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I'm moving in June and unfortunately won't be able to take my bees with me, so selling. The colonies were assessed by the regional bee inspector in September and given a clean bill of health, they have been treated with Apistan in the autumn, all came through the winter and are building up...

Honey wanted! I'm asking for a friend who's looking for between 15 and 30 kg of local honey for a project he's involved in. Mick is making some rhubarb and honey braggot ale in conjunction with Newcastle university, where I think brewing is used as a project for chemistry students. They've made...

I had a first quick look through yesterday - most fine but 1 failing miserably. Plenty of stores, no sign of disease but no more than 50 or so bees, no queen seen. Small patch of brood had polished and ready cells with a handful of hatching workers, capping seemed fine, a few dozen eggs (single...

Tim Rowe has written a book designed to make beekeeping accessible for children, given some adult supervision. I won't put a link in but its out there and fairly recently Lots of info and photos of putting theory into the practice of getting groups of young people involved in beekeeping. I...

I've some cedar planks sitting happily in the yard - the local farmer had a delivery of western cedar logs and, a bit of negotiation, some joint work with a horizontal bandsaw (now there's a toy!); £20 and now I have 5 planks - 3 are 2" and 2 1", all from 20cm minimum to 60cm in width and around...

I checked our best performing hive today (last check 2 weeks ago - saw nothing amiss) which has a BB and 3, now 2 supers of stores to find capped brood, no eggs, larvae or grubs. Thought the worst but found a queen. She looks new - long abdomen so presumably not a virgin, still hairy thorax. I...

I recently ticked the box on the new BBKA website that said I would be available for swarm collection under my profile, forgot about it , had a call yesterday from a local business ( slightly thrown by a call starting with this is Andrea, calling from x solicitors, about your bees....) turns out...

Finally sorted out the glitches for the moment and we've managed to but a webcam under the roof of a nuc box in the garden, adding to the camera in the next box on our village website :) (that's if admin will allow?) http://www.blackhallmill.org.uk/ If you follow the link, go to webcam and use...

Hi - some advice needed, as usual :) I did an AS on Monday and took some splits from the original hive, putting a QC, 2 frames of brood / stores and some undrawn foundation into 3 nuc boxes with some non flying bees shaken in. I fed to be on the safe side as well. The nucs stayed on site but I...

I hope this is an obvious question with an easy answer as I'm sure every possible aspect of swarming has been covered by now - just can't find it! I'm expecting to do an AS tomorrow - hive - lots of queen cups with eggs on Saturday, although not drawn out to Q cells proper yet. Was hoping 1 of...

I've asked in another thread about taking advantage of the offer of putting a hive or two in some extensive oil seed rape nearby. It sounded like a good idea :) but I've been thinking and, as I don't have an extractor yet (borrowed one last autumn) will run into problems with any OSR honey...

anybody else have any qualms about putting their bees to OSR? I'm asking because I've none within 2 miles but have the chance to put a hive or 2 in the middle of a farm full. Seems a shame to look a gift horse in the mouth but, having had a few years without local OSR I'm starting to worry about...

I've recently heard a rumour that a large number of colonies have died over the last few days in the North East, possibly due to the recent swings in temerature we've had - extreme cold with the last few days sunny and bright - sudden increase in activity meaning stores have been used up? Our...

I've just treated our 4 hives with OA as the temperature has finally climbed above zero... all looking good but one is worrying me. When opened (as smoothly and quickly as possible) there was a fair bit of reaction from the bees to the intrusion. What concerns me is a distinct and not good smell...