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If you do reluctantly decide to finish them off then if you've access to a power supply or a battery operated vaccuum cleaner of some kind then it works quite well to hoover them. Wait til near dusk (or dawn) when all at home but still light enough to see what u r doing. Knock on the entrance...

All happening in our little apiary little cast in nuc has gone drone-layer. Single eggs per cell but couldn't find the Q (probably hiding somewhere down in the hive floor i think). Slipped in a virgin from another hive and fingers crossed. Catching up on colonies collected as swarms in...

They seem to vary in how much alarm pheromone they produce. We used to have a colony which weren't particularly aggressive but produced an overpowering wave of isoamyl acetate pear drop smell. Used to make me itch.

wondered if the violent yellow pollen they are bringing in occasionally was laburnum. Seems not tho. Quite a few of them in there today and pollen is brick orange.

First bramble flowers open here today. Hives stank of hawthorn up until a week ago. Now onto something milder. Seen them on holly and white clover.

(I meant 4 day larvae as in 4 days after those eggs were laid).

Thanks for replies. since most were along the lines of 'I wouldn't have started from here'. The way we got to 'here' was: -strong colony (at least by standards of what is usual at 200m in W Yorks!). On brood-and-a-half over winter. Had laid up most of brood box and super by time of first...

Slightly odd situation. We have a Q- hive with a single queen cell due to hatch in 2-3 days time. They weren't strong enough to split so we culled the old queen 4 days ago. Knocked down all but one queen cell on same day and then repeated procedure today (they had produced another 6 or 7...

Hah! A rare day of triumph. Arranged new out apiary at lunchtime. (Marriott hotels came up trumps!! Who'd have thought). By 6pm had collected a swarm to put in it. Plus hive 1 must have put in 12 solid hours on the hawthorn. It can't last.....

No, I hadn't thought about that (queen in swarming mode). Sounds about right.

emergency cells in the old brood box which went to the top of the stack. Is that a matter of terminology? they are, effectively, emergency cells aren't they? This was a pre-emptive demaree in a strong colony with an older queen. No charged queen cells when we did it. Lots of bees, lots of...

Bees! Doh. Inspection 7 days post-demaree. They've been busy as the proverbial in the interim so thinking all would be well. Old brood box as expected with multiple emergency QCs. In fact now half full of uncapped nectar. New brood box: Q present and correct but almost no new brood. It was a...

We demaree-ed them yesterday since first chance of a decent spring harvest for a few years. Going to try to push raising a new queen or 2 back to later in the year. No probs with the manipulation but they are definitely tetchy today. I've been avoiding the neighbours all afternoon. Left an...

S'ok got an extractor. The one hive situation is the sad aftermath of 2012 and hopefully to be rectified!

Thanks Enrico

Amazing transformation in a week. Put on a super today. Must have missed a box when sorting out in autumn as I have one super half full of capped honey (which tastes OK) and uncapped syrup -which is a bit bubbly fermented. Q is what best to do with this?. Don't want to waste the drawn comb...

Sneaked in quick first inspection on our windy hilltop in Yorks. Bees flying all day despite on/off drizzle. Main issue: surprising amount of stores. Same old queen: had been hoping managed to supercede late autumn. Still, 4 frames of brood, lots of bees including some drones. Ready to roll when...

Bee inspector came. Bees behaved themselves. Weather great (this morning). Ling now in full flower. Five colonies all a bit weak tho after a season of bad weather. Might get the odd super filled.

at least she won't go in circles. some books say clip both.

Bee Quick works OK. Better on warm days. Never completely empties supers but easy enough to shake off a few (dozen) stragglers. Brushing caused ours to be seriously peed off with us for weeks. Our brush has gone to brush the patio instead of bees. Clearer board works well with small numbers...