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I am gutted... This year, I started with two strong colonies. One swarmed (a BIG swarm), but I recaptured them and this colony grew to become a double brood, six super hive. Which was fantastic given the horrible weather in the UK this year. The other two colonies grew (on double brood), but I...

I have a spare Q, and my plan is to dissect her, and make some slides (for the microscopy practical exam). I would like to get the mouth parts and the ovaries on slides, but what's the best way to do this? That is, do I first mount the Queen to open up the abdomen, and then extract the ovaries...

I inspected the hives yesterday (I only have 2 on double brood boxes). One of them was perfectly fine, but the other had lots of Q cells (many of which were "meant" so I took them off). One frame had three sealed queen cells, so I removed this frame and put it in a nuc box. The hive is a...

It was a glorious day yesterday in England, and I gave the bees a good look. Even though it's only 2nd March, they are busy actively bringing in pollen and making honey. We had a very mild winter; they were even flying on Christmas eve! I have two BS National hives (one double brood, and one...

Last year, I treated my hive with Apistan, but it was a great April and the bees filled two supers with honey. I took off the supers (as they weren't suitable for human consumption), and I have stored them (to give back to the bees at some point). I now want give the supers back to the bees...

We had a 1 yr old, Cypriot queen. She was a very productive queen, but about two weeks ago, she disappeared. One symptom was that the bees started to increase the production of queen cells. Normally, the Q cells were always empty, but all of a sudden the queen started laying eggs in these cells...

I was cleaning out the dead bees in the hive, and I noticed what looks like a fungal disease. It was only on one or two bees of the thousand or so that I scooped out. Does anyone recognize it from the attached picture. The symptoms are a white growth that seems to be coming out of the top of...

When the weather was nice, I lifted the roof on my hive to check on the bees. One of the things that I was shocked to find was that the wood inside the roof was wet, and showing signs of mold growth. I replaced the roof, but I am stumped by the cause. I took the roof apart, and found that the...

I have a new colony (started in June), and they are doing very well [no varroa!] and the queen is still laying. The hive is about 1/4 - 1/2 capped brood, and I have two supers on (although these are mostly uncapped honey). My question is in two parts: (1) When do you decide to start feeding...

Can anyone identify this mite?... I've seen it in the bottom tray, but I've not seen any signs of disease in the hive. Thanks in advance