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Giving up beekeeping. After ten years trying to master the dark art of beekeeping, I have had to accept it's not for me. I have three colonies at the end of my garden available together with quite a few spare brood boxes, supers and a couple of varroa floors. Plus two suits (XL and XXL) and...

Thanks for the advice. In an earlier post I asked about gloves (leather) and repeated attacks. As a result, I switched to rubber gloves. I washed the leather ones and treated them with clove oil then left them in the garden to dry in the sun. A friend sat on the chair they were resting on and a...

Porters removed today. Many thanks for the tips. I'd not thought to ditch the porters after the first use but I can see that makes sense. And they do seem to be made from very cheap material.

I recently posted asking about how long it may take for bees to vacate a filled honey super using porter bee escapes. I'm pleased to report, on that occasion, they were all out within 24hrs. Another hive has now produced me a full honey super. I repeated what I had done a couple of weeks...

Thank you

I'm pleased to report the porter bee escapes worked well and there were no bees in the super when I removed it, 24 hrs later. I have now extracted the honey and have decanted it into a plastic tub (with a lid) ready to be filtered and put in jars. Question. The honey is cloudy. Is this a...

Porters. 24 hrs, thank you

Can anyone please advise how soon after placing a clearing board beneath my (first) honey-filled super, I should remove the super? How long does it take for the bees to vacate it? Also, if I open up and there are still a few bees inside, what is the next step? Replace and wait? Or something...

I first registered on this site in 2011 when I did my course. Since then, a number of home moves and a loss of colonies have resulted in slow learning. I'm certainly still a novice, even after 10 years! Keep the bees at home now as when they were away it became out of sight, out of mind and I...

Thanks for the tips, chaps. I've purchase some dummy boards now and will place these on the outer sides surrounding the new colony - leaving them enough to expand. Good tip, thanks. Will also make inspection easier - take out dummies first and then ease frames away sideways rather than upwards...

Thanks. I'm pretty useless at finding the Queen so I would probably end up leaving her in the .5 box! Crownboard is sealed and insulated, yes.

Two questions please guys. 1. I have (had) two hives. One (from a swarm last year) is nice and strong. About 6 weeks ago it had swarm queen cells on a super frame. Having read about the process to start a new colony, I decided to have a try. I removed the sealed queen cells along with a couple...

Best to remove honey super for now, feed until 1.5 brood is nearly filled and then add honey super/stop feeding?

Three colonies. Opened them up for the first time about a month ago to discover two were very active and one had completely disappeared. Where did they go, I wondered? They were coming and going about 3 weeks prior to this but, apart from a few bodies, the hive was empty - and devoid of stores...

I took a long break from keeping bees after my previous colonies were wiped out by wasps, so I consider myself very much a novice. With two captured swarms from last year and a donated colony, I have three colonies to inspect. They're now at the end of the garden where I can keep a closer eye...

Only that I wasn't aware that inspections stopped this time of year. I now know - having read another thread that explained it. Clearly, I now plan to leave them alone - apart from providing fondant - until the spring.

Due to a pervious issue with wasps I closed the full entrance of all three of my hives with timber to allow only a small entrance. I purchase some circular disc thins that go over a hole on this timber and can be rotated to create a small entrance. It worked - wasps kept at bay and colonies all...

I inspected my three colonies today. One had a little sealed (and unsealed brood), the other two were devoid of brood but had loads of bees and lots of store (honey and pollen). The bees look very healthy and active and, on sunny days, are still bringing in stores - albeit in lesser quantity...

Three national hives. 1. A May swarm that moved into empty stored floor and two supers. Drew the supers before I noticed they were there. Supers were 9-castellated so there was too much comb drawn and it was a messy first inspection. Lots of brood and a very active colony. Got some advice re...

After some time not keeping bees I find myself the proud carer for three colonies - two swarms and a nuc. All are doing well, the swarms appeared in May and the nuc was donated to me by a kind neighbour a couple of weeks ago. All are very active in today's sunny weather. I've been feeding them...