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Walking the dogs in Richmond Park, west London at midday today, I realised that for some moments I 'd been hearing that noise in the air, and looked up a saw a swarm flying above me, focussing on an oak tree. Weather was calm and very mild. A bit late in the year - and a bit early for next...

Hello, We have to put up screening to protect our neighbours on the allotment from the bees, and have been given some rolls of netting with 22mm mesh - the sort that you'd use to stop cabbages whites from investigating the brassicas. The holes are certainly big enough for a bee to pass through...

I'm expecting a queen in the post this week to introduce to a large colony which has been queenless for about 3 weeks. The colony is now quite ratty - not highly agressive but enough to make me feel uncomfortable about introducing the queen directly in a cage. I thought I would put her in a nuc...

I've been lucky enough never to have had a serious case of nosema but this year one out of three overwintering hives has a bad case - lots of dysentery and a greatly reduced number of bees. Queen was laying a bit three weeks ago but apparently not now, and only smallish sections of capped brood...

I had a visit from the Seasonal Bee Inspector for the area today - I just want to say it was thoroughly positive and helpful. I've had a couple of inspections over the years which have all passed off ok with a clean bill of health, but today's inspector really took the opportunity to share...

Every year I feed the bees fondant, starting on Christmas eve. Every year, at the first inspection, I find plenty, sometimes over half, of frames of stores still uneaten, which are then surplus to requirements. Last week, during speedy administration of OA with a friend, 3 colonies were...

Ten years on and I still occasionally panic when they start swarming! My solution is to take a deep breath and re-read the Welsh Beekeeping Association booklet "There are Queen Cells In My Hive - What Should I Do?" http://www.wbka.com/pdf/a012queencells.pdf It's mentioned here from time to...

Are any fellow London beekeepers getting any honey in yet? In a normal year from my 2-4 colonies I would have had a good bit of surplus from early flowers and fruit blossom and now be looking complacently at a Lime flow - but there hasn't been a single fully capped frame yet and the bees are...