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So I have been searching for the three bears But to no avail I am sure that it is them because no-one else would surely have the motivation to open up a hive in winter, right? I have been very late with the Oxalic this year and did this a week ago. My hives have been sat there quietly...

I was just browsing the lunch time news and saw that the MET are warning that a severe storm is expected Monday with winds around 80mph and heavy rain right across the South of England. If you are like me still with multiple supers on your hives you may wish to try and find the time to reduce...

2 weeks ago my 2 hives had just started to get themselves ready for spring. They were running behind by about a month I felt. Both hives had eggs, larvae, and sealed brood. Although only across 3 frames at best. They had food and although reasonably small I could make the assumption it was only...

It's the middle of April and I have visited my girls once so far. This time last year I had 140lbs of honey in buckets. My one visit was very brief due to rain and wind. They are alive and I believe that they will have been busier this last week. Hopefully I can see them on Sunday and can have...

You know how sometimes you work at something and still you don't seem to make headway. That is how it has felt this year. It has been the kind of year that has reset my self belief, that has caused much anguish, soul searching, frustration, guilt and sadness. Not a great deal of joy, not at all...

Have we had this already..? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18568448 They still have the power for sensational headlines, even on the BBC... Seems to me the word swarm may be a little misleading and the abbot stating that they had no idea why they attacked suggests he's not a...

So yesterday I was at work and a swarm (most likely one of mine) entered the farmer's house. Couldn't help as I was trapped in meetings an hour away so a beekeeping neighbour helped out. Today I went round to re-assure and apologise for any inconvenience. I stayed about an hour and as I was...

Ok so I have let myself down...not enough equipment ready for 5 A/S. We did an inspection yesterday and found every colony had queen cells capped. All in a week. Cannot A/S them all so checked for eggs and dashed the QC'S out. Building kit as you wouldn't believe. I think lack of kit has...

Evening all (as Dixon of Dock Green used to say), Did an inspection today quite stressful due to the dodgy weather. My hives are wc 14x12 BT's. 2 things worried me: One of my colonies has a laying queen but as well as normal worker brood there is masses and masses of drone brood. More than...

So it must be close now... My bees are filling supers with a joy this week and last. Today I had a quick drive by (well across a muddy field) on the way to work and saw clouds of bees in-front of each hive. it was 9.30 and 5.5 degrees. There was a motorway to the rape. Has anyone taken a super...

All, I added a super to each of my hives at the weekend. It was necessary as the colonies were building comb and storing rape honey in the roof space. This last week the rape has begun to appear and the girls have got busy. All have space to lay but also have 1-2 frames of winter stores in the...

Morning all, Did a check on 4 of our 5 colonies yesterday (left the nastiest alone at the moment). All doing ok but one is producing a lot more drone brood than the others. Also producing worker brood too mind. It's just the proportion of drone is much higher than the other hives. Might the...

We have had some lovely weather this weekend - 16-18 degrees around lunch time and cloudless skies without a breeze. Our 5 colonies of bees have been out busily bringing in pollen of all colours. Happy Balmy winter days...well almost. We decided it was an appropriate time for a quick look...

We checked our 6 hives today, having last checked them 3 weeks ago. 5 are doing ok but one is dead. Plenty of stores and fondant. The dead colony was the largest by far going into the winter. All hives are WBC and all colonies are in 14x12 brood boxes with OMF and plenty of top insulation. They...

Just checked our bees post OA a fortnight ago. 4 hives had between 150 and 200 on the Varroa floor. One large colony had less than 5 and 1 had about 100. Will check again but not sure whether a top up would be of any use...what do you think? All bees were out flying again today. It was around...

So we went to do our OA this afternoon and the weather was calm and sunny. What with all the photos and reports of pollen collection and flying bees we half expected the sky to be full of bees. Nothing...not even a hint of activity. We were worried as we suited up and got ourselves organised...

So we reduced the size of the Buckfast colony down from 3 supers to just the 14x12 brood box and an eke and an empty super for our Apiguard treatment. This we did 3 weeks ago. There were bees everywhere, just so many, and we decided that they would sort things out. We put the treatment on and...

It started a few weeks ago really. For years now I have looked forward to September/October for a warm 'Indian Summer' and have yet to be disappointed. If I was planning a marriage and couldn't book the usual months I would be confident in the last week of September and the first of October to...

West country bee suits? Thanks, Sam

Hi all, I have been reading through the threads after a few days away and just thought It may be useful to ask those who still have mated queens for sale to make themselves known. There has been the odd comment about none this time of year which I doubt... For those who maybe struggling with a...