Search results

Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum

Help Support Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
  1. B

    Uniting queen in mating nuc with queen-less colony

    I’ve got a mated queen in a mini-nuc. There are not many workers with her and the only comb in the mini-nuc has been built in the feeder compartment. I’ve tried to cut some of it out and move it to encourage them into the frames In the mini nuc but no joy. Bottom line, the queen is difficult to...
  2. B

    Honey extractor cage lubrication

    Hi everyone, My giordan drill-driven extractor is giving me cause for concern. After a couple of years perfect service, the drill (a silverline variable speed hammer drill, which has been a brilliant servant) has been struggling a bit. I swapped it out for an identical new replacement drill...
  3. B

    Drone laying queens...queen cells

    Last week I checked on a swarm I'd caught some weeks earlier...headed by a virgin queen. Lots of drone brood (not patchy), but the occasional sealed worker cell. The bees had drawn several queen cells in the middle of the frames, and on checking one of them there was a metamorphosed queen in...
  4. B

    Comb built on queen cells- a bad sign?

    I tried grafting larvae for the first time ever last week. I was reasonably happy with the number of queen cells produced- 9 of 21 (i only want one or two queens from them!). Anyway, when I transferred some of them into nucs today, I noticed several of the queen cells had been extensively...
  5. B

    Modified Snelgrove II- both halves queenless! Advice please!

    So, I performed a MS II on Sunday (3 d ago)...had terrible trouble finding the marked queen at the time (weather wasn't great and brood box was congested), but I was confident that I'd moved the queen to a new site, and left the foragers queenless on the original site. I checked what should...
  6. B

    Newly mated queen, immediate supercedure cells. What the...?

    About a month ago, I united two colonies. The queenless half obviously didn't like their new queen, and bumped her off, and raised queen cells from eggs laid by their former queen, who I had bumped off immediately prior to the unite. Fast forward 3 weeks, around time for the new queen to have...
  7. B

    Huge mystery insect- thought it was a hornet, but...?

    Any ideas what this might be? It buzzed past my mating nucs a couple of times today. It was probably around 2inches to 3 inches long. Almost caught it in a flowerpot, but it got away just as I was thought...'Gotcha!'. didn't want to tackle it with bare hands...look at its rear end...
  8. B

    Unite or wait for new queen?

    Did an AS on a string colony around 5 weeks ago. The daughter colony has failed to raise a queen (as evidenced by test frame over last week) and is full of stores. I was hoping to have a new queen to introduce to this colony, but when I checked the mating nuc today, I found the queen cell I put...
  9. B

    Too much honey for new queen to lay?

    I did a pagden AS on one of my colonies about a month or so ago (14 x 12 frames). The original queen has stayed put, laying like crazy and the bees are storing nectar like crazy. I've already taken 4 supers of OSR off, and they've nearly filled another 3 supers since (the OSR is long over now)...
  10. B

    Queen in nuc not laying- ideas?

    I over wintered a Polynuc (6 frame) which was good and strong going into winter, but which has dwindled a lot and now has only a handful of bees in to keep the queen company. There is food and pollen in abundance in the three frames that contain stores, while the three others are empty. The...
  11. B

    Queen rearing using a Cloake board

    This summer, I intend to use a Cloake board to get my bees rearing queens. This is because last year's experience of removing a queen to make a queenless starter colony proved to be difficult for a few reasons. Anyway, I'm looking forward to the Cloake method, but I'm puzzled as to why, after...
  12. B

    Queen rearing using a Cloake board

  13. B

    colony keeps killing queens- help!

    This is a bit of a long story, but an interesting one and a real conundrum for me. I've put a lot of thought into this problem to solve it (O90O), but I'm now stumped! I had a really strong colony that I used as a queen raising colony in late May. The original queen was placed in another...
  14. B

    Timing of QC transfer to mating nucs

    I transferred some eggs into a rearing colony last Sunday (9 days ago, using a cupkit system). The queen had been in the cupkit since the evening of the Thursday (13 days ago). As far as I can remember, the eggs were all still pointing up (not laying down) when they were transferred. Just over...
  15. B

    Not enough bees put into nuc?

    I made up a nuc (poly) this afternoon: two frames of brood with the queen and adhering bees, plus a couple of frames worth of bees shaken on on top, plus two frames with stores in. I also gave them some 1:1 syrup to feed on if needed. Now I'm back home, I'm suddenly wondering if I put enough...
  16. B

    Cleaning and sterilising honey buckets

    So, the nectar is being piled into the hives and it will soon be time to take the first crop. I'm interested to know how forum members clean and sterilise their honey buckets each year. What- cleaning products? Process- scrub, soak and air dry? Storage- how to keep them pristine until...
  17. B

    double brood inspections

    Last week, when I inspected, a couple of my colonies were so strong that I took the plunge and made them double brood. So far, I've only ever used single brood chambers, but this year I am giving them more space to (a) prevent swarms and (b) to allow the queen to lay as much as she wants and see...
  18. B

    Preparing a hive to rear queens: dilemma

    So, the colonies are building and my plan is to rear some queens this year (got shown how to do it last year). The original intention was to make a strong colony (double brood) queenless (she'll be going into a nuc to start again), then support this through the cell building and larval rearing...
  19. B

    Jarred honey is slightly granulated...solutions?

    My soft set OSR honey was doing fine in the garage since I jarred it up in September (followed the soft set OSR sticky). I just went to get a jar or two for the window-box (for sale), and I noticed that the top half inch or so has pulled away from the jar due to crystallisation. This has also...
Back
Top