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I have read or been told that the time to requeen is Autumn, however this strikes me as odd as you must then overwinter a new queen. Why not requeen in March/April and give the new queen the best months to get established.

I agree, it was my intention to make a split but when I could not find the queen I was resigned to let them swarm and either catch the swarm or let them go into one of the bait hives. Nothing happened, is it possible that due to poor weather that they decided to not swarm, release the queens who...

Could not find the queen, I assume old queen who was from a swarm last year, these were not emergency cells as on the bottom and sides of frames.

Old queen. Could not find the queen, dead or alive, bees very aggressive, new brood and eggs evident so someone is laying.

At least ten, capped queen cells however bees did not swarm, next inspection queen cells gone. I am wondering what happened, some nice days where they could have swarmed, many bad wet cold days.

I did put a test frame in and looked yesterday, no queen cell made but new brood, capped in the hive so I guess she just had a few days off.

All good advice thank you all.

I take it a test frame is a frame with brood, lava, and eggs from another hive.

Is a test frame a frame of brood, lava thank you very helpful.

Does it always mean that if there is no brood and no eggs that the hive is queen less, do they ever just have a break from laying. Also if they have become queen less why did they not make an emergency queen while they still had eggs? The hive in question has good numbers of bees and is making...

Thank you good advice and reasoning, I agree this is a strange year weather wise.

Thanks I think you are correct re the weather this year.

The weather I think is too bad to swarm this year so my main concern was one queen wins and I do not have a queen less hive. I think in better years I should have split the queens to nuc boxes

Hello all. I recently found several queen cell elongated so I moved the queen out, destroyed all but two and waited. The split is good and lots of brood. The queen cells can no longer be seen, I went back into the hive to see the empty queen cells after they had emerged but could not find any...

Thanks some more feeding tomorrow.

Hello, In my last two inspection of my now 3 hives I have noticed a lot of bees in each, a lot of brood however no stores of honey or nectar. It seems to me that all they are gathering is going to feed brood. Would this be correct? The spring here in France has been dreadful, as I believe it has...

I agree with you about being a desired outcome, and it should never be forgotten that a lot of countryside was stolen by the enclosures acts in the 18 century 10’s of thousands of rural people were forced into cities to provide the cheap labor to fuel the industrial revolution. Perhaps that...

We have another predator hear in the Pine martin and they will take the prey for later, however to date I have no evidence of a Martin kill however the French tell me they take more than the fox, Goshawk or stoat. Makes it feel like I am providing a snack bar for the local wildlife!!

When I read this trail I am sad and reminded why I live in France, England not Britain is overcrowded leading to excessive pressure on open space and the clash of cultures we see here. I live at 650 meters in the Vosges national park and have none of the problems you are all discussing, we have...

What a magnificent bird, I regularly loose chickens to the Goshawks around here but accept that price to have such a bird as this. I have never held one but would love to.