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The tops are put on, I cut the two outer sides of a triangle and bend the flap down and inwards on opposite sides. This seems to make it more difficult for them to get out. It's not fool-proof but I have seen them escape from the specialist traps too!

The tops are put on, I cut the two outer sides of a triangle and bend the flap down and inwards on opposite sides. This seems to make it more difficult for them to get out. It's not fool-proof but I have seen them escape from the specialist traps too!

I'm based in Brittany and started trapping a couple of years ago. Last year I bought an AH trap and caught about 40 queens in the spring, so this year I bought another one and made 2 myself. I used a mix of 35% white wine, lager (apparently bees don't like beer ) and grenadine and hung them all...

I lost my hive over winter, but have a lot of frames (brood and normal) full of capped honey. Unfortunately it is all crystalised and I haven't been unable to extract it. What is the best thing to do with it? I put the frames back in the hive as I thought it might help attract a swarm, but all...

Thanks for the reply. I have no idea why they died. I looked up on t'internet but couldn't find a definitive answer. There were a few dead ones on the frames but the rest were in the bottom. I did notice though that there certainly weren't as many bodies as I saw at my last inspection in the...

Morning all, Last year was the first that I had the opportunity to take any honey but decided to leave the super and a half of capped frames as a winter feed for the bees. I last checked them in november when they seemed to be fine and healthy. I did my first inspection a week ago and the hive...

I took my wbc to France with foundation filled frames (some drawn) and was really surprised to find that most frames here are dadant (so don't fit my supers!) and are just wired. Are french bees faster/better builder's than UK ones?

Thanks for your comments and links. . When I noticed that their character had changed since last week and absence of the queen I thought that they might have swarmed, just wanted clarification as the first time for me.

I have 2 WBC hives. One has a colony that I bought last year and has brood, stores and 1 super that is slowly filling up. The other has a week old caught swarm but only has about a couple of hundred bees at most, but they are drawing the foundation out. I checked my main hive yesterday and...

Good morning. I have one overwintered colony (new one last year) in my WBC with 14 x 12 brood frames, that don't seem to be filling the supers. In the autumn they filled up the frames in the bb with honey (winter stores) and when I checked a month ago, even though there was fresh brood, they...

I'm in Brittany and am conscious of the Asian problem. However, I haven't seen many around this year yet. Asian hornet traps are easily available in supermarkets but they are not selective and will attract any insects that want to enter them. They need checking a couple of times daily to release...

Thanks for your advice. I will carry on feeding, remove any undrawn frames and and fill space with wider dummy boards.

I have seen a bit of brood, but I don't get enough time to look for the queen as they get quite narky!

It was just that the smaller colony seemed to be low on numbers in comparison to the other one.

I have 2 hives both which were colonised this year. One has a medium sized colony (that I purchased in june with a marked queen)., the other was a donated swarm which is a much smaller colony in which I have failed to identify the queen, but as they have been resident for nearly 4 months she...

I'm based in Cotes d'Amour and finally got my hives up and running this year. I have 2 WBC and luckily brought all my equipment and spares over as the local hives are much larger than mine. It may have been simpler to just buy new ones here! I'm following your posts daily to compare etc. Let's...