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I often meet people who are keen to buy a jar of honey at the stated price, but who unfortunately don't have any cash on them....

We inspected a hive which had been half of a split and which had issued a cast swarm even though they were emergency cells. In removing the queen cells we ended up with a box of queens - one we put back in the hive, one we made a nuc up with and one stung the other queens in the box to death and...

Willow behaves like a jack-in-the-box when cut down. With all the rain we've had you should find it is back again by the end of the year.

Found and despatched the queen in the 'tetchy' garden hive. Brought the smallest colony back from the out apiary and united it with the tetchy hive over a QEx and newspaper. If all goes well will split this combined colony in the near future.

Yes, I saw the bee keeping episode of Father Brown. Apart from one or 2 drop offs it was fairly accurate, must have done some actual research for once :-) Of course the plot was a bit far fetched and not top grade Father Brown, but nice mindless entertainment. Didn't see the cricket as, like...

It is quite normal for bees to be active when the temperatures are in double figures - possibly toilet breaks, water collecting or looking for early forage. Unlikely to be robbing but best not to open feed with syrup, stick to fondant at this time of year or you will encourage them to be more...

Many thanks folks for your inputs and your concern for my financial foolhardiness. With the benefit of a background in the programme management of high tech international research programmes I conclude the following: 1. The assumption that HMRC would regard gardening and bee keeping as the same...

Walrus, thanks, some useful thoughts there. Will be interesting to see if anyone has any relevant experience with HMRC.

I have been keeping bees for a couple of years now and am naturally running at a substantial loss in spite of selling a few jars of honey to friends and family. For next year I have to decide whether to keep a modest, hobby-level operation with a handful of hives or expand to a couple of...

This year I started with 2 colonies and a nuc, and (unintentionally) finished with 5 colonies and 133 lb honey. You say you started with 3 colonies and finished with 6 plus 2 nucs. Not sure why you need to buy in any bees when you should be able to get the required number of colonies plus a good...

Thanks all for the welcome. Learning stuff already.

Thanks. Looking forward to learning more.

So here I am at the end of my second full year of bee keeping. Started this year with 2 full colonies and a nuc, ended with 5 colonies, 133 lb honey and 3 cups at the local Association Honey show, so must be doing something right :winner1st: Now paranoid that Karma will catch up with me and it...