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I've a colony that is really getting me in bother as it's on an allotment site and is scaring the neighbours. There was a swarm issued from it as I arrived on site a week ago. I opened the hive up and tore down all but one queen cell. I then knocked the swarm into a box. When I came back to...

As I understand it, you can now actually legally be shot dead by VMD employees for vaping bees with oxalic acid. keep an eye out for snipers then.

I think, in the dim and distant past, I read or was told that it's not advisable to put a flower bed with bee friendly plants very close to your hives. The theory is, I think, that it attracts bees from outside the apiary which then find the hives and could start robbing them. Also, I had an...

I found some honey that I extracted In 2015 and stored in my garage. It looks and tastes OK, but I'm worried about HMF levels. Should I be and can I still sell it ?

Are entrance reducers used on the Darlington type up and over floors. If so, is the top slot reduced or the bottom slot ? If not, why not? Please Asking fo a friend

Just been out to a small cast which was on a tarmac area Behind some houses. It wasn't a ball of bees I usually see but a circle of bees, 1 deep on the ground. Has anyone any idea why the bees would do that? They were very lethargic, so I sprayed a bit of syrup on them. I left a box there...

I had a hive seemingly swarm and form the usual swarm rugby ball shape in a tree about 10m away. They stayed there for a couple of hours then went back into the hive. I opened it up and found a sealed supercedure cell. So my theory is that the Queen is being superceeded and the swarm was a...

I read the article about swarm control with more than usual interest because of the description of Demaree. So it basically says that you put the queen and one frame of capped brood in a new box and leave the remainder of the brood in the original box. Then stack the boxes, separating the 2...

I saw some honey labels that had the text from the Wikipedia entry for honey. Is that legal? Can I print it on my labels ?

I have 3 swarms that I have no room for. Any takers willing to give them a good home? Each is worth a load of hay, but I'll give them away. 1 is small swarm in a nuc on frames. 1 is in a Sealey type swarm box, so will be on wild comb. Needs shaking into a hive. If I manage to get the swarm...

There was quite a large swarm on the allotment on Bank Holiday Monday. I shook it into a 5 frame nuc, but they came out again and sat on the outside of the nuc for a whole day. Another beek shook/brushed them into his nuc, with his own frames (not mine) and the bees stayed in the box overnight...

I have a few issues with my Sthorns bought steam extractor and read with interest the article about a homemade steam wax extractor in BBKA News However, Im not going to try it as the description seems to ignore key design points, the chief one being, how to stop steam leaking from the joints...

Just paid £10 for some past papers but didn't get a download link. PayPal sent me an email to say I paid, but nothing from the BBKA! Last time I tried downloading past papers they were free and there was no aggravation! It's not the money so much as the time sorting it out.

I am trying to cream honey and finding it really difficult. I warmed up 3 buckets of OSR honey at 40 deg and poured 2 of them through a filter into a settling tank. The next bucket didn't go through the filter, so I put it back in the warming cabinet and put a heat belt on the settling tank. I...

I collected spring honey just after rape finished flowering. It set like concrete, so I am going to cream it and call it creamed spring honey. It's going to be mostly rape, so can I put a picture of rape on the label? I know there are rules about this, but the honey is going to be mostly from...

Just been looking at a wasp nest entrance in a neighbour's soffits and nearly all the wasps going in have the characteristic balsam ghost mark. Definitely wasps btw and not bees, but they are acting like foraging bees in the way they fly in and out of the nest. Anyone know if they will be...

I have several colonies under attack from wasps and I was going to reduce the entrances. However I have some Dartington type floors where the bees go in through a horizontal opening, then up a 3 inch high vertical slot, do I reduce the length of the slot or the length of the horizontal opening...

I really like the idea of multiple queen colonies as in September's BBKA News. Around here, there is tons of balsam and lots of rosebay willow herb. Getting bees to build up a big foraging force for July sounds absolutely ideal to me. The basic idea is to use a division board to raise a new...