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All, I would appreciate your advice on my following problem. We were in the process of moving our bees from a small National BB to a 14 x 12 so we started a Bailey change. Due to bad weather we were only able to check both boxes yesterday. Queen is laying well in the new 14 x 12 and there is old...

We hopefully have a mated queen arriving today but the weather has turned quite cold. How long can we keep her in her travelling cage before we have to introduce her. It was meant to be warm if not sunny but the weather is not living up to the forecast and doesn't look too good for the next...

Earlier in the year we performed an artificial swarm. The queen hatched and we left her alone until we thought we had given her enough time to mate and start laying. We checked the hive and everything seemed ok as we saw a few eggs and then a week later we found just a small patch of sealed...

Our bees were making queen cells a few weeks ago. We saw eggs but couldn't find the queen. We decided to break down the queen cells and made a nuc. We hoped that by giving them foundation they would give up until we could find her and carry out an artificial swarm. We checked last week and...

We need to move our hive and have hopefully found a site. However, it is only just over 2 1/2 miles from home. I know the 3 mile rule but if we have to move, is there any way round this or do we have to leave until winter, which is not really an option. We also don't have the option of moving...

Our bees are in a standard national with a honey super which they had completely filled with sugar syrup/honey by autumn of last year. We are new beekeepers so haven't really got the hang of "hefting" the hive yet, although it does feel lighter. However, we noticed at the weekend that there...

I wonder if anyone is aware of a lifting device, other than blood sweat and tears, that I could use when inspecting my hive. This is our first year and we took the opportunity of a warm sunny day yesterday to check that all was right with the brood before autumn sets in. However, the honey...

We treated our standard National with Api Life Var on Friday. As instructed we broke the strip into four pieces and put on the frames away from the brood. The bees were very active and by Sunday we had a small "beard" of bees on the outside of the hive, although they went back in by late...

We have been recommended to use Apilife Var against Varroa so plan to treat next week. Is it ok to feed at the same time, as we have a very strong colony and I don't think the honey in the brood box will sustain them for four weeks. They have a super of honey half full but I understand we...

We have had our nucleus for four weeks. They seemed very healthy with lots of brood when we transferred them into our National. We fed for the first two weeks and they had completely filled the box so we added a super two weeks ago, which they have drawn out and are now filling with honey...