Search results

I'm in a bit of an awkward situation and could do with some advice. Very early this Wednesday morning (10th April) I leave for 10 days and so I did a thorough inspection today. It's a fairly packed hive on 9.5 frames of brood (Dadant) with 1 super around 70% full (I'm in France). I found 6 or 7...

Down my way (France) the weather is stupidly warm right now. Bees very active, recorded 24°C in the shade today & so I took a peak to check on stores. They're bringing nectar in from somewhere such that I know i'll be taking frames out in 4 weeks or so to give the queen space to lay. But where...

At what point / mite drop would you say, that's ok - I'll stop now? Yesterday I did my 4th vape as following the first 16 days ago now one hive had a drop of c. 350 in 24 hours..... & around 6/700 over 5 days. Today, 24 hours after the 4th vape, just 2. I'm thinking that's ok. What's your...

I'd like to combine 2 of my colonies, however, I'm uncertain as to what happens after they've 'combined'.... Let's say hive A gets put on top of Hive B with newspaper between. Once they've munched through the paper will a significant proportion of those from Hive A simply return to their...

I have an under performing 2022 queen which I plan to replace with a recently (< 7 days) mated queen from a mini mating nuc. From the point of squishing the old queen, how long should I leave it before putting the new one in, presumably in a cage with fondant? From what I've read, I should leave...

A week or 2 ago I started thinking that the laying pattern of one of my queens wasn't great or particularly vigorous. Two days ago in opening it up to take a frame of stores for another nuc I was making up I noticed 2 large, but still open queen cells. My assumption is that the queen is being...

This season I've taken to noting key things directly on the metal hive lid using last years Posca pen. Having just moved a nuc into a hive, I now need to remove said paint. A quick google tells me I could use hand sanitiser, water, or a razor blade....I know a simple wash won't work, maybe I...

Two of my colonies were on 7 frames of brood 2 weeks ago. They both have supers on however I just can't get the bees to move up (50/50 drawn frames /undrawn in the super). The bees are currently backfilling with nectar hence brood is reducing fairly quickly. Two days ago I did a test in removing...

I'm entering my 2nd full year of beekeeping & have 3 relatively strong colonies. I use Dadant 10 frame hives & of the 3 mentioned, 1 is on 8 frames brood, & 2 on 7. The first has already donated a brood frame to bolster another hive. As I'm based some way south of many of you (France near the...

When you place a board under the OMF to measure varoa drop do you grease the board in any way? It occurred to me that perhaps living varoa drop through & then "wander off" which they couldn't if the board was greased. Thanks.

Thinking forward to spring and getting my head around the demaree swarm control method. I get the principle of how you set it up, however, the following two outcomes have me a little puzzled as to what happens after. 1. Aim: swarm control, no colony increase - in the top box all QC's get...

Last Sunday (28th Aug) I made a up a nuc for a newly emerged virgin queen. In my carelessness I put my mated queen into the nuc before 30 minutes later adding the virgin queen. Cutting a long story short, having a niggling doubt I checked the new colony today, saw eggs & larvae an my marked...

Here's my dilemma. I have 5 grafted cells capped today, so in theory emerging Saturday 6th August. From next week though I will not be around until the afternoon of Monday 8th August. As they have literally just been capped, they are at pupa stage with no wings to damage right now. Here are my...

I'm gearing up to create some splits into which I'll introduce a queen cell from grafts using my nicest bees. As I don't know how many takes I'll get I'm nervous about creating the nucs until I know that. Do I need to create the nuc, wait 8 days, knock down any queen cells and then introduce my...

Recently I'm sure I read on there that you can just wrap them in plastic for a few days before extracting if required...? Assuming that is correct. presumably a bin liner around the entire super (obviously not still on the hive before anyone says) would suffice? Or are there other / better ways?

The title says it all really. Nucs with overwintered queens seem to command a slightly higher price....why is that? Simply proof that she can survive winter??

Back on the 19th May in my attempt to catch and mark the queen I must have maimed her in some way. I was having issues catching her not helped by the sweat dripping onto glasses as it was so hot. Anyhow... I gave up. Upon my inspection 7 days later (2 days ago) there were no eggs, no queen but...

Last Saturday i was lucky enough to have a large swarm take up residence. It went straight in a 10 frame Dadant - 1 frame capped stores, 1 drawn comb, 1 full wax sheet, 6 wax strips & 1 follower board (basically an all wooden frame....not really sure what it's called!). In 6 days they've...

I'm 10 days off being in my second year of bee keeping.....& I'm in a similar situation to when I first started! I'm beginning to wonder if my entry holes are two small? I have 2 @ 20mm wide from memory. I've had a swarm arrive today which compared to my 2 last year is very big. This picture is...

Mine's fairly black around the lip now, bad enough that closing it is becoming tricky and hence smoke escapes from places it shouldn't when lit. How do you clean your smoker?