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So, yesterday, I bit the bullet and looked under the pallet. Found a lot of comb, a lot of honey and wait for it....yes a lot of brood. I transferred the lot to frames using rubber bands and put them in a nuc. Not a massive swarm, but we'll see.

Difficult to see if there is a queen underneath. I have a spare nuc, perhaps I'll give it a go and move them into that.

Ok some more information. This hive was the result of reuniting two swarms that were too small to survive alone. At the time I thought there was no queen in one of the swarms. I couldn't find her and no indication she'd been there (no eggs, no brood). This hive was never congested. I actually...

I'm a bit perplexed. Yesterday whilst checking my hives i noticed a few bees flying under the hive. Hive is on a palette, so there's about 20cm of space under it. I got on the floor to look under and to my amazement they've built a whole load of comb under the hive. Is it a swarm (Queen and all)...

Our cherry tree, which is just behind our hives is full of bees apparently eating cherries. The cherries are over ripe and split and the bees seem to be taking in the sugars. I guess I shouldn't be surprised but I've never seen this behaviour before.

Same here. Plenty of Asian hornets. Annoyance but no more so than wasps fir example. Maybe I've been lucky. Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

So I opened up one of the closed queen cells and this is what I found. Note the larva in the cell which I estimate to be about 9-11 days old. What threw me was the other larva. Not sure where it came from. I'm not 100% sure it was in the same cell or I just happened to get an adjoining cell with...

About 10 days ago I caught a swarm which I thought was big enough to put into a full size brood box. When I looked the next morning the bees were huddled on 3 frames and I'd obviously miscalculated. Rather than move them again to a nuc, I reduced the box down to five frames and put on a feeder...

I think I read somewhere that hives will accept drifting drones if there is a flow on, but will eject any drifters in a dearth. Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

My bees are pretty aggressive most of the time. Not overly so that they are impossible to work, but if you take a little longer with an inspection they let me know they're losing patience. Last Friday I wanted to open up as the next day I was going on holiday and knew that two of my hives needed...

Yes the hovering is impressive. They line up, backs to the hive waiting to pick off bees as they return from foraging when they are heavy and clumsy. The hovering makes it easy to pick them off with my battery operated electric racquet. Apparently they say here in the charente maritime you are...

The Asian hornets are nothing like the monsters we see in the media. Well not the ones around here. They are smaller and sleeker than their European counterparts. The colouring is different with the European hornets being more yellow whilst the Asian hornets being darker with a single ring of...

So those advocating we should respect all insects (and I'm not saying you shouldn't), what's your take on Asian hornets? Caught a few Queens already this spring. Wasps are ok, but the hornets are invaders and shouldn't be here so I have no qualms in getting rid of them. Sent from my GT-I9505...

Yes I had thought of that of course. I'm just wondering if everybody else is in the same position. Seems to be lots of swarms about.

Just picked up and hived yet another swarm (not mine btw). That brings me up to 5 hives and 2 nucs (which are both seriously on their way to being hived in a full size box). What do I do if I get more swarm calls? I don't really want too many hives but I have realised the number of hives you...

I like to read as much information as I can about anything I do and beekeeping is no different. One thing that keeps coming up when various authors describe various manipulations is the timing of honey flows and deaths. This leads to lines such as "do not do this during a dearth" or "wait a week...

I've read in several places that's it's good to store surplus honey frames for times when they are needed. How do you store the frames so that they are at their best when needed?

First swarm of the season yesterday! Got a call out from a local farmer. A large swarm on a wooden post about head height. Pretty easy collection, no climbing trees, although the nuc we took was a little small and we transferred them to a full size hive straight away as soon as we got them back...

Sometimes it's not the farmer's fault. I have vines around my hives and the farmers are obliged BY LAW to spray a particular (nasty) pesticide twice a year. A farmer was actually taken to court as he refused to spray (he wanted to be organic and was convinced the pesticide wasn't solving the...

yeah I agree. Still strong enough that she will want to swarm in a few weeks no doubt. Lesson of the day is to sit back and think before doing anything in haste. Live and learn.