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What's going on when there are unhatched eggs in a colony. I've got a small nuc with a new queen and they've had the same frame of eggs for a week at least - unhatched. Have they got chilled? In which case why don't they remove them? They look happy enough with their queen, but they are small...

It's 7pm and since about 5 o'clock the bees have been sitting in clumps at the entrance to the hive. They are very calm and don't seem excitable or swarm. I have heard of this behaviour on hot days, but never seen it. Are they just keeping cool? How late in the day might I expect them to swarm...

Hi I performed an artificial swarm about 10 days ago. Since then the bees that were separated from the original colony are not flying very much. They have sealed brood, stores and a QC. When I spotted this, I was worried that they wouldn't have enough stores if they weren't foraging, so I fed...

Hi My remaining few jars of last season's honey have developed a white growth on the top. This honey set quite quickly in the autumn and is pale yellow in colour. My bees are in an urban area with no agricultural forage so it is very light, floral honey. It has been stored in a very cold room...

I've just melted down my first bucket of beeswax - collected from cappings and brace comb over the last couple of years. I used a bain-marie method and didn't mix the wax with water. I strained the molten wax into a tetra pack box and, when it set and I cut it open, I found I had a lot of...

I inspected my two swarmy hives on May 23rd, removed lots of queen cells and left two sealed in each. (I know - I did get a cast the following week, which I caught and hived successfully). Inspected hives on monday (4th June) and there was one sealed cell still in each. I'm sure they were the...

I went through my two hives this morning - and took over 40 queen cells off one of them. I thought they had swarmed about two weeks ago, but there has been a lot of activity reported by neighbours in the last couple of days - and clearly they've had eggs since I left them, as it turned out...

Bees swarmed into my neighbour's chimney the other day, though they only told me this morning. We've spent the whole day smoking them out, but they seemed pretty stoical. Then about 3.30 I noticed a swarm in a low bush very close to the house. I have collected this swarm and removed it...

Bees have swarmed into neighbour's chimney. Any suggestions?

The weather has been so awful it's been difficult finding a time when I'm free and it's not raining to look in my two hives. I was suspicious of one of them - a swarm I got last year, origin unknown - as they seemed 'swarmy'. Just taken a chance on a break in the weather to have a look and...

I've got a swarm I collected about three weeks ago, currently in a 5 frame nuc. They have a queen. Seen her. She looks good, though not laying yet, but comb drawn out on three frames. I have a hive with a small, weak colony - with no brood, and on last inspection couldn't see a queen...

In the past week - 10 days my lovely placid colony has undergone a total personality change. They swarmed back in late April and, after what seemed forever, a new queen began to lay - badly! She must have emerged during the cold weather and had a poor mating flight. About a month ago I spotted...

I'm a new beekeeper with a small colony from a nuc collected in mid July. I've noticed small clumps of very sluggish bees on the ground around the hive. Is this normal for the time of year? Has anyone seen this before?