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It might not be a DLQ, SWMBO opened a hive up the other day to find 5 full frames of e/b and sealed drone brood below each frame. The recent warm weather and ivy flow have encouraged some of our colonies to increase brood at a time when we are removing most of the ekes and feeders.

Overwhelming smell of ivy coming from the hives and tons of yellow pollen :party-smiley-050: . The bees were actually bearding under the hives in the home apiary yesterday afternoon, its a shame it cools down so early in the evening.

Plenty of wasps at the home apiary on ivy and still trying their luck with the hives. Also still trying to get in the house as we have not finished extracting yet and mixing syrup for feeds.

SWMBO spotted AFB in a hive when there was one cell that looked like it had white pva glue in the bottom, it had not got as far as coffee coloured, nor was the cell capped. A positive lateral flow test confirmed diagnosis. The affected hive was at a new apiary for us that had tested positive...

I always make sure the torch is cold before being packed away so it gets left on the ground until I have finished working at the apiary.

Frame feeder used once, loads of bees drowned in syrup. Frame rests bought in a sale, never been used.

We have a stall at a farmer's market in a holiday town and often get beekeepers from other parts of the uk stopping for a chat and the most common cause of colony loss (particularly among inexperienced beeks) is starvation; a pack of bakers fondant could be lifesaving for those bees regardless...

The apiary with the pink nectar is new and tbh I have not had time to go exploring further down the road to the sea so there could very well be Japanese knotweed around, I have seen it in full flower in other areas, thanks Swarm.

I ran around getting the last of the supers off yesterday and at one apiary there were cells with pink nectar dotted around the frames. I have seen this before at another apiary when I was late removing supers. Does anyone have an idea what it is, could it be from berries? I would take a photo...

It depends on whether there are any drones left, most of my hives booted them out weeks ago. If you have drones around the weather forecast is good enough, I have had queens mated in September that were fine.

The ivy is out down here thank goodness! I am still trying to pull off the last supers, it is going to be a very busy few days.

Last year I had terrible problems with wasps at one apiary and was using tunnel entrances and wasp bane, and the first wasp bane trap was full in about a fort night. They were really large wasps and relentless, and they were still hanging around in December. I had 2 colonies at that site that I...

The short-lived heatwave brought in most of our honey. It has not been a great year, but not as disastrous as last year. We are still taking off supers so I am still not sure what the final tally will be. It has a very Autumnal feel at the moment and SWMBO reckons she smelt ivy in one hive a...

Over the years I have probably made every beekeeping mistake possible, or so I thought, until I lost a newly mated queen in the kitchen. I had been waiting for a queen to get mated in hive up the garden and found eggs, and a very large black queen that was on the lively side. I thought it...

We don't use ratchet straps, we use the orange hive straps that Thornes sell that lever back on themselves. We have been using them for years and the only deterioration is the blue paint coming off the metal part and getting some rust there. Our straps have taken some serious punishment over the...

There is a shortage of sugar here already, and just about everything else, the nearest supermarket is having 'supply issues', and the next nearest are being stripped bare by hungry grockles.

We store them wet like lindsay s, and we label them with hive no, apiary and condition written on the duct tape with a sharpie so that we don't swap supers between hives; it lessens the chance of spreading disease between hives and apiaries.

I would check the supers just to be sure there is not a DLQ in there. I have been having trouble with a queen getting into my supers and laying in loads of the frames; she was a bit skinny so I replaced her with a huge queen and put on a new QX. Two weeks after introduction I find the new queen...

Usually by the time August starts our honey flow is over. At the home apiary the blackberries have finished and although there are still fields of clover around the weather forecasts don't look good enough for a flow so we will be taking the finished supers off. We have a new apiary on the...

I would not like to shut any bees in during the day while it is this hot even with ventilation screens, I would be too worried about them cooking.