Search results

Last couple of years our lavender has not be visited by our honey bess but has been full of bumples and btterflies. This year honey bees are there in large nos and bumbles are less with few butterflies. I guess its just a question of what else is available and what else the various species have...

You are located in Australia arn't you, so you are in mid autumn right now so very late for swarms. I should make contact with some local beekeepers if I were you and get some advice from them.

Further to Arfermo's suggestions all floors now fitted with Ekes below the omf. 1 old pc cover cut down to make nice solid metal slide in floor. A good 3" clearance now available below bottom of bottom box and varrox. Did some further testing of required "power on" time to sublimate the 2g of...

What height clearance do you have between top of the heater and bottom of frames? I'll have another play to see how little "power on time" I need to sublimate the 2g. and adjust my process accordingly. Thanks.

Just to be clear, when you say below the omf, am I correct in assuming that you mean the heater is placed between the mesh floor and the tray below it and not just held below an open mesh floor with nothing but fresh air below it?

I tested the heating time in the open to see how long it takes to sublimate the 2g. It takes 3'40" with the car battery that I have to get through all of the 2g and hence the 3'45". I have 2 types of floors, from different suppliers. 1 I have to jack up the front of the hive just to get the...

I'm a recent purchaser of a Varrox sublimator. This winter I had hives that were nadired. My hives are top bee space, so the bottom of the frames in the nadirs are level with the bottom of the box. I treated using the Varrox with a heating time of 3'45" to sublimate 2g of OA. (I have dadant...

French Dadant BB frame dimensions. Width 25mm Top bar overall length including lugs 470mm Top bar exterior side bar to exterior side bar 435mm Top bar interior side bar to interior side bar 418mm Top of top bar to bottom of bottom bar 300mm Botom of top bar to top of bottom bar 265mm

Dadant is the most commonly available hive in my bit of France. I know that it is not the same as the uk modified dadant. (not just frame size but also top versus bottom bee space). I agree you need to be very careful, particularly when you consider your extractor. I bought one off an English...

Anything you use for processing wax will be ruined for any other use afterwards. So don't use your honey strainers if you want to use them again for straining honey or anything else other than wax.

How's your French? If you can make your way in French then get along to your local syndicat d'apiculture. You'll meet local beeks and they will probably have a rucher école. A quick search on google brings up http://unapla.org/. They are just north of Nantes. They have a rucher école and I...

I was thinking there has to be someone closer to you than me, but then again where we are in the Eure we're just about 3 hrs from Chateaubriant too. If you want a second opinion glad to help.

I gave up with the numbered discs, couldn't find a glue that stuck well enough and did not have an odour strong enough to cause substantial rejection of queens on reintrodution. Never had the same problems using same method of reintroduction with the posca pens.

In Paris we have Viburnum and Mahonia in flower and the bees are bringing in 2 or 3 colours of pollen, so I'm pretty sure we have brood here at the moment. Only had 1 night of frost so far and that was back in November. Will be watching the weights carefully through Feb.

You dont need to rewire anything, just get a usb/3 pin plug adaptor

I had a go with wild yeast last year and added the twist of keeving too. To start you need to know your juice's ph so you can kill off the bacteria and some of the nasty wild yeasts using metabisulphate but without totally sterilising it and then you have to have the enzyme and calcium...

The nightingales are singing here too.

I haven't used one of those but I thought that you fitted the plastic cassette into a drawn frame of comb. No point in caging the queen into a frame that only has foundation I wouldn't have thought.

Are you talking personal use or for sale? If for personal use, then what I do is just cut off the bit I'm about to use and warm for a few seconds in a microwave. Keep an eye on it and stop as soon as there's signs its liquifying. Spreads well on toast after that.

I got my first bees back in 2009 and joined the local syndicat (Syndicat d'Apiculture de l'Eure) in 2009. Been in France since 1997.