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I bought some oats today, which came with “free wildflower kit and membership to The British Bee charity”. Anyone else seen this and been equally irritated by the hyperbole on their website “British” but only appear to be based in Surrey, offering Honey beekeeping courses, in Surrey “you’ve...

I am just back from Northern Spain, and as always checked out the honey for sale. I was intrigued to see lots of places selling honey with a certain percentage of royal jelly, around 8% if my memory serves me right. My Spanish wasn’t sufficiently good enough to ask How? They also declare a...

2023 has been an interesting year weather wise in the NW, with a long hot dry spell and then a cold wet spell with over 300% more rain in Preston Than average. Curiously I am seeing very little evidence of varroa damage across all my hives and multiple apiaries. Usually at this time year I am...

I can’t recall registering with “value in beekeeping” but they have sent me an email today offering queens for sale. Whilst I can unsubscribe I am curious as to where they got my email address from, and if this constitutes a breach of GDPR somewhere. Anyone else got the email and feel equally...

For a while I have been advocating using a heated teaspoon to reduce sting reactions. I have seen this device “insect bite healer” https://www.beurer.com/web/gb/products/medical/insect-bite-healer/br-90.php which uses a heated ceramic disc which can be used directly. I was wondering if...

Around about this time of year, my hives with high varroa counts have lots of varroasis evident, deformed wings etc. and I am looking to get the supers off to treat as soon as I can. This year, whilst I haven’t done a count for a while (my boards are out in the hot weather) i haven’t seen much...

I saw a thing today that baffled me. I thought Hoffman frames were standard, that is the flat side of the vertical bar met with the pointed side of the next frame from all suppliers. I have had them from Thornes, Maismores, etc, etc. over the years. Today at a fellow BK‘s he showed me that...

Do Drone Congregation Areas, which are mentioned in many reference books actually exist? Is there anyone out there that has practical experience of hunting for and finding one?

I have got my hands on a whole frame queen introduction cage, and I was intending to use it to replace a queen in a double brood aggressive hive. Something similar to this https://www.abelo.co.uk/shop/national-hive/poly-hives-national/national-queen-cage-introducer/ Not to be confused with QE...

A question for any Chemists out there. Should sublimed apibioxil vapour (oxalic acid) be visible? My Varroa treatments are all done now, and picking up a discussion from another thread about temperatures used to sublimate, this question still perplexes me. I have it in my head that OA...

I am looking to go chemical free this year in one of my apiaries by using comb trapping and removal, by using a wire frame commercially available. Does anyone in the North West have practical experience of this, and what time of year did you do it? The NBU leaflet recommends trapping queen...

In lockdown, Ive been working through the clubs extensive library of beekeeping books and came across a book printed in 1977. The author Ray Hill created a small book titled Propolis. It mentions what we all know about propolis tinctures reduce throat inflammation, not wishing to join the fake...

I was looking round the Internet today and saw a "recipe" for honey, lemon with ginger. https://www.simplegreensmoothies.com/recipes/green-healing/lemon-ginger-and-honey-all-natural-coldflu-remedy Whilst I do this myself, I was wondering if it would be possible to sell this as a premium...

I have a particularly good hive this year, and will attempt to breed from it next year. I say attempt, as I am invariably playing catchup on QC's. But it I had a thought, would I be better to get this hive next year to raise QC's through the various methods, or lots and lots of drones, by...

Really good article in the bbka magazine this month about Asian hornet, and the use of the modified floor which is commercially available to trap wasps etc name escapes me), and the use of mouse guards. It got me thinking as I use home made modified dartington floor (underfloor entrance...

Can we begin to assume that with the lack of reported capture of Asian hornets in traps means that the tetbury incident last year has been contained, or is it too early to tell?

The advice is to use a box around 40L for a bait hive. Being somewhat lazy, and prefer to liberate something that was previously used for something else (repurposing is a new fangled term I have heard of late) I was wondering Has anyone found a source of a 40L + or minus 5L box that can be...

Anyone else see this... And think... Hmmmmm. Lots of bees, and it's a long way from Lancashire to Wales for a cut out. The "tree bee" company web site makes some curious reading too http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-37093003

I've had a hive in the same location for a number of years, but not the same bees, artificial swarms, and failing queens has allowed me to move it around a bit. It used to be facing towards a field, but in my infinite wisdom, I decided they would be better turning the hive 180 deg, facing a...