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Hi Every one. Its been a long time since i posted last, but i found this bumble bee... Queen?... (no idea its not my area). So i though this place could help. It looks like its covered in varroa mites? However, the ones i find on the hive floor are normally a dark brown chestnut colour? Any...

Hi every one Just taking some old equipment out to the field and it was looking a bit old and needing TLC but it's needed now. I don't have any wood preservative in the shed but have got some old engine oil from a diesel car waiting to go to the recycle place. Just thought I would slap some...

Hi all This is the beginning of my fourth year, last year was my first crop (which was small) due to the horrific winter and all hives needing to build up. the main crop for me is spring OSR due to the agricultural site This year all 8 hives have come through most with BIAS some smaller ones...

Well I finally did it........ in my third year I have taken some honey!:paparazzi: I have an older radial extractor I think it was from swinty originally? It has a white motor and the only sticker which I can read leads me to a German stainless steel manufacture. Any way I was extracting 10...

Not sure if I have done the right thing here??? Completed an A/S from a double national. All fine I had an almost a full brood box full / partly full frames of winter stores which I wanted cleared, so I put it on the A/S. So the hive is brood box with10 foundations and 1 drawn brood frame...

Hi All Been sitting here looking at the weather trying to estimate what might be happening in hives 15 + miles away. I have seen a few comments about at what temperature bees will 'effectively' pull in nectar from OSR or other sources. So it would be really helpful in looking at weather...

I Just made up a steamer so that I can steam a box of frames at a time and surprisingly, it works really well! Any way I now have a load of wax and thought I could make some easy candles by just filling a jam jar with a wick suspending in it? do candle wicks have to be 'special or can you just...

:confused::confused:Hi all just come back from my first inspection of the session. Found some thing I have never seen before and was wondering if any one knows what's going on. I was cleaning the floor (mesh) of one hive and there were about 40-50 bee heads there. no bodies or other parts...

Hi all Unfortunately lost two hives. In cleaning them out, I found some plastic foundation (national brood) which I had a swarm pull out about three years ago. It was looking pretty brown by now so I scrapped it off but there was still lots of brown wax in the bottom of the foundation cells...

Hi All Most of my hives are on rape seed, last year I was feeding them in spring 1:1 to have them ready for the spring harvest, but as we all know as soon as the flowers came out it started raining and it never stopped. I was advised by a local BK to try vit*feed gold or green in the syrup...

Went to inspect couple of my hives after being away on hols. When I got there found friends hive had fallen over so put it all back together, and found that my hives there have not been doing very well at all. While I was thinking about all this I got in my car and drove over my...

Hi guys Could any one point me in the direction of the original unmodified national hive plans? Had a look on the Dave C's web site but couldn't see any thing there. I was hoping to set it up as an over winter project. Many thanks Simon

I united two colony’s Sunday evening Hive 4 with Hive 7. Both of them on single national no supers. I wish to over winter and continue on double nationals. I couldn’t decide between the queens so I thought I would let them sort it out. Hive 4 has 7 brood 2-2.5 frames of stores 2 foundation...

I was wondering if when a hive goes into swarm mode and they produce many queen cells say 10+ does it mean that the stock is of a swarmy nature so dont breed from it. Or does it mean that the hive has done well to have enough nurse bees etc to bring on that many cells and so would be good stock...

Hi Every one thought i would give you guys the heads up on an issue i came across today. Looking to make some new supers and viewed the Dave Cushmans web site to get all the sizes correct. Boards need to be 150mm by 18mm My local timber place had advertised on web site 150mm by 19mm planned...

Hi all Just made my first Nuc today out of bits found in shed (18mm ply). Came to make the floor and remembering certain conversations around 'heat' issues, i had to have a little thing about either a mesh floor or solid? i did try and do a search but i always seem to get 'no matches found'...

my question is when you take a swarm what are the factors which need to be in place before they become a 'Hive' or 'Nuc'. To be sold on? My thoughts would just be some time, in that they would need to have drawn the comb, evidence of laying and not drone laying, no diseases and of good temper...

I was just wondering if people at bee events showed off being a forum member by displaying there forum names on badges or some thing and I had the idea of perhaps having forum t shirts? What about ‘This is not just a hive manipulation, this is a 100 years of hands on experience, BK forum...

I was reading another thread on here which made me Google KBS, any way looking at their front page there is a photo at the bottom labelled ‘bees at front of hives’. At the risk of a stoning for drawing attention to a commercial site, I am at a loss as to what has happened to the bees in this...