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Yes I put the slab in just 2 days ago before adding the 4th super!! Before that the wobbly hive stand was balanced on a 2x2 piece of wood and some pieces of broken terracotta pot!!!!! I realised that 3 almost fulls supers and a good gust of wind would have had the hive over. On that note it's...

[iagree] Very important! Not had time to extract yet so a lot of my hives look like this! (** I bottom super, i.e. place new empty supers directly above the brood box.**)

You would be surprised how fast they adjust. I use a modified demaree method of swarm control and rotate the top entrance 180 degs each time I inspect and at first there is confusion but it doesn't take long (by the end of the day) for them to find the bottom entrance (idea being to bleed off...

Funny that as my neighbour had a swarms of honeybees take up residence in his compost bin 2 years running! Not from my hives and at least he knew who to call! Although not very common one of the very first call outs I did was for honeybees living in a compost bin!

Obviously no OSR or other quick crystallising Spring honey where you are!!! If I did that they I would have a load of rock solid frames when I came to extract! To the OP, it depends on your extraction setup, personally I like to do several supers at once but that's because I have several...

Single queen cell = classic supercedure I would leave them alone. The other signs of swarming besides multiple QC's are over crowding / lack of space for the queen to lay. You should also note each inspection how many full frames of bias (brood in all stages) there are and then you know how...

Sorry ofc = of course

Exactly that. In fact the next decent swarm I get (if any) will be building a load of new brood comb for me!

Swarms imho are more prone to work harder. I hived a swarm on 30th April in a 6 frame poly nuc on mainly old drawn comb and later moved it to a full size (10 frames) Polyhive and within 10days they had drawn all frames and are up to 8 frames of bias! They are getting demareed tomorrow and...

There is ofc at least the OSR that is planted in Autumn / Winter and that planted in Spring. In terms of when to extract, always as soon as it's ready (shake test followed by refractometer). In good years I have at least 2 extractions for OSR and I know my farmer has warned me (told me) that...

:iagree: That's next weeks job, I know there is some crystallisation in some frames from the cool overnight temps but hoping the majority is ok. To Op. Only one way to find out if it's still runny, try to extract!

:iagree: There is a big difference between a Queencell and a Queencup. They build cups all the time and you can remove or ignore them unless there is an egg or pool of royal jelly and larva in it then it is a Queencell! If they are building queencells, just removing them will NOT stop them...

Obviously looking at the amount of fresh nectar in frames in the hive is the ultimate measure of a flow however from outside the hive there are a couple of pointers:- 1.Bees looking like they are landing 'heavy' tails down and not carrying pollen means they are either loaded with nectar or...

:iagree: I often have to remove some bur comb and yes they don't always draw frames out evenly so if you have two frames next to each other and the comb is too close they will join it up! As suggested either move the frames about or trim down the comb so there is more of a gap.

Although true, how many tree living colonies are manipulated so that they don't swarm and grow very large?? I know when I've been successful with my form of demaree that the size of some of my colonies is probably a lot larger than any naturally living colony!

Take it out if you feel there is too much congestion. Personally I stopped removing mine a couple of years ago as I was always searching for the right one later in the season! Never really noticed any problems for the bees.

White were the ones that they replaced for me. I have never had any orange ones.

Not A problem at all. I switched a couple of years ago to 'bottom' supering ie adding new empty supers below the full or partly full supers. The theory being that with less nectar / honey directly above the brood area the bees will be urged to forage more. Also the bees processing the incoming...

As well as the potential of honey setting in the comb if OSR is involved you should really add a super as soon as the 1st one is full of bees, no matter how full it is of honey imho. The bees need space to store and process the incoming nectar, a strong colony could need 2 supers in order to...

I usually use a nuc box to collect swarms, however I always have a full set of frames in it. Usually it can be old manky comb or at least drawn comb. So far I haven't lost a swarm yet this way (except for the one that was far too big and should have been immediately transferred to a full size...