the black tarry deposit from inside the smoker? Some sort of a solvent?

I am away from home for the weekend and my neighbour phoned indignantly about 2 pm to say our bees were 'clustering' in her garden. I rang my mentor, Dave, from my local association, who charged round there and took away 2 cast swarms. No large swarm found in the garden. The neighbour took him...

I have some frames of last year's supers with drawn comb. I want to use this but it is pretty scruffy - from where it was decapped for harvesting and less than perfect storage over winter. Some other frames have holes in from previous wax moth damage. Are these ok to use, presumably drawn comb...

Please will you bee- brains sort out a dreadful argument between my husband and I. We have 3 colonies. 2 are on brood and a half, the 3rd just in a national brood box and we've been feeding fondant all winter to all 3. In the colony on the single brood box, the is a red Cariolan queen, new...

Just been to the Nat. Honey Show all geared up to spend squillions on 3 new 14/12s, frames, foundation etc to replace our current arrangement of brood and a half. I wanted to change to make inspections easier . When we got chatting, the nice man dissuaded us from all that expense and asked why...

I want to do what the title says to make inspections easier and free up 3 supers. Presumably I would do this in spring but how? I could put the old BB on top with new deep boxes under but then they would have such a lot of work to do drawing out all those new frames of deep foundation. Then...

I recently posted about a sealed QC in September and was concerned that she wouldn't get mated in time. Worries proved groundless as I now have masses or lovely BIAS in a single brood box. I was intending to feed candy over the winter, starting soonish as the colony had been slow to build up...

Bought a new red queen and in residence since 8/5/14. We added her to a Q- small colony and have been building it up, albeit slowly since then. At inspection today, found lots of sealed brood, no eggs, no Queen. Actually we have not seen her for some weeks but at last inspection 24/814 saw eggs...

Excuse me if this is a bit of a nitwit question, but I've read a lot about 'robbing' causing bad temper, low stores etc. My question is, how do you recognise robbers? If you see a wasp or 2 sniffing around, presumably that is a warning that more may be on the way, but does it take whole...

Is there any reason why I cannot leave some kilos of filtered honey I am about to extract in the honey tank, to dispense to friends who appear with their own jars, over the next few months? I have a close fitting lid. It's our 2nd extraction and our first year of beekeeping so not set up to...

Up till now our bees have been completely docile, productive and lovable. Last weekend we extracted 2 supers of honey, leaving them with a 3/4 full super and a new one with a mix of new and drawn out foundation. I've had a few stings over the last couple of weeks, always on my Rt thumb around...

First year.......we have National hive and at least 2 supers ready for extraction. Extractor booked for Sunday. 2 weeks ago we added a new, 3rd super box with a mix of drawn and fresh foundation and were amazed to find it full and largely capped 7 days later. It's London, been hot and forage...

Is it my cooking? They have had a syrup feeder in place since i formed the nuk, with a new queen. After an inspection today revealed very low stores in my new nuk, but no bees taking the syrup, inspite of it being placed over the feeding hole and the bees are able to access it. Same recipe as I...