Search results

It is nearly a year old, this is will be the second summer

Thank you for the reply. We have already had reports of people seeing swarms and seeing queen cells being raised, and maybe I am being overly anxious about this colony swarming. An additional (third) brood box is certainly the easiest option. You make a good point and I understand what you...

I will be away with work for a couple of weeks shortly and I don't want to leave my partner with a possible swarming issue, so the Demaree seems to be a good plan of action if they have not raised any queen cells by this weekend. If they have then we can choose between that and a Pagden...

We inspected our hives last weekend and found that one colony which is on double brood was jam packed with bees, and although we could not see any queen cells or cups there was a lot of drone brood dotted about and on an entire side of one frame. We added some supers to give them additional...

We had Kingspan insulation around the hives and in the roof from the point where there was frost on the ground in December. At the end of February we had to move all of the hives to a new apiary and once repositioned it looked like the worst of the cold weather had past, so we didn't put the...

Dani, Thank you for your reply, I'll read through the links.

We have lost 2 out of 7 colonies to what appears to be Nosema this year. Certainly the tell tale signs of Nosema are on the frames and there was plenty of stores, but the two colonies have died out. This is the 4th year that we have had colonies across the winter and this is the first time that...

Just an update, and thanks for all the advice. A far more experienced beekeeper has helped me move the colony to a isolation apiary where these bees will be far less of a problem for the general public, and he also want's to see what happens and if he can improve their temperament. These bees...

All the hives face away from the approach path, but they were on us before we got to the hives. We will try to re-queen from nice eggs, or could I remove the queen and combine with another colony, or as they are very defensive is that unlikely to help? If euthanasia is to be considered how...

No, we aren't need rape.

Thanks - this seems like a reasonable best option.

We have 5 hives, they are about 2m apart from each other. In the last week or so we have noticed that we have been getting a lot of defensive/aggressive followers that take a bit of getting rid of. We have been walking over 100m from the hives to loose them. Today we were met as we approached...

Thank you for the replies,

We decided to use some thin unwired foundation and see what honeycomb was like. We were advised to freeze the frames in case there were wax moth eggs in the frames, which we did. Is this good advice and what most people do? We have now got round to cutting the honeycomb from the frame and...

We are going to have do the same. Looking at late January when the hives should be lighter and the bees aren't flying.

At the end of August we took off the supers and spun the honey and it was a light to medium colour and was fairly transparent - jar on the right.. A couple of weeks later we were setting the hives up for winter and in order to reduce one hive to brood and a half, we took away an almost full...

We have added some frames of unwired thin foundation to some supers so that we can have honeycomb. Another beekeeper, who also does this, mentioned to us that you should freeze these frames for 24 hrs as wax month eggs if laid can develop in to larva, which would be really unappealing, also...

Hello All, Thought I'd update you all since many of you were kind enough to make useful suggestions. Today was a lot less problematic. We went about 1pm, the weather was overcast with a slight blustery wind. We did as suggested and took it very slow removing the roof and crown board and...

We did wash the suits as we had loads of stings left in the veils and suit. I haven't been back since, but my partner had the same experience with a clean suit, and as you say our other hives are behaving normally, so its not that.

'Go into the hive as little as possible' sounds a good idea at the present time. This was a fairly gentle hive until the honey flow started and we added the additional supers. It is a new queen, you don't think lack of pheromone at the top is an explanation. Re-queen or combine in spring...