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At least 8 on this Mirabelle de Nancy which has gooseberry sized fruit. 20 minutes later it fell to the floor all the sugar had gone, no wasps were seen!

I purchased the above last year, and as again this year the engine runs extremely hot in-so-far as not being able to touch it for a good 10 mins after switching it off. Has anyone found the same with this model?

Have just seen a queen Bumble with full pollen baskets working on late flowering Campanula, Temp. 11c and just starting to drizzle. By the time i had got ready to take a picture with my wife's all singing/dancing phone it had gone. bring back the brownie box camera.

I can confirm that the first terminal flowers on the wild Ivy is out and is being worked by bees, hover flies and various other insects. With weather set fair for the next week or so, 23c here today, there could be a good flow this autumn.

Usually drones are prevented from re-entering hives or thrown out at the close of season, I noticed one hive today where workers were going about there usual business but near the entrance but to one side there must have been sixty or seventy drones clustered in a group with none trying to gain...

Noticed half the hives in the garden were 'Washboarding' this morning for several hours, first time this year.

Well in this part of the world we will hopefully see the last of swarming season this week, no doubt with a couple of exceptions. The flow is starting on the Bramble, bees are showing an interest in the first of the White Clover and the Limes should start within a week or ten days.

Yesterday I had been tying up some roses and had a number of thorn pricks on my hands, before going in-side to wash up I leaned over some trellis to watch bees working cultivated blackberries in bloom. After a minute or two a couple of small bumbles landed on my hands and started to feed on the...

Hello, I know this method of re-queening has been used down-under for some time however I would like some feed back as to its success rate in this country. How many of you have tried it, did you protect the cells with tape/tinfoil before insertion, in which part of the hive were they put, in the...

Today at 14:00 sunny 5c. Bees working late salvias, Elegans and Leucantha for nectar. Also out of the blue worker bumble loaded with pollen on the same plants, very late in the year for bumbles, gone before I could get a shot of it.

A few weeks ago I had several hives that were working well but with no obvious pollen being collected, I assumed that the queens was not laying but were also not absent, there were plenty of drones still present in these hives but none seen in other hives in the same apiary, these were external...

Have seen white pollen coming in for the last ten days on several hives. It appears as long paper like pieces that are attached to the pollen baskets but stream behind them, it reminds me of tissue paper. I have not been able to get a photo so far. There is no pollen on the back of the bees. Has...

Down in this part of Devon the flow has basically finished, I have been to several apiaries today and have put all entrance blocks back in place on large colonies. Small nuclei I have reduced in some cases to one bee way. Up until last week wasps were not making there presence know, now they are...

I'm concerned with the increasing number of threads where beekeepers are trying to make early increase. you can't make good nucs unless you have plenty of material to work with, by that I mean having at least two brood chambers full of brood and a large supply of fertile drones. There are...

Beekeeping article, maybe to do with pollination.

Noted today several hives now discarding drones, mostly queen right nucs. Thats early for me down in Devon.

Over the years I have used artificial swarming in my management, the old stock being re-queened later in the season. However with or without re-queening I rarely had the old stock swarm out later the same year. This year has proved me wrong, I had made a number of artificial swarms in early...

Wasps are already out in force down our way, they are already trying to get into weak hives and small nucs, please keep entrances as small as possible as they can be robbed in days. Take care not to spill sugar if feeding.