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Decided to try and unblock the mesh holes on my rhomboids. First question is are these holes necessary for them to work? I ask the question because every hole has been sealed up by the bees & I’ve been using them like that for several years. Giving them a soak in washing soda/fairy to remove...

Anyone come across this before? Stored supers in unheated garage. Frames in supers unaffected. Hundreds of small flies on outside of supers with what appears patches of eggs. Considerable amount of black debris around base of supers ? Casings from eggs. When disturbed they run & not seen any...

Is one of these butt joints inherently stronger than the other? The short side goes inside or outside the long side. I’m constructing roofs for my nucs.

Found this example of K wing where the hindwing is dislocated from forewing (right side) . Often seen folk mistakenly refer to K wing when both wings are simply held out like the wings on the other bees.

Some black shiny hairless bees with swollen abdomen. Looks like CBPV unfortunately. Initially thought they had been out robbing as a similar one is flying in.

This queen emerged 30 days ago & is still not laying. I’ve just fed and checked for room & will give her 1 more week. The longest I’ve had to wait for a queen to start laying is 3-4 weeks from emergence.

I must be missing a trick Here’s a quaint apiary I came across where the ivy is in full flow and there are still several supers on. Mine came off before the ivy flow starts and varroa treatment commences.

Sorry if already posted. Experiment by Randy Oliver on dead bees exposed to different delivery methods & additives to Oxalic acid. He measured the ‘acidity levels’. Adding sugar caused the acidity to rapidly decline- think Api Bioxal. Vaporisation persisted the longest 90% at 4 days.

This happened twice this season after introducing over 40 local mated queens. Queen was one of my own locally mated in mini nuc and introduced into a 5 frame nuc at the Egg Laying stage- 3 weeks after emergence, Nuc checked after 1 week no BIAS & queen not seen. Test frame inserted. Checked 1...

House move, retirement and bees pushed into the corner. Now moved to Anglesey, Wales and bees moved across in March 2023. Not done a full season yet but location has exceeded my & the bee’s expectations. Expanded from the 20 nucs (some were 4 story) to many production colonies with local queen...

Here's a snippet from Dave Cushman's site on introducing a virgin to a previously used mini nuc. Anyone got any experience or other tips?

Despite all the hype that it was going to be a swarmy year Ive only had to deal with swarm cells in 10% of my colonies. Only another week or so to go before the Hawthorne's over which usually marks the end of my 'main' swarm period. Not had a single call so far to collect a swarm! How are others...

Only able to attend the Saturday session this year. Highlights for me we Robert Pickard's talk Wonderful thing's about bees and the BBKA funded research reports session. Hope other sessions get uploaded to YouTube?

Noticed Bee equipment have discounted their mini mating nucs. Now half price. Bought some last year and they work well.

Advice please? Have 6 double brood cedar hives I want to change over to poly. Can only manage 6 poly brood boxes. Do I 1. Use the 6 poly's to covert 3 of the double colonies 2. Run each hive with one poly & one wood? Thanks

Bee equipment has a great price on a 14x12 correx nuc box.

Hi I'm sure I recently came across a 10% discount code for Abelo on pre-orders to collect at the BBKA sping show. Can't find it any more. Anyone remomber what it was? Thanks

These transport queen cages are sold as Nicot and Butler cages. Any idea which name is correct?

Hi Is anyone aware of a study that looked at the success of queen introduction at different times of the year? Lots of anecdotal reports that spring might be most successful when the colony is still growing, bees may be thinking about swarming and nectar is coming in. Thanks