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What are the reasons for or against doing a late winter or early spring treatment of oxalic acid? (3 treatment 5 days apart) I was just thinking its been a reasonably mild winter (albeit soggy) and what are the chances that our queens haven't entirely stopped laying? Although I guess late Dec...

Someone sent me a message recently and ended with this after saying we’ll meet up on Friday. “I won’t be wearing a red carnation in my buttonhole!” What on earth does he mean?

Hi to the mods (or the forum owners) I think you use the same software as some other forums I'm on. One of the great features on other forums is to show who the original OP was in the threads (I find I don't take note of who it is and then have to scroll up to see who it is). Like this where I...

About 2/3 of our hives were really busy today in strong winds. The others (partially shaded) had a staycation - think I need to remove the dead tree causing the partial shade.

I’m looking for a small heater to keep in the house just to keep one or two jars runny. We live in an old farm house and run it fairly cool. So I’m looking for something to keep our current honey from setting (ie the jars we‘re currently consuming). Any ideas?

I was looking through options for Oxalic treatment. I only have 12 hives so been using a wand, want something easier. I see tons of products ranging from £105 to £130 that use propane as heating source. How effective are these compared to the much more expensive systems that run off 230v? For...

When replacing a queen in a defensive colony we all say you see the improvement in 6 weeks. When I look at the sequence of events this is how I see it: Kill the old queen Wair 7 days, knock down EQCs and introduce new queen Two weeks (14 days) countdown to when all the old queens cells have...

I found this very interesting. The power of 6’s Has anyone tried something similar?

I need to re-queen a very defensive colony with loads of bees. Interestingly they only filled two frames in the super. Really undesirable genetics. Instead of doing the usual caged introduction I decided to build a 3-frame nuc with open bottom (see pic), using a frame of brood with nurse bees...

We had/have two very defensive colonies. Bad case of followers. Really sore stings. These are the steps we followed: 1. Killed the queens 2. A few days later ordered new queens 3. When the queens arrived, went through all frames and removed all emergency cells (we were very thorough). There...

I’ve reached that stage where I need specs to read. Can‘t actually see eggs without specs. My problem is I find my suit interferes with my vision - and wearing specs doesn’t work well with the suit. Anyone else have this problem? What is your solution?

Last year I took over two hives from someone who was convinced he’d become allergic. He was reacting badly to stings. Getting worse over time. The bees in question remind me of several colonies I worked with in Africa. Extremely defensive. If they can get to you they will. Always a bunch of...

We (the family) were just commenting on the lack of swarms this year. Last year we’d caught four or five swarms by now. This year so far we’ve caught only one. It hasn’t been the warmest or the driest, especially in the morning. How has it been for you?

I realise this could be contentious. Don't wish to pick a fight, just to increase my knowledge and to provide practical solutions. If you have a wasp nest that you know of, do you destroy it at some stage? If so .... when? I realise that wasps form an integral part of our (modified) ecosystem...

Most of my hives are in direct sun most of the day. I’m planning on giving them a cardboard (or ply) hat for the next week or so. They already have a good source of water about 20m away. Anyone else taking some preventative measures for the upcoming heat wave?

I caught two swarms today, one from a split and the other from somewhere else. The ones from the split are already very busy - hopefully drawing comb. The swarm that came in from elsewhere have no activity in/out. Below is a pic of the incoming swarm. Initially settled on the front of another...

Last week I introduced a queen to a queenless hive. She’s been there just over a week. Today did an inspection and found only a few 20-30) with cells, most of them had two or three eggs. Anything to do or just wait and see?

We just did an inspection and found the super quite empty. The brood box is nearly full, they are filling the last frame. There were a bunch of worker bees in the super but on the excluder, and we were surprised that the super wasn’t being used. When we observed the bees it appeared they were...

Of my six hives only these ones appear to huddle in a group in the sun early in the morning. Very little flying going on until it’s much warmer. One of the other hives is already working, the other four barely poke their little noses outside until much warmer. Isn‘t it interesting how each...

Hi folks, a bit of advice needed from the more experienced. I have a top bar hive that I’ve been planning to move to a National. The challenge is that the hive is also hopelessly queenless. I’m guessing for two weeks or so. The clock is ticking to be sure. As part of my learning curve I’d...