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Just one click away from the most adventurous beekeeping conference of the year.We hope so. Something for everyone. Programme and booking at: http://goo.gl/uCBLf8 BIBBA's conference sub-committee are really putting the boat out on this one. Why not enjoy a few days in North Wales this...

Indeed :). More kit is always the answer (gulp).

Indeed so :)

Or this for the big Spring clean...click on the pdf: Smoker maintenance...

6/7 frames of brood? Well that would explain why they didn't need the super. Add another when the first super is over half full of BEES (first one when there are 7 or 8 frames of BROOD). Under or over...under prevents trampling the first more than needed.

Under 20%....hopefully around 17%. And I hope you have a refractometer (a refractor being a telescope ;))

The chances of supersedure with a less than strong queen is not small. Somewhere in the paperwork it says that MAQS exposes weakness in the queen. Hmm....sounds like a bit of a get-out clause to me. Also there has been a bit of an admission that here in the UK last year colonies were guinea pigs...

You say 4 hives. What was the brooding situation in the other two? And did you look hard at the "infill" for tiny islands of polished brood cells which would have shown a queen in there somewhere? Were they acting queenless or did you possibly miss an unmarked supersedure queen?

Indeed. Cosy training apiary, jolly beekeepers :)

Meanwhile here in East mid Wales...bees are bursting out of Commercials with only one super and first charged cups appearing. Four apiaries on 3 or 4 supers and will be taking Demaree and queen breeding kit out from tomorrow. This. Won't. Last.

Firstly, it is always going to be better to move the queen out and raise cells in the full colony. Second, there is an entrenched attitude that mininucs are somehow advanced and not for "beginners"...this is simply not so (and neither is grafting by the way). There are several excellent queen...

Quite rare I should say and of course no standard size. A healthy swarm or package is really best for populating a tbh (we used to have six but don't use them any more).

Spot on. And I agree...higher apiaries still to do.

Yes. You shouldn't write knowledge from some random person's copy-paste ;), but as you don't want a queen with dodgy genes it was for scientific interest only (and with a sample size of one the term scientific is a loose one). I don't keep queens whose colonies aren't reliable enough to show...

My post should have said: the queen's genes for temperament and pheromones...

Join your local association. Go to all practical demonstrations/events. Ask tonnes and listen more. And that's for starters :)

The swapping hives thing is to show that the queen's temperament and pheromones controls the hive temperament. If you swap queens between a grumpy lot and a good lot the temperament moves too IF caused by genetics. For the original post: buying in queens year after year is 1) expensive 2)...

In part because she had to bring someone along to answer the questions? Or that her five part message was lost in the rest of it? A very experienced lecturer labelled it the worst lecture seen for several decades :(. A real shame if you have a message to get across.

Opposing entrances....drop the top box onto a new floor, as it is.

Now there's an understatement...