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Hi, I'm advising a friend who started beekeeping in June. I gave her a nuc with a queen from my stock and they have built up nicely. The brood box was packed with bees and they had started to started to store honey in a lovely arc above the brood. We put the super on in the summer to give...

I am going to try to make soft set honey this year assuming there is going to be lots of OSR around me as there always is. Someone in my local association told me that he makes his soft set from his spring honey before it has crystallised. He extracts it, leaves it 24 hours, adds the 10% of...

After reaching my capacity limit with my manual extractor in the spring I have invested in a Konigin 9 frame electric radial extractor. I'm planning to spin the honey this afternoon and am just contemplating cleaning the extractor. However the tap is on the same side as the motor so I'm not...

I have a beast of a hive with 4 supers. I expect to want to extract 3 of them probably next weekend, the OSR is still in flower here. I am tall and have a bit of a dodgy back so my stands are a bit higher than normal. I was looking at it today and wondering how the hell I am going to clear...

I squished a queen on Sunday who has had chalkbrood for too long for 2nd chances. I'll have a sealed QC for them before long. Anyway I went to look at them earlier today and can't believe how much noise they are making. A bit like a chain saw in the distance somewhere but it is definitely...

I was doing my second inspection of the year today. In one fairly strong colony there were what looked like stores in some outside frames which were very white and chalky looking. The substance crumbled when I ran my hive tool over it. It's not chalkbrood. The colony wasn't fed in the autumn...

Hi, I need to find a way to raise my honey extractor a bit. It's a 4 frame tangential one. At first I used it without legs on my kitchen table on top of a blanket but last year I used it on the legs but it was not quite high enough to fit over my buckets so I propped it up on books which was...

So my long winded titles shows that I'm not sure what these are called but I want to buy a 6 frame nuc with two entrances that can be divided into two 3 frames nucs. You'll know what I mean. Do you know who makes these?

These are worth watching. I'm going to bear all this in mind next year. It fits in well with my treatment free ethos I think. Webinars – BIBBA

Lesson learnt here. I've just opened packs of foundation (super and brood) I bought last winter and it's all slightly brown. I probably would have rejected it if I'd have actually looked at it at the time. I have enough foundation in theory not to need to buy any more this winter but if the...

Well I've not used as many supers as last year obviously and just got to the bottom of last winter's stack of supers, aiming to restack them all. The one at the bottom is riddled with wax moth! Yuck. I couldn't sort them out as it was being plagued with wasps - I'll try again when it's...

I am hoping to start to not use queen excluders. I'm fed up with trying to clean them, they are causing me condensation problems and I find it the colony is a bit tetchy then trying to get it off winds them up to start with. I've already started to do it with smaller colonies that only have...

I have what I think is a mating swarm that are collecting on the stand to the side of the hive. The colony was quite prolific at the start of the year although I haven't seen the queen at all. The brood pattern became a bit patch and then on 22nd June there were 6 emergency sealed queen cells...

I normally extract my honey straight into my large honey bucket that has the tap at the bottom and then jar from there 3 days later after using the famous cling film method to remove the scum. For reasons I won't bore you with I want to extract the last lot into a smaller bucket which doesn't...

I presume I know the answer to this but I'm interested in the experiences of people who have been queen rearing for many years. Do queens from grumpy colonies always produce queens that also have grumpy bees. I wonder whether it ever gets bred out but probably not as the queen is 50% of the...

Hi, I'm advising a friend who is thinking about taking up beekeeping about where to put bees in her garden which has lots of different areas. I've heard people say you should not have your hives under overhanging trees but I've often seen beehives in pictures and while I've been out and about...

I had a colony who was feisty and my intention was to requeen this year. I hadn't seen the Q since the middle of April and there brood was dwindling although there were still quite a lot of bees in there. I put a test frame in there on 24th April but they didn't draw any QCs and I have seen no...

Hi, One of my learning objectives this year is queen rearing and I have got an apidea. I understand how to fill it, add the QC etc and have worked out my method. What I am unsure of is how I will get the queen from there into a queenless hive. I have a snelgrove board so am thinking I could...

We talk lots about changing brood frames but some of my super frames are starting to look a little discoloured. Do people just melt them down as a when they look at bit past their best? I'm in my 5th year now.

Hi, I have a colony which was overwintered with a super on top. It was the lightest of my colonies all winter and eventually I fed it fondant, although in hindsight I don't think I needed to. When first inspected this year there was brood and stores in the super and nothing in the brood box. I...