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Valid criticism! 🤣

Thank you! I already grumble about not understanding the young people and their Tiktoks and Snapchats. I think it's time i embraced being old and grumpy 🤣

My parents, who are not beekeepers, just excitedly sent me pictures of a 'tree hive' which is supposedly for rewilding honeybees. An immediate red flag was the claim that 'the honey bee population has been struggling', which is patently untrue, but I'm also wondering if this is actually going to...

Caught my first swarm this week! I used a jumbo brood box as a bait hive with one old brood frame and the rest standard-sized foundationless frames. I thought I'd be able to move them before they made a mess, but they built wax so quickly!

Very good 🤣

Ooh, so is the delay because she's trying not to leave but the workers eventually force her out?

I've read that clipped queens swarm later than non-clipped queens, waiting until the first virgin is ready to emerge before leaving. I lost a clipped queen recently and while I'm not entirely sure when she departed, the one queen cell we left in the hive took about three days to emerge. If a...

Shouldn't have skipped the full inspection last week! Checked on our biggest hive today to find the queen gone (she was clipped) and a dozen sealed and unsealed cells. We'd stolen some eggs and larvae from this hive two weeks ago and replaced with foundation, thinking they'd draw it and make...

Thank you!

Hi all, We had a lovely strong hive going into winter but on first inspection 2 weeks ago saw only a few capped drone cells, a few sporadic patches of eggs and what looked like attempted empty queencells. We weren't sure if it was laying workers or drone laying queen (or a very early swarm?)...

Just acquired a hive from someone who doesn't have time for bees anymore, and it was in a state! I went to take the first frame out and it came apart. No nails! Notice the mixture of Hoffman and unspaced frames in there... The owner had managed to cram in 14 frames! They had also left the...

Great article, thank you! I've just ordered a load of borage and calamintha seeds to add to my burgeoning seed cupboard...

4th of April somewhere down south, based on a very scientific look at the weather forecast!

Vitafeed 300g patties which are meant to be pretty good. Both hives were dummied down to 9 frames over winter and recently got two frames of fresh foundation each, so hopefully they have room? It was my first winter with bees so I wanted to make sure they stayed well fed!

Replaced blocks of fondant above the crownboard feeder holes with pollen patties in takeaway plastic boxes. They had fondant on all winter and they look very full from what I've seen.

Unfortunately most of it's stuck to the top of the frames, but I could definitely try that with the honey attached to the crownboard

That is a very good point!

I thought this might get a laugh and perhaps someone might avoid making the same mistake I did. 😅 I treated with Apiguard in autumn, using the nifty double-sided crownboard of the Paynes poly hive. And then absent-mindedly left it with the big space towards the bees while I fed and wrapped them...

Is it not the case that the first emerging queen kills the others in a supersedure?

I don't know if I've got energy lines here... Would strapping the box to the top of the nearest telegraph pole work? 🤣