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I've just had the most enjoyable afternoon finding a queen who did not want to be found at all. Eventually I find her and get her into a queen clip where she would be safe while I put the hive back together. When I go back to 'deal' with her permanently I try to get her out of the queen clip and...

I've inspected today and found my nuc that appeared to be limping along has suddenly come alive in the 2 weeks since I checked them last. They've drawn and mostly filled the last two frames and are pretty crammed in there. There's a lot of activity going on and they weren't impressed with me...

I'm in the market for a new suit and would like to compare the veils of the various options. I think for me this is going to be the biggest differentiator between suits but there aren't any really close up shots of the veils in the marketing shots. From my experience with a cheapy Thornes...

I'd appreciate any thoughts on the following video. This was a cast swarm that came to my bait hive. I put them in a nuc two weeks ago, fed them and let them get on with it. Today was my first proper look at them. All looking fairly good apart from a few doing this unusual shaking. My best guess...

I've just returned from a disappointing inspection. No sighting of the queen for the second week and this week there's also no eggs (there are a few larvae). There was a single queen cell that I could see and I guess the white I could see at the bottom was royal jelly. I couldn't see a larva in...

I did a full inspection of my colony today and there is quite a large amount of drone brood. It's mainly at the bottom of the brood frames and there's some on nearly all of the frames that currently have brood. There's still a lot of worker brood too so I don't think the queen is a drone layer...

I went to do a final thorough inspection of my bees at the weekend while the weather was still good and came away a little concerned. I didn't spot the queen which has got me very paranoid as I could see no eggs either (not much room to lay until some more bees have emerged though). On the plus...

So...should I get a frame feeder or a rapid feeder to replace the contact feeder that came with my budget kit?

I'm planning on treating with apiguard but don't have an eke. Do I really need to purchase one of the apiguard ekes or could I just leave an empty super above?

My hive is close to a stream and on the banks lots of these pink flowers are growing and I can see quite a few bees working them. When I first saw them last week I thought they must be Himalayan Balsam due to the pink colour and my bees were returning with pollen on their backs. After googling...

I went to check on my colony this evening. They're starting to look very packed onto their 5 frames and they've got lots of stores as I've been feeding to try and encourage drawing the foundation. There's not a massive amount of laying room left but certainly enough to keep the queen busy for...

Quite a few fields of sweetcorn have suddenly popped up near my apiary. I've not heard it mentioned before when discussing what bees are foraging on and a search on the forum only gives a brief mention. So do bees enjoy sweetcorn? Is it a good pollen/nectar source? will they travel far to it...

What do bees do at night? Do they sleep? Do they cluster up like in the winter due to the lower temperatures? Does the queen carry on laying? Sorry for the flurry of questions I just haven't read anything that covers night time behaviour at all. Thanks.

Hi, I'm hoping to get my bees through my association who ensure that the bees they supply are of good temper before offering to members but unfortunately demand exceeds supply by some margin (not to mention an EFB movement restriction currently in place). In the event that I can't get any...

Hi, I'm hoping to get my first colony this season and I'm thinking of ordering one of the Thornes budget beekeeping kits as they're unbelievably cheap when all the competition is taken into account. Does anyone know how good the quality of the hives and other equipment in this kit is? The...